Library Enjoys
All-Time High in Usage
By Kathy Kurtz Ferrari
Staff Writer
2/4/10
Sean Kelly comes to the Milton Public Library to study almost every day after school. The Xaverian Brothers High School junior, who lives about a mile from the library, knows a good thing when he sees it. “I love it,” said Kelly, as he entered the library on a recent Friday afternoon. “I can get my work done and walk home when I’m done. Since the new library opened, I come almost every day.” He’s not alone. Since the library reopened last April, after a renovation that took almost two years, more and more people are rediscovering the facility, located at 476 Canton Ave. “I think each month so far, since we opened in April, has been the record high months going back as far as we can go, in terms of borrowing,” Library Director Phil McNulty explained, as he looked over a handout sheet detailing month-by-month activity at the library. From April, when the building reopened, to December, more than 200,000 books were checked out, a 46 percent increase from all of 2008.

Committee May Have
to Eliminate School Positions
By Kathy Kurtz Ferrari
Staff Writer
2/4/10
The School Committee may have to eliminate more than 24 full-time school positions if the School Department doesn’t receive the full funding it is requesting from Annual Town Meeting. The proposed $35,533,107 budget, which was approved by the committee at its Nov. 3 meeting, would allow services to remain level at the town’s six public schools. School administration officials laid out their projections for potential cuts Jan. 26 as the finance subcommittee made a PowerPoint presentation. School Business Administrator Matthew Gillis guided the presentation, laying out a budget prior to an announcement from state officials detailing exact figures for the state aid. Assuming that the budget will be level-funded, as indicated to the school administration from talks with the Warrant Committee, the presentation projected cuts in order to submit a balanced budget. But there still is much uncertainty as to what the final figures would be.

Park Commissioner
Barbara Brown Steps Down
2/4/10
Barbara Brown is looking to have a lot more spare time on her hands. The longtime park commissioner has decided not to seek re-election to the board position she has held for 15 years. At the same time, she is retiring from her position as executive assistant at Wollaston Golf Club, which she has held almost twice as long. “I just felt like it was time to step down and allow the younger people to step in, maybe the people who have young kids that are involved in the programs,” Brown said of her decision to leave the Board of Park Commissioners. “It is a commitment, in order to do it right. You can kind of just sit there and not do anything, but if you want to do a job and do it right, you have to commit yourself. So I think 15 years was enough of that.”

Best in Milton Contest
Once Again Under Way
By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
1/14/10
The Milton Times is currently running a contest for a number of Best in Milton categories.

Click here for full story.

Click here to download the entry form.