Sterling DemocRAT Town Committee member and Select Board Chair Kirsten Newman wouldn’t recognize fiscal restraint if it bit her in the ass. Likewise DEI queen and new Select Board member Patricia Ward, who came over from the Sterling Cultural Council. This is from the Cultural Council’s webpage–

Cultural Council

The members of the Cultural Council are appointed by the Select Board for a 3-year term. Each member may serve (2) consecutive terms.

This Board operates in accordance with State mandates and regulations of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Mission: To promote excellence, inclusion, education and diversity in the arts, humanities, and sciences to foster a rich cultural life for all Massachusetts residents and contributes to the vitality of our communities and economy. The council pursues this mission through a wide range of grants, initiatives , and advocacy for artists, communities, organizations, and schools.

Board Members

See, you have to be a DEI queen to be on the Sterling Cultural Council.

And then we have the reckless, profligate, out-of-control Sterling D.P.W. Board members pushing for construction of a luxurious new D.P.W. ‘Garage Mahal’ that would increase Sterling property taxes by a whopping 11% over the multi-year life of the bond that would be required to pay for that utter BOONDOGGLE.

THEY ALL WANTED JOE KING KICKED OFF THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE DURING THE SELECT BOARD’S 16 JULY 2025 JOINT MEETING WITH THE TOWN MODERATOR AND THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.

Apparently Mr. King isn’t a fan of the D.P.W.’s outlandish and outrageous ‘Garage Mahal’ proposal. What thinking person is? For his failure to go along the D.P.W. sent a letter to the Select Board labeling Mr. King “unnecessarily contentious.” The D.P.W. prefers someone “respectful and collaborative,” meaning a spineless wimp willing to go along with the D.P.W.’s proposed rape of every Sterling property taxpayer.

MEMO TO THE D.P.W. BOARD: Go screw yourselves and the goats upon which you rode in. Go ahead, label me “unnecessarily contentious” because I oppose your hosing of every Sterling property taxpayer. Badge of honor in my book.

According to that spineless blob Kirsten Newman, several people in Town had conflicts with Mr. King. Yeah, I bet–those who want unconstrained feeding from the taxpayer-funded Town of Sterling public mammary gland.  My heart bleeds for those grifters, dontcha know.

Apparently Mr. King opposes outright raids on the Sterling public fisc so, according to Kirsten Newman, that constitutes “disrespectful behavior.” However, for the sane people in Town that constitutes doing what the Finance Committee is supposed to do.

Oh yeah, Select Board member Maureen ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Bullshit’ Cranson chimed in and told Mr. King that he had “scared off” some “younger people the town has been trying to recruit” for the Finance Committee. I take that to mean that the Select Board has been trying to recruit younger, relatively naïve people that the Select Board can push around so at Annual Town Meetings the Select Board can say “See, the Finance Committee supports us on these Warrant Articles by which we are screwing you taxpayers some more.”

This is from the Finance Committee’s webpage:

Mission

Provide financial leadership and guidance to the town organizations and general public.  Ensure Town organizations deliver services while optimizing financial resources.

Sterling Finance Committee Guiding Principles

1. Minimize year over year tax levy changes.
2. Treat all departments, committees and individuals consistently and respectfully.
3. As a guideline, maintain the Capital Fund at a level equal to the total annual capital asset depreciation or greater.
4. As a guideline, items considered for the Capital Fund should have a useful life of greater than 5 years and a cost of $25K or more.
5. As a guideline, items considered for bonding should have a useful life greater than 10 years and a cost of $100K or more.
6. Maintain a 3-year planning horizon.
7. Focus on the fiscal aspects of all Town issues and remain neutral to the “politics” of issues.
8. Maintain a strong fiscal discipline and continue to emphasize the importance of healthy reserves.
9. Make decisions that will serve to maintain and increase the taxpayers’ and voters’ trust and respect, paving the way for confidence in future Finance Committee decisions.

Vision and Mission Statement Adopted December 1, 2022

MEMO TO MAU-MAUING KIRSTEN NEWMAN AND PATRICIA WARD:

Try reading items 8 and 9.

In the end, Mr. King was re-appointed to the Finance Committee and the Capital Committee, just barely, no thanks to Newman and Ward who, undoubtedly, will support a massive Proposition 2 ½ override in 2026 necessitated by the failing, substandard, parasitical, out-of-control Wachusett Regional School District.

Stay tuned.

J.G.

Well folks, you just knew this was coming. Here’s the Notice for the Planning Board’s 16 September 2025, 6:30 p.m. ‘MBTA Zoning’ Public Propaganda Session—

https://www.sterling-ma.gov/home/news/mbta-zoning-question-answer-session

Doubtless the smarmy, evasive, fact-omitting, smoke-blowing, dead-weight drone ‘Town Planner,’ Stephen Wallace, will be Sterling Municipal Building’s mouthpiece on this while self-dealing developer weasel Carl Corrinne, Planning Board Chair, will be sitting there at the laptop table advancing the Power Point slides. That’s the same Carl ‘Multi-Family Housing’ Corrinne who claimed as required ‘Open Space’ for ‘walking, horticulture, agriculture, forestry,’ etc., under Sterling’s Multi-Family Zoning By-Laws, in order to build his ‘Multi-Family’ development at 100 Clinton Road, Sterling, his land under the triple-parallel high voltage towers/lines there. New England Power Company/National Grid has the power line the easement. In a letter to Sterling’s virtually useless, developer-friendly Zoning Board of Appeals during the Special Permit process, I warned that NEPC/National Grid controlled that easement and could undertake additional infrastructure work there in the future, thereby limiting or eliminating purported ‘Open Space’ there. That’s EXACTLY what is taking place there now. The place looks like a sun-baked ecological wasteland. OF COURSE, the Sterling ZBA, employing its usual intellectual dishonesty, ignored my letter and granted Corrinne the Special Permit. You’d have to be a moron to buy a Corrinne duplex unit there now. That property is UGLY.

 At the 16 September 2025 Planning Board ‘MBTA Zoning’ Propaganda Session you may have questions but you won’t get any straight answers setting forth the ‘MBTA Zoning’ legal constraints, limits, and nuances set forth in the case interpreting the controlling statute, Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 40A, Section 3A, that being Attorney General vs. Town of Milton et al.. You can read it here—

INSTEAD, Wallace/Sterling Planning Board will harp on the ultra vires, completely bogus ‘Emergency Compliance Guidelines’ that the Mass. Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (an Oxymoron) ‘Guidelines Team’ pulled out of their asses soon after the Supreme Judicial Court, in that decision, ruled that their original ‘Compliance Guidelines’ were promulgated in violation of the Massachusetts Administrative Procedure Act.

VOTERS in MANY Massachusetts towns have voted down bogus so-called ‘MBTA Multi-Family Housing Zoning Districts,’ the latest being in Dracut, Marblehead, and next-door Holden. This map DOES NOT show any post-March 12, 2025 rejections, including those by Dracut, Holden, and Marblehead annual town meeting voters—

KNOW that the ‘MBTA Zoning’ propaganda peddled by the Sterling Select Board, Planning Board, and out-of-town blow-in paycheck patriots Bill Caldwell and Stephen Wallace, Town Administrator and ‘Town Planner,’ respectively, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS LEGALLY CORRECT. IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THEM GROVELING FOR POTENTIAL FUNDING THE COMMIE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS WILL CUT OFF IF STERLING REJECTS BOGUS ‘MBTA ZONING.’ Those funding categories are set forth in Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 40A, Section 3A—

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/mass-general-laws-c40a-ss-3a

As Spectrum News 1 reported after 2025 Holden Annual Town Meeting voters shot down bogus ‘MBTA Zoning’—

“Ultimately, it seems like it all comes down to funding. According to the MBTA Communities Law, cities and towns who fail to comply will not be eligible for funds from the Housing Choice Initiative.”

Voters in all the Towns that have rejected bogus ‘MBTA Zoning’ KNOW that preserving local autonomy and character is more important than MERELY POTENTIAL state grants, BUT STERLING’S TOWN GOVERNMENT WHORES DO NOT.

NOTE: Two or three (2-3) years ago I served a Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 66, Section 10 Public Records Request on the Town of Sterling for all Town documents showing funds received by the Town of Sterling, in the previous five (5) years, from funding categories listed in Ch. 40A, Section 3A. Town Administrator Bill Caldwell replied in writing that there were NONE.

It will be up to Sterling voters to REJECT bogus ‘MBTA Zoning’ at an upcoming Special Town Meeting. Let us do so as have voters in the towns of Dracut, Holden, Marblehead and others at their recent Annual Town Meetings.

Stay tuned.

J.G.