Opting against reelection bids in Acton

EDUCATION AID - In another round of funding, the Ayer Education Foundation Inc. has given $10,000 to the local public schools for curriculum-enrichment projects, including a music appreciation program for pupils in grades 4 and 5; literacy-support efforts for students in grades 6 through 12; and a two-day, interactive session for middle school students and their teachers on environmental issues involved in marine biology. Since being formed in 2005, the nonprofit foundation has donated more than $100,000 to the schools, using the proceeds from its private fund-raising efforts. - Davis Bushnell

SIGN UP FOR A REC PROGRAM - Registration is underway for the winter session of programs offered through the town’s Recreation Department. Dozens of classes for adults and youths covering dance, exercise, art, music, business skills, and self-improvement begin next month. The department also offers group excursions and other special one-time events for residents. Brochures are available online at www.town.bedford.ma.us or at the Recreation Department office in the Town Center building, 12 Mudge Way. - Nancy Shohet West

DEVELOPMENT ZONING APPROVED - Town Meeting voted Dec. 2 to approve a zoning change that will allow a developer to build a mixed-used project on 114 acres now owned by the Risi family. Developer Chris Senie’s proposal calls for a 90-unit continual-care retirement community, 115 housing units, and 130,000 square feet of commercial space. The project will help the town meet a state threshold for affordable housing, protecting against unwanted development under the Chapter 40B program. The rezoning was necessary for the project to move forward.

PRINCIPAL SEARCH - With Kenneth Tucker retiring as principal of the Florence Sawyer School after classes end next spring, a search committee is seeking input from residents on qualities they would like to see in his successor. Forms that can be used to register input can be found online at the school website, sawyer.nrsd.net, and can be mailed to the superintendent’s office or sent to his e-mail. The forms ask for residents to identify strengths and characteristics they want to see in a new school leader.

CHECK OUT ELECTRICITY MONITORS - The town’s Sargent Memorial Library has two “Kill-a-Watt’’ monitors available for residents to check out for one week. The monitors allow users to measure how electricity is consumed by common household devices, such as computers, televisions, fans, and hair dryers. The monitors can also show how much power some household items are using when they aren’t in use, so-called “vampire’’ or “phantom’’ loads. For more information, visit the library, 427 Massachusetts Ave., or its website, www.boxlib.org.

HINTS OF SCHOOL CUTS ON HORIZON - With the economy still in trouble and state aid on a bleak downward spiral, Larry Brenner, chairman of the Boylston Elementary School Committee, said he is not expecting the school’s financial situation to get any better in the fiscal year starting next summer. It could easily get worse, he said, although the likely deficit the school faces will not be clear until next month. “This is going to be a very, very challenging experience,’’ said Brenner. “To think our state aid is going to get better in FY 2011 is unrealistic.’’

NEW CONTRACT FOR TEACHERS - The School Committee has reached an agreement with the Carlisle Teachers’ Association that boosts salaries by 2 to 6 percent over three years and increases entry-level pay by 9.2 percent immediately. There are also modifications to stipends for activities that extend beyond normal classroom responsibilities, and funding for professional development opportunities. The previous three-year contract expired on June 30, and the new school year started while discussions were still under way. The new agreement will be applied retroactively to July 1. - Nancy Shohet West

PREPARING FOR TOWN MEETING - Town officials met last week to start planning for the spring Town Meeting. The annual coordination meeting included a discussion on next fiscal year’s budget and potential articles for the Town Meeting warrant, said the Board of Selectmen’s chairman, Stanly Black. The preliminary numbers show no increase in spending for the town’s operations or the local schools, Black said, although a 4.5 percent increase is expected for the Concord-Carlisle Regional High School budget. The board officially opened the warrant on Monday, giving residents and town officials until Jan. 4 to submit articles for consideration by Town Meeting. The annual session is slated to convene April 26.

NEW FACE ON BOARD - Marie Sobalvarro will attend her first meeting as a member of the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, following her 892-858 win over William Johnson in a special election last week. Sobalvarro, a consultant, will fill a seat vacated last summer by Leo Blair, who resigned for business reasons. She will serve the balance of Blair’s term, which runs until the spring 2011 election. Before being sworn in as a selectwoman, Sobalvarro will submit her resignation as a Finance Committee member. Johnson, who is retired, is a member of the local Economic Development Analysis Team and the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee.

SETTING TAX RATE - Selectmen are tentatively scheduled to set property tax rates for homes and businesses tomorrow. The hearing was originally scheduled for Nov. 30, and it could be pushed back again if the state doesn’t certify the town’s property values in time, officials said. Also tomorrow, Executive Assistant Paul Blazar is to give the board an initial budget for next fiscal year. - Calvin Hennick

OUTLINING SCHOOL CUTS - Superintendent Michael Brandmeyer last week outlined the first phase of reductions in the school district’s budget for next fiscal year. The proposed cuts, which total $293,742, include eliminating one special education teacher position, one section of fifth grade, and improvement initiatives for both furniture replacement and a technology program for students in kindergarten through Grade 8. Spending on printing, postage, and advertising would also be trimmed. If the School Committee approves Brandmeyer’s proposal, the next phase would involve trimming another $122,908.

DEADLINE FOR GRANT REQUESTS - The application deadline for the next round of projects to be funded under the Community Preservation Act is Tuesday. Projects submitted will be considered for funding in the spring pending a Town Meeting vote. Applications for projects that meet the criteria for CPA funding can be picked up at the Town Offices or downloaded from the town’s website, www.littletonma.org. - Nancy Shohet West

TAXES GOING DOWN - The city’s homeowners can expect to see their property tax bills decrease this year. The City Council last week voted to apply $1.2 million from the “free cash’’ reserve account to cover this fiscal year’s budget. As a result, the annual tax bill on a home assessed at $315,000, the city’s average valuation, will decrease by $64, to $4,113.

TAXES GOING UP - The town’s property owners will pay an average of $145 more on their property tax bills this year, after selectmen set the tax rate at $16.12 last week. The bill on a $302,600 house, the average assessment in town, will be $4,879 this fiscal year. The average business property-tax bill will go up $1,111, to $13,321. - Calvin Hennick

TOY DRIVE ENDS TOMORROW - The town’s Fire Department will wrap up its collection of donations for the annual US Marine Corps Toys for Tots drive tomorrow. Residents can drop off new, unopened toys or other gifts for children up to 13 years old at the Pierce Street firehouse during regular business hours. The toys should be nonviolent and in the original packaging. Donations can also be dropped off at the town administrator’s office in Town Hall, 63 Main St.

REVERSE 911 TEST TODAY - The town’s Emergency Planning Agency and Communications Department will be testing the new Reverse 911 system today around noontime. Phone numbers registered with the system will receive a short message during the test. Residents and businesses can register landline numbers and cellphones for the emergency notification system at www.town.pepperell.ma.us. For more information, contact the town’s Communications Department at 978-433-2424. - John Guilfoil

FORUMS ON REGIONALIZATION - Local officials have scheduled a number of forums to allow residents of Shirley and Ayer to discuss a proposal to form a regional school district. Interim Superintendent Malcolm Reid said sessions will take place at Ayer Middle High School on Jan. 11 and Shirley Middle School on Jan. 27, with a joint forum planned for Feb. 11. Creating a regional school district would require approval by Town Meeting in both communities, Reid said, with the issue potentially coming up for a vote at special sessions in March.

SEWER RATES ON AGENDA - Sewer rates will be the topic at a public hearing tomorrow night. Town Manager Daniel Morgado has recommended a 20 percent increase in the rates to cover the system’s operations and maintenance costs, as well as pending payments on upgrades to the waste-water treatment plant the town shares with Westborough. Without the increase, Morgado said, the system faces a deficit by 2013. He said the increase would push residential bills from an annual average of approximately $310 to about $372, and add about $800,000 annually to the town’s sewer revenues. Morgado warned that a variety of other needed system upgrades could mean the higher payment is the first of a series of rate increases over the next three years. The hearing begins at 7 p.m. in the Old Selectmen’s Meeting Room at Town Hall. More information on the sewer-rate proposal is available on the town’s website, www.shrewsbury-ma.gov.

TAX RATE LOWERED - Last week the Board of Selectmen unanimously voted to decrease the town’s property-tax rate from $14.16 per $1,000 assessed value to $14.06 per $1,000 for the current fiscal year. The selectmen also approved the Board of Assessor’s recommendation to maintain the single tax-rate structure, saying that instituting a split rate, with businesses covering a larger share of the tax levy than residential property owners, would do little to help homeowners and would ultimately erode the town’s commercial base. The decrease is a result of a vote at Town Meeting that applied approximately $700,000 from the reserve fund to help cover this year’s budget. A decline in local property values - the average assessment went from $556,400 last year to $548,600 - also led to a drop in the town’s tax revenues. Though this fiscal year’s tax rate is lower than last year’s, it is still significantly higher than the rate for fiscal year 2008, when it was set at $12.54. Information on property tax rates, and assessments for residential properties can be obtained online through the assessor’s page on the town’s website, www.southboroughtown.com. - Jennifer Roach

HELP FOR FOOD PANTRIES - With local food pantries “low on personal items and high on patrons,’’ students at Nashoba Regional High School are collecting personal-care items that many of the area pantries desperately need in a drive that will wrap up Tuesday, a school newsletter reports. Items needed for donation include shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and tampons. Many who are struggling to pay bills do without these items in order to pay for food, according to the newsletter, which is posted on the school’s website, nrhs.nrsd.net.

EARLY BUDGET - The School Committee last week approved a preliminary budget for next fiscal year covering the town’s kindergarten through Grade 8 system, according to a posting on the district’s website. Based on a projected 4.5 percent growth rate, school officials had presented a spending plan with 6.5 new salaried positions, including two literacy tutors, two math and enrichment specialists, and two elementary school general assistants, not covered by the level-staffing base budget. Details of the initial budget, to be adjusted after revenue projections become available next month, are posted at www.sudbury.k12.ma.us.

GUILTY PLEA - A former physical education teacher and coach at Sarah Gibbons Middle School has pleaded guilty in US District Court in Worcester to charges of possession of child pornography. Brian Rossi, 37, of Milford, was on the Westborough school’s staff at the time of his arrest in February, after federal agents found several pornographic images of young boys during a search of his home. In court Friday, Rossi admitted he had downloaded the images from a website in Romania. He was taken into custody until his sentencing in February. He had been under house arrest, living with his parents in Natick, but US District Judge Dennis F. Saylor IV denied his request to be remain in their custody. Rossi faces up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. Superintendent Anne Towle declined to comment on the case. - Jennifer Roach