Selectmen to regularly meet midweek?
This week, Selectman Mary Lyman floated the idea of the Board of Selectmen switching their regular meetings from Monday to Wednesday nights to make it easier to comply with the new open meeting laws. Additional rules and regulations regarding open meeting laws were recently enforced, requiring agenda items to be submitted and meetings to be posted earlier.
If selectmen's meetings were on Wednesdays, residents and town employees could submit agenda items on Mondays. With meetings on Mondays, agenda items must be submitted before 4:30 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding the meeting.
- Bethany Bray
The seven signs
If you're driving from River Road to the high school this weekend, you'll notice a series of signs leading the way.
Selectmen gave the Methuen-based Iglesia De Jesucristo Palabra Miel permission to place seven signs on public property along the route from River Road to the Collins Center, where they will be having a convention Aug. 26 through 30.
People are coming to the convention from all over the globe; the signs are needed because the 1,200 attendees are unfamiliar with the area, said Kaija Gilmore, building inspector. Because many of the convention-goers are Spanish speakers, the signs will be in Spanish, said Gilmore.
"I find seven signs to be excessive. If they can find their way to Andover, they can find their way the last mile," said resident Larry Bruce to selectmen Aug. 23. "The real intent of these signs is advertising (for the event) and not directional."
Selectmen stipulated the church must take the signs down on Aug. 30. Last year, the church failed to remove their signs from public property after the annual event. Selectman Brian Major was in favor of the signs, saying the town should encourage rental revenue-generating events such as the church convention. The event's attendees are staying in seven different Andover hotels.
The signs will be placed at the intersections of River Road and Shattuck Road, Federal and North Streets; North Street and Chandler Road; Chandler Road and Beacon Street; the intersection of Lowell and Beacon Streets and Shawsheen Road and at the entrance of Andover High School.
- Bethany Bray
New face at Lanam
Once a club that welcomed only well-to-do businessmen from around Merrimack Valley, Lanam Club in Andover continues to try and get more hip. Now, there's a new interim manager.
He's Andover native Ronald Hancock. Former general manager Alex van den Broek left in June. Lanam Club board president Sheila Doherty, who is also town moderator, brought Hancock to Monday's selectmen's meeting and introduced him. Hancock's father works for the Andover Department of Public Works.
- Judy Wakefield
