MDC rink questions and answers...
Published on August 23rd, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - oMDC rinks. Citizens are struggling to get straight answers about the Metropolitan District Com-mission plan to build and run hockey rinks on Pond Street with a private investor.
The private partner is the Bourque Group, a group of investors including former Bruin star Ray Bourque. The land is approximately 15 acres northeast of the Stone Zoo and recorded as 164 Pond Street.
A document stamped "draft," representing the necessary legislation to allow a private/public partnership to build and run the rinks, is circulating.
"Who wrote the draft?" asked Robert McCormack of 20 Campbell Road. McCormack, a project abutter, questioned Selectmen Darin Leahy after the Aug. 15 Selectmen's meeting.
Leahy said he did not know. He had heard that the MDC wrote the document, and he had heard that Representative Michael Festa (D-35th Middlesex) was the author.
"(Several months ago) the MDC presented us with a draft piece of legislation to review," Festa said. "We have not written any legislation...Nothing is ready to file...If this legislation is filed, the MDC will file it through the Governor's Office, not us."
Some of the confusion on this issue may have come from statements from MDC spokesperson Chuck Borstel that "the MDC is drafting this legislation with the cooperation of Representative Mike Festa and Senator Richard Tisei (R-3rd Middlesex)."
"We are keeping them informed," Borstel said. "...the MDC wrote the draft."
Borstel said he was talking about the big picture when he mentioned "cooperation," not the specific preliminary draft. Festa and Tisei have met with MDC officials to hear the general ideas behind a private public rinks partnership.
David D'Arcangelo in Senator Tisei's office echoed Festa's statement.
"We have not put pen to paper on this," D'Arcangelo said.
This month Selectmen formed a subcommittee of citizens to follow the rink's project.
The latest development is that the Bourque group is losing interest in the project.
"They are not 100 percent anymore, but we are still talking," Borstel said.
Bourque's agent, Steve Freyer, did not return the Independent's call.
oCause of Hancock St. fire
The official cause of the fire in the first floor office area of a two family home at 107 Hancock St. last Thursday was "improper disposal of smoking materials," according to Police Arson Investigator James McIntyre.
Translation: someone left a cigarette in the wastebasket under a desk. A fire started in the barrel and spread to the desk chair. The smoldering chair filled the room with smoke.
As reported last week, the Fire Department responded quickly; there were no injuries and the fire never spread past the office.
oMahoney appointed to Council on Aging
Selectmen appointed Retired Senior Center Director Barbara Mahoney to the Stoneham Council on Aging.
Mahoney retired in June. She has served the senior community for years, first as a volunteer then as Director.
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