Cleaning up the Earth, One Student and Teacher at a Time

An ongoing mission to clean up the trash in MetroWest is being carried out by Pat Conaway and his former students.

Pat Conaway is relentless in his pursuit of cleaning up the rivers and common areas in MetroWest. His students are too. Pat has been taking groups of his former students out for experiences in hands-on environmentalism since they were in sixth grade.  Canoes carrying Pat's loyal volunteers made stops on the Charles River recently, and headed for home carrying trash bags full of cans, bottles and other pieces of trash. 

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New Year's Eve: What Are Your Plans?

There are plenty of activities right in our back yard this New Year's Eve that are importantly open to those who make up their minds at the last minute.

The crowds and bustle of Boston's First Night are not for everyone and neither is staying home to ring in the new year. What is a person to do? The area is brimming with options for those wishing to stay close to home as they ring in the new year. You can take in some comedy at the Amazing Things Art Center. Tickets are $30 for non-members will get you a comedy show that features headliner Joe Wong. Wong has roasted Vice President Joe Biden at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., and been named Boston's "Comedian of the Year" while also winning the Great American Comedy Festival. The festivities start at 8 p.m. Planning on being completely last minute? Hate cover charges? The British Beer Company in Framingham has …

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Grahame Turner

10:40 am on Thursday, December 27, 2012

That is a fair comment, although this is more of a regional piece, and appears on multiple sites--so, localization to everywhere is a little hard to do. That said, we do have some more info on New Year's Needham, for interested parties: http://patch.com/A-0t1G   more ›

Metrowest Communities Unite For Stronger Voice

Regionalization is among the subjects that was discussed at a meeting in Shrewsbury.

Local communities hope to seize the power in numbers by joining forces to work toward shared concerns. Officials from several local communities, including Grafton, Marlborough, Shrewsbury and Westborough, attended a meeting last night at Shrewsbury Town Hall to talk about ways they could work together on issues of mutual interest. Unfunded mandates—issues that the state requires town to put in place but does not support financially—were one concern raised at the meeting. Others included the levels of local aid, special education funding and affordable housing mandates. Regionalization can be a way to save money, said Westborough selectman Denzil Drewry. Future town budgets will be lean, he said, and personnel cuts may be required. “We can’…

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Northborough Economy Better Than National Rates

Northborough and other MetroWest communities have positive trends in the job market.

If you visit job search sites such as indeed.com, it reveals that right now, employers in Northborough are looking for a massage therapist, an independent sales representative, a network administrator, a veterinarian, a Yii programmer and a large number of manufacturing laborers and retail personnel from the associate level to manager. This site, even just months ago, may not have offered nearly as many choices for job seekers. According to Sperling's Best Places, a website that compares housing markets, costs of living, economies and other data in United States cities and towns, Northborough's numbers showed a jobless rate of 6.9 percent in September 2011. However, the data shows a 1.02 percent increase in available jobs between …

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House Hunt

Many Large Colonials For Sale

Here are some of the homes open for visiting this weekend.

Click on the pictures for information on the property and open house times and dates. Compiled by Northborough Patch courtesy of newenglandmoves.com. Are you a local Realtor or resident who's trying to sell a home? Please add the details of your upcoming open house in our comments section. You can add photos, too. Have an open house coming up next week? Email us with the information and photos, and we'll post it next Friday.

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National Home Sales Up, State Sales Down, Northborough Holding Steady

Massachusetts has reported a decrease in single-family home sales, but the Northborough market is maintaining.

Reaching its highest level in 19 months, pending home sales continued to gain in November, which is the latest report issued by the National Association of Realtors. A home sale is considered pending when the buyer and seller agree on terms, but the final steps to ownership and sale have not yet occurred. Based on the Pending Home Sales Index, which is a "forward-looking indicator based on contract signings," the Northeast rose 8.1 percent to 77.1 in November but is 0.3 percent below November 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors. In Massachusetts, there were 46,477 single-family homes put under agreement in 2011, compared with 47,384 in 2010. This is a 1.9 percent drop according to the Massachusetts Association of …

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