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The Independent Clause

Thousands of vehicles made their way to Stow orchards last weekend as a continuous run of good weather attracted apple pickers and donut eaters. By mid-afternoon Sunday, traffic was gridlocked around Honey Pot Hill Orchards with traffic extending down Whitman Road (pictured above) and onto Gleasondale Road, beyond Small Farm and toward Box Mill Road. At the same time, traffic heading toward Honey Pot from the other direction was backed up to State Road, while Boon and Sudbury Roads, heading toward Gleasondale Road, were stopped.
Over at Shelburne Farm, parking lots were at capacity and traffic was parked along West Acton Road with visitors pushing baby strollers and walking abreast along the roadway to reach the orchard entrance.
Stow’s public safety officials are reviewing the circumstances of the past weekend, and will be making recommendations for the weekends ahead, particularly Columbus Day weekend, when the Collings Foundation on Barton Rd. hosts their annual reenactment event.
Nancy Arsenault

Our deepest sympathies to the family of Fire Chief Joe Landry on the loss of their 6-year-old son, Shawn. There are never adequate words for such a difficult time. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends Shawn left behind.

This week we bring you the proposed assessment values for the individual properties in Stow. They can be found, along with a letter of introduction and key to the coding from the Stow Assessor’s Department, on pages 8 through 11 and pages 14 through 17.

Stow has quite a weekend coming up with many activities being held, especially on Saturday. And of course the apple pickers are likely to be out in full force.

See page 4 for the calendar of events and page 13 for more on the apple traffic. Next week, we will look into what is being done to alleviate the traffic and what other towns in the areas are doing with similar situations.

Next week, Oct 7-12,  is the Stow Postal Food Pantry. With upcoming cuts to programs, and in light of the government budget crisis, the Food Pantry is a vital service to many. Donations are greatly appreciated.

Cyndy Bremer, managing editor, [email protected]