| If town counsel agrees, selectmen will send a letter to the Home for Little Wanderers asking that it agree to a six-month moratorium on its applications to expand its Longview Farm.
The board's intent, as urged by Selectman Cliff Snuffer, is to provide time to determine whether improvements in procedures promised to the board two weeks ago will eliminate what have been frequent situations requiring a police response. The Farm now enrolls 40 teenage boys as boarding or day students, referred by the state or school districts. The expansion would increase that number to 80, including, for the first time, young girls.
At the Aug. 10 board meeting, Selectman Chris Timson blamed the school for "allowing kids to run rampant in the neighborhood."
Town Administrator Michael Boynton noted that as a school, Longview Farm is sheltered from the town's zoning bylaw. Under land use law, town officials do not have the authority to require the Home to accept a moratorium. But selectmen might be able to have an impact in their capacity as police commissioners, Boynton and board members maintained.
Selectmen voted to ask town counsel for advice on the extent of their public safety authority.
(The Aug. 10 meeting is available online at the web address under the clip. The board room has new microphones, improving sound quality considerably. The sound controller for the archived version is lower right, just below the clip. The Longview discussion on the archive clip begins at the 47-minute mark.)
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Bird Machine
Selectman Snuffer mentioned at the end of the Aug. 10 board meeting he's heard unofficially that Baker Hughes, owner of the former Bird Machine property in South Walpole, might be interested in turning much of the land over to the town for conservation or restricting it by deed for that purpose.
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