Author: kerriganforclinton

In order to protect the health and safety of town employees and the public due to the threat of the Covid-19 Coronavirus, all municipal buildings in the Town of Clinton will limit public access until further notice.

Town offices are still open and employees are working to continue municipal operations.

Continuing updates and a contact list of town departments is available at the town’s website.

The current state of emergency is a fluid, ever-changing situation, but the town is committed to preserving critical services as much as possible. We appreciate your patience and perseverance during this unsettled time.

The Town of Clinton continues to monitor the situation regarding coronavirus and COVID-19, and will update the community as necessary. As of Friday, March 13, 2020, there are no confirmed or presumptive cases of the coronavirus in Clinton.

As you can imagine, it’s an incredibly fluid situation that changes by the hour. Your patience and perseverance are greatly appreciated. We will update the Clinton Board of Health’s website as more information becomes available.

For an overview of what’s happening in Massachusetts, as well as resources on how to prevent the spread of the virus, please visit the Mass. Department of Public Health Covid-19 website.

UPDATE: Clinton Public Schools have just announced that schools will be CLOSED on Monday, March 16, in order to disinfect all of the schools.

The latest update from Clinton Superintendent of Schools Steven Meyer is available here: Clinton Public Schools 3-13-20 coronavirus update. 

On June 29, I will be seeking a second term on the Clinton Board of Selectmen.

My first three years serving you have been incredible, and we’ve made progress in many areas. But government can move slowly at times, and there’s still much more I’d like to do, especially when it comes to growing our tax base, making Town Hall open and responsive to your needs, and creating a modern Clinton that embraces its tradition while evolving to compete in today’s world.

You deserve a Clinton where you feel safe and satisfied. A Clinton where you can get a good job and live comfortably without going broke. A Clinton where you can be happy and proud to say, “That’s where I live.”

We’re heading in the right direction. With your help, in June and over the next three years, together we can keep Clinton moving forward.

There will be much more to follow in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned. As always, I’m available at kerriganforclinton@gmail.com, kerriganforclinton.org and on Facebook if you have any questions, concerns or good ideas.

At tonight’s Board of Selectmen meeting, I made a motion to move forward with a process to change the name of our board to the gender-neutral Select Board. It’s something that’s long overdue, and something that I wanted to get started before my term was over. The motion passed, 3-2, and now needs town meeting approval (and possibly approval of the state legislature).

I’m proud of the board for backing a move toward this simple change, which I believe will bring greater equality, fairness and inclusion to town government.

Boards of selectmen in Massachusetts go back nearly 400 years, and the town meeting form of government is one of the purest forms of democracy in the world. I do not want to change how we run our town. Recently, however, communities across the commonwealth are changing names as a way to be more inclusive. This past month, the Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association voted unanimously to change its name to the gender-neutral Massachusetts Select Board Association. And almost 90 towns — including West Boylston, Harvard, Grafton, Leicester, Princeton and Westboro in our part of the state — have also made this change. More are coming, because it’s the right thing to do.

After 170 years — in which only two women have served as selectmen — it’s time for Clinton to do the same.

We owe it to every member of our community to improve outreach and show them that anyone can serve their town. If there’s an obstacle to entry when it comes to local government or community service — whether real or implied — we need to remove it.

I’d like to thank Ed Devault and Michael Dziokonski for their support of this motion, and I look forward to taking this to town meeting voters in June. This name change will hopefully communicate to everyone in Clinton that we are their representatives, and they are always welcome to serve.

This week, Clinton was awarded $282,575 in Complete Streets roadwork funding, money that will help the town’s ongoing effort to improve the town’s roads and make Clinton more friendly to walkers and bicyclists.

The money is part of the latest round of Complete Streets Funding Program awards, totaling $8.1 million in funding to 24 communities. These awards will be used to fund local, multimodal infrastructure projects that improve accessibility for bicyclists, pedestrians, public transit users, and people using other forms of transportation.

A “Complete Street” is one that provides safe and accessible options for all travel modes and for all people, taking into account the ages and abilities of individuals. The Baker-Polito Administration has now awarded a total of 148 construction grants at $46 million since creating the funding program for Complete Streets in February 2016.

Water Street Bicycle and Pedestrian Network Connection: $282,575

The project will enlarge and improve sidewalks, improve crosswalks and midblock crossings, improve one intersection, install pedestrian-scale lighting, provide a pedestrian rest area, and install roadway markings and signage for shared bicycle use of Water Street from High Street to Main Street.

This project is the latest in a series of work aimed at making Clinton’s downtown business district more accessible to pedestrians. Town meeting voters approved a $4.5 million reconstruction of the High Street district from Union Street to Water Street this past June, and a federally funded project will make similar improvements (including new sidewalks and drainage upgrades) on High Street from Water Street to Allen Street.

The Board of Selectmen last night approved the placement of a four-way stop sign at the intersection of Church and Chestnut streets, for the safety of vehicular traffic and pedestrians crossing the street.

I’m not sure when this change will take effect, and there will be maximum effort to inform the public of this traffic pattern change, but I wanted to let everyone know as soon as possible so they weren’t surprised when the signs went up at this often busy intersection.

In other Traffic Committee business last night, the board endorsed placement of a dead-end sign for Liberty Street, and a streetlight at the intersection of Chase Street and Bufton Farm Road.

Have a good suggestion for improving traffic safety in your neighborhood? Contact the Board of Selectman’s Traffic Committee via Town Administrator Michael Ward at 978-365-4120 or mward@clintonma.gov, or let me know and I’ll forward your good idea.

The Worcester Business Journal breaks down Monday’s Town Meeting votes to renovate downtown and update our zoning bylaws to make development here more attractive.

That work will be most visible to residents and visitors, but a new zoning bylaw is meant to bring more people living in the neighborhood, bringing the town more tax revenue and more people to eat and shop downtown.

Check out the story here: Clinton turns focus to downtown