Community Corner

Cold Today, Freezing Tonight

Brr: Did you enjoy temperatures in the mid 60s yesterday? Well, hang on to those memories because it will be about 20 degrees colder today with a high of just 45 and The National Weather Service is forecasting a low of 27 degrees tonight. 

Cheer: If you missed it, the Edgewood Eagles are celebrating their success at the New England Regionals in Springfield, Mass., recently and are raising money to send four teams to Disney World for the National Championship in December. Our story about the girls — and boy — got a lot of clicks yesterday.

Bottle: The power of Social Media. Yesterday, one of our followers on Twitter asked me why Stone Hill Elementary School was evacuated during the day. I didn't hear anything about it and when I drove by the school, everything seemed fine. My daughter doesn't attend Stone Hill, so I didn't get any alerts or info from the school district, so I put in a call to Ray Votto, the school's COO, and he told me a teacher found a bottle with a liquid inside and that prompted the evacuation. 

Sure, in the days before Twitter, a parent or concerned citizen could call me to ask me what happened at the school, but chances are, quick questions and inquiries don't get brought up when the phone has to be picked up. But sending a shout-out on Twitter is easy and takes two seconds. And before you know it, I'm aware of something and making a call for a story. So please feel free to send me a quick question or comment anytime.

Santa: This just in — Santa is arriving at Garden City Center on Nov. 30 at 11 a.m. Along with food, hayrides, face painting and more, a special price on 5x7 prints is available on opening day. We'll post more details as the date draws near.

Surplus: Did you know the school district posted a decent surplus for the most-recent fiscal year? We'll be on the horn with Joe Balducci at the school district today (if he's available) to get some numbers and put them into context. Consider this — the district has but two payments left to make to the city before its deficit reduction plan is finally over and done.

After a failed Caroulo lawsuit, the district has steadily been making $1.5 million deficit repayments to the city over the last few years. It's a financial ball of chain of sorts because the district is bound by the strict terms of a signed consent order including provisions that prevent the rebirth of music programs and things like middle school sports until the entire debt of nearly $5 million is repaid. Should surplus money be used to hasten debt repayment? 


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