Water Leak Detection – LDT Solutions

The Needham Water Division has contracted with a specialist in the field of leak detection, LDT Solutions. Their work includes placing specialized listening devices on hydrants and valve boxes to identify and locate any leaks for the Water Division to address.

As the best time to perform this work is in the evening, this contractor may be in your neighborhood between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.; or they may be working in the daytime, depending on the ambient noise in your neighborhood. They will be using one vehicle; a white pickup truck clearly marked “LDT Solutions LLC”, and the workers are in bright, reflective clothing, tool belts, and large headsets.

This work will take approximately three weeks to complete. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Needham Water Division at (781) 455-7550. Thank you! http://www.needhamma.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=964

Please see the article for complete information. 

11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Rosemary Recreation Complex, 178 Rosemary St., Needham.

11 a.m.-2 p.m. Oct. 10 at the Rosemary Recreation Complex, 178 Rosemary St., Needham.

9 a.m.-noon Oct. 20 at the Center at the Heights, 300 Hillside Ave., Needham.

http://needham.wickedlocal.com/news/20180911/needham-health-department-releases-flu-flu-clinic-info

Needham Times – Letters to the Editor – August 15, 2018

Denise Garlick is proven representative
 
Like Denise we have lived in Needham for about 30 years.  We have raised our three
children here and have been active in community activities and town government.
Denise has accomplished so much in her short seven years as our representative.  She
has brought in millions of dollars to the district for schools, transportation, roads, safety
and more.  She has stood up for our values regarding gun control, immigration,
education and health care and others.
 
Denise is a full-time representative spending countless hours in the State House and in
the district.  As the House Chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance
Use and Recovery she has demonstrated that she can build consensus and achieve
results.  She is the author of the recently passed opioid legislation. She has been a
perennial speaker at the High School’s Take Back the Night event and has supported
the students in their efforts.  We have worked with her directly through the Needham
Coalition for Suicide Prevention where we first witnessed her ability to take on a
complex, painful problem facing our town and facilitate solutions.
 
Saying what you will do is easy, getting things done is hard.  Denise has a proven track
record of listening to our needs and advocating for them on Beacon Hill.  As Denise
says, “[she’s] pushing that rock up the hill towards our goals every day.”  She has
worked hard over the last seven years. Please vote for Denise to return as our State
Representative.
 
Deb & Tom Jacob
Clarke Road

 

Garlick fights for equality

As a Needham resident, a mother and an immigration attorney familiar with
the work of Denise Garlick in the state legislature, I am writing to
strongly endorse Denise's re-election as our State Representative.
Denise Garlick fights every day for a fair and just society for every person
in her district.
She believes in equality, and she has taken a stand to fight for children,
immigrants, people suffering from addiction, and under-served populations
while maintaining an open and candid conversation with all of her
constituents.
Denise has been hard-working, serious, and effective advocate for the best
values of our community.  She has earned our vote.

On September 4, Please join me in supporting Denise Garlick State
Representative.

Heather Yountz
Hillside Avenue

Denise Garlick Has Earned our Support

Dear friends, I cannot think of a more important time in our history to have our voices
heard. A more important time to sustain a candidate who has a proven record of support
for all her constituents, who works industriously to meet their needs through reasonable
and progressive legislation. Following Denise Garlick’s work as our representative on
the Hill convinces me that she has earned my support.  Unfailingly, she continues to
foster legislation needed to maintain and improve the quality of our lives. Denise keeps
herself closely connected to the communities she represents, tirelessly works to
improve the lot of those with special needs, and diligently fosters civic education. And
yet, she still has time to listen and extend her helping hand. Denise Garlick has earned
our support.
Lois and Ron Sockol
Greendale Avenue

www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/16/vote-yes-for-mass-transgender-rights/gi0aoSdjrF7ebu4SwVN3oM/story.html

Vote yes for Mass. transgender rights

Two years ago this month, we made history in Massachusetts. After a lengthy push, a measure my colleagues and I shepherded through both chambers of the legislature reached the desk of Governor Charlie Baker, who signed it into law. This was no ordinary piece of legislation. Its enactment symbolized a profound step forward for our Commonwealth and for our neighbors, co-workers, and friends who are transgender. With the stroke of the governor’s pen, Massachusetts finally fully and explicitly protected transgender people from discrimination and harassment in public places like restaurants, shops, and medical offices.

As I have said before, passing that legislation — with overwhelming supermajority support in both chambers — was among my proudest moments as speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Now our Commonwealth’s victory and values are at risk. A small group of opponents have collected the signatures necessary to place the law on the ballot for repeal. This November, civil rights will be up for a popular vote and I’m urging everyone to vote yes on Question 3. A yes vote is a vote to uphold the law and to ensure that dignity and respect remain as our guiding principles in Massachusetts.

While I believe treating our transgender friends and neighbors with the same respect and fairness we would all expect is reason enough to vote yes on Question 3, there are plenty of other reasons I’m doing so when I enter the polling booth on Election Day. I’ve had the good fortune of meeting transgender residents of our Commonwealth one-on-one, and I recognize that they only want to go about living their lives just like all of us. This law, which has been in place for nearly two years, allows them to do just that. I’ve been particularly moved and humbled by my meetings with transgender youth. As if coming of age — focusing on school and all that comes with teenage years — isn’t difficult enough, they have bravely stepped forward and told the world who they really are. If they are courageous enough to do that, we should all be courageous enough to stand with them. It’s the least we can do.

Make no mistake: If we fail to uphold this law, we — as a Commonwealth — will have failed to live up to our basic principles.

Opponents to this common-sense protection routinely and falsely claim that the law could be abused by criminals seeking to harm women and children in public restrooms. The facts simply don’t support this fiction. First and foremost, if someone commits a crime, they will be arrested and charged, just as they would have been before this law was enacted. Nothing about this law, which simply protects transgender people from discrimination, diminishes other laws. We took great care in crafting this legislation to ensure it made everyone in our communities safer. That is exactly what it has done: There has been no increase in public safety incidents since this law went into effect. In fact, leaders in law enforcement agree, including the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.

As speaker, I am proud that Massachusetts’ founding principles of equality and justice have helped shape history. However, if we fail to provide fundamental protections to transgender individuals, our reputation as a fair and inclusive state will be damaged beyond repair. I plan to do all I can to ensure that doesn’t happen.

We can take nothing for granted. Recent public polls show this as a 50/50 race. Together, we must raise our voices, remind each other of our values and what’s at stake, and ask ourselves, “How would I want to be treated?”

For two years this law has made our communities safer and demonstrated to transgender youth that their state has their back. Let’s ensure that on the morning after Election Day, we can still say that. Stand with me and the growing coalition of thousands who will vote yes on Question 3 on Nov. 6.

Robert DeLeo is speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Thank you, Master Sergeant Topham.

Greetings to all the Veterans who are present, to our Public Safety personnel including our Police Officers and Firefighters, our Community Leaders, and the Community Members who are here today.

It is a privilege of my office, as your State Representative, that I am invited to speak at this solemn ceremony. I feel a great responsibility to represent our community and our Commonwealth. It is deeply humbling for me as an elected leader, a former VA nurse and a mother to search for the words that add meaning to our presence on this day.

As we gather in our hometown, may I first speak of the American service men and women who are stationed all over the world. In fact, the United States has over 800 military bases in more than 70 countries. According to the Department of Defense, 1.3 million Americans serve in active duty and one million more serve in the Reserves.

Make no mistake…they are in harm’s way. Dying in training and dying in the field. We pray for their safety and we honor their service. Some have returned and are wounded in ways that are devastating, debilitating and lifelong. Some have injuries that are deep, grave and invisible; and die by suicide. Some are lost to us and just never return. We pray for all of them.

On Memorial Day we honor those who have died in military service. Veterans stand at attention with downcast eyes hiding the horror of their comrades’ deaths. Families and loved ones stand with an upward gaze searching for a vision of what might have been. Good citizens come to see and be seen as guardians of our responsibility to those that have served – and many Americans, searching for the satisfaction of a summer barbecue or a big sale, never look at all.

1.1 million Americans have died in military service since the Revolutionary War; 32,268 were from Massachusetts. Picture Fenway Park, which seats 37,731 people. Let your eyes wander from the bleachers to the box seats; let your eyes scan east and west. Picture all of the faces; the arms that lift doing the wave; the bodies that rise and stretch in the seventh inning; the voices that ring with exasperation at the fumbled ball and with celebration at the game winning hit. Now picture each one lost to Massachusetts forever – dying in military service.

From the Revolutionary War through World War II, war was a personal experience for most Americans – someone we knew in our family, our church, our community was in harm’s way. 12 percent of Americans served in World War II – more than 1 in 10. Everybody knew somebody. Death of servicemen and women ravaged families and reverberated in communities. Today, fewer than one percent of Americans are in active service. The military is concentrated with volunteers from certain geographic areas and racial and socio- economic strata. Communities like Needham are largely insulated from losses. We are in grave danger of being disconnected, not only from the cost of war, but of our great debt to those who served.

So today, we gather and we are conscious of the losses. Let us reflect on the loss of the individuals. The service person who was once the anticipated baby, the beloved toddler, the stunning athlete, the inspiring scholar, the first love, the best hope for aging parents.

How do we comprehend this loss? Let us reflect on what these losses mean to us as a community and Commonwealth and country. The talents and goals never achieved. Marriages that were torn asunder, or like my friend of the 60’s, beautiful, kind and smart, who never married and always believed that her love died in Vietnam long before they ever could have met and so it never happened. The children without a parent… the babies never born. The discoveries never made, the knowledge never acquired. The dreams never realized.

And when we feel deeply these losses, how do we repay this debt? Not with platitudes about “our way of life” but with a sense of purpose for the true meaning of freedom.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked of four freedoms: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear.

In these unsettled times, in a complicated and divisive country, can we ensure that all voices are heard – that there is freedom of speech? That we hear the voices that echo our thoughts, that we listen to the voices that disrupt and unsettle our thoughts? Can we listen when we don’t agree? Can we learn when we already thought we knew?

Can we honor that for some there is a God and for some there is doubt and that everyone on that continuum has the freedom to worship, or not worship, as they choose.

In a land as prosperous as ours, can we ensure freedom from want? Can we act so that no child goes to bed hungry, no sick person is turned away from care, and no veteran sleeps on the street?

Finally, it is said that the only emotion stronger than fear is hope. Can we live with hope, speak of hope and work for a world envisioned by hope and free of fear?

We must strive to ensure the essential freedoms of what it means to be an American.

1.1 million Americans in our brief history have died in military service. Let us feel the grave weight of our responsibility to value those lives. Let us be determined that no American life, no matter how distant from our own family and community, is squandered in our name for oil, or posturing allies, or ego. Let us not fall for a platitude like “freedom for our way of life”. Let us stand and be committed today and every day to the freedoms that matter. The freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear. Let us be dedicated to see in every flag that flies, every flag beside a gravestone – our own responsibility.

Let us ensure that we are not the country that 1.1 million service people died for… but the kind of communities and country …they wanted to live for.