Medication Take Back Event
Saturday, May 8 from 9am – 1pm at Waterford Street School, the City of Gardner, in conjunction and collaboration with the Gardner Board of Health, Gardner Public Schools, Gardner Police Department and Heywood Hospital will be hosting a medication take back event.
At this event we will have Registered Pharmacists on-site to receive any and all medications in order to dispose of them properly. Residents of the City are encouraged to bring their expired, unwanted and/or unused medications to the event.
Drugs that accumulate in our homes can lead to accidental poisonings and illegal access that can lead to drug abuse. Much of the unwanted medicines that are flushed down toilets or thrown away in the trash end up in our surface or ground waters, potentially impacting wildlife, aquatic organisms and even humans.
Accepted medications include prescription drugs, over the counter medicine, herbal products, vitamin and mineral supplements, and throat lozenges.
Help save our environment and keep these medications out of the hands of the unintended user.
Activity Fair
Come and join your friends, families and neighbors for an Activity Fair. All Families are encouraged to attend. The fair will take place on May 22, 2010 from 12 noon to 4pm at Waterford Street School. The cost to attend is $10 per family and all proceeds will benefit the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism.
The event is being presented by Gardner’s own Diane Haley and will include a K-9 Demonstration, Police and Fire vehicles, Jump Houses, Dancing, Ball Pit, Art Activities, Building Blocks, Twister, Raffles, Games, Fish Pond and many more activities for the whole family. Many area politicians are scheduled to attend to read stories to those in attendance.
Bond Rating
You may have seen the story in The Gardner News about the City’s Bond Rating improving. The story touched on how the negative outlook on the City’s Bond Rating was removed by Moody’s Bond Raters. This, in and of itself, is great news for the City. However, about a week after the story ran in The Gardner News we received word that the Bond Rating increased from a Baa1 rating (Junk Bond status is at Baa3) all the way up to an A1 rating. The rating scale from good to bad is as follows: Aaa, Aa1, Aa2, Aa3, A1, A2, A3, Baa1, Baa2, and Baa3.
What does this mean? A city’s Bond Rating is like a person’s credit score. The better the score the better your financing rate will be. As a quick example, on a $2,000,000 bond the difference between borrowing that money at 4% and 3.5% over 5 years is equal to about $27,000. When you consider that a simple ½% difference in an interest rate can save that much money, imagine what it can do on the City’s entire borrowed amount of roughly $20,000,000.
Why do Communities bond? The City of Gardner bonds to pay for projects that have a long life expectancy. Similar to a mortgage on your house or a loan on your car, it is easier to pay over a period of time since you will most likely use that item for a long period of time. Currently the City is paying off bonds for Water and Sewer upgrades, Street improvements, the Middle School and various School improvements.
The improvement in our bond rating is going to save the City of Gardner money over the long run and proves that our conservative fiscal practices, reorganization of government, streamlining and modernization practices and techniques were, and are, the right thing to do.
Light the Town Purple
Last year, in order to raise awareness of the Relay for Life, City Hall was decorated with purple lights in the weeks leading up to the June Relay. Purple is the color of the Relay and is a symbol of cancer survivorship. Last years Relay for Life was, again, the largest in New England and the fourth largest in the entire country.
This year we are expanding on the idea of lighting Gardner Purple and thanks to the efforts of Carla Roy, Sandy Bowers, Sandy Long and James Cote we are being joined by the Cities of Fitchburg and Leominster. The Tri-City Mayors (Hawke, Wong and Mazzarela) have all agreed to light their City Halls purple in order to raise awareness, and funds, for the Greater Gardner Relay for Life.
On Monday, May 17, 2010 at 8pm, we will be holding a brief ceremony to “Light the Town Purple” on the front steps of City Hall. Everyone is invited to attend and help us Light City Hall Purple.
Windows
Last year, the City replaced all of the windows in City Hall. The former windows were a metal frame single pane window that leaked like a sieve. The metal frames conducted the cold rather than deterring it, the single pane did little to prevent the cold and wind from coming into the building and gaps around the edges did not help in keeping out the weather or keeping the heat in.
We also replaced the windows in the fire station. Those windows were in absurd condition. When I first toured the fire station after being elected Mayor, I was amazed at the small piles of snow that accumulated inside the building due to the gaps in the windows.
The windows for City Hall were funded through an energy efficiency grant and the windows for the fire station were funded out of savings I was able to create in a Capital Improvement bond.
I am happy to report that we have realized an approximate 30% energy savings in these two buildings which has resulted in a savings of approximately $45,000.
We will now be improving the Senior Center by installing new energy efficient windows in the lower level of the building. We are looking to not only improve the buildings energy efficiency, but also improve the aesthetics of the building too.
Work should begin in a couple of weeks and will only take one day to complete.
Thanks for reading.
Mark Hawke
Mayor, City of Gardner
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