Bridgewater moving on dog licenses

Town Clerk Ron Adams secured Town Meeting approval last month of a bylaw that will allow the town to crack down harder on dog owners who refuse to renew yearly licenses. But before the bylaw can be implemented, it must be approved by the attorney general's office. Normally that takes about 90 days. Adams and his staff are meanwhile contacting the list of about 700 pet owners with unlicensed dogs, an effort that has already resulted in about 100 clearing their accounts. Adams expects 50 or 60 more of those dog owners on his list have moved out of town or no longer have pets. The phone calls should eliminate that group as well, he said. Once the bylaw is approved, the town clerk will have the ability to forward the list of delinquents to the Treasurer-Collector's Office for action. Adams said the collector can put the delinquent amount on a homeowner's tax bill. - Christine Legere

'LARAMIE PROJECT' PROTEST - Several hundred Canton High School students and staffers, many wearing T-Shirts reading "Hate is not a Canton value," formed a wall of silence last Friday in the face of five protestors from the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan. The Kansas group travels throughout the country protesting homosexuality and targeted the school on the opening day of its production of "The Laramie Project," a play about the murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. Police Chief Kenneth N. Berkowitz said that the protest, which began at about 1:30 p.m. on Friday and lasted about an hour, drew 200 to 300 students and about a dozen residents. Canton High principal Doug Dias said about 700 people attended the two performances of the play. "Things went amazingly well," Dias said. "What happened to Matthew Shepard was wrong, regardless of what your particular beliefs about homosexuality are. . . . I want the school to be emotionally safe as well as physically safe school."

- Elaine Cushman Carroll

WAMPANOAG TO TAKE LOOK AT CASINO SIZE - The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe plans to commission a study of the billion-dollar casino proposed for Middleborough to determine whether the size should be adjusted. "We have an economic change, so you want to look at that," said Tribal Council chairman Cedric Cromwell. "It's about facility size and feasibility. You want to be in step with the present economy." He said the study will not affect the multimillion-dollar deal the tribe signed with Middleborough officials in 2007. "This is nothing out of the ordinary," Cromwell said of the study. "The investors are still on board with this. Everything is moving forward." Council members are expected to meet with Middleborough selectmen sometime after the April 4 annual town election, but selectmen chairman Patrick Rogers said there is no hurry to hold the meeting. "Let them do their business model like any developer would," Rogers said. "Let them get their act together."

- Christine Legere