Letter to the Editor: Chickering School Still Without Power

Denise,

We've met on a couple of occasions, I'm a School Committee member for the Town of Dover.

Like many other communities in MA we're scrambling to recover from Irene's damage.  No surprise, our biggest issue is restoring power to the Dover community. NSTAR was quick to get our essential services buildings (Fire and Police) back on line within a few hours of power loss. They've also come into the community and have slowly started working their way through Dover and Sherborn bringing some homes and neighborhoods back on line.  

The reason for my inquiry, Chickering School has no power and lines are down on Cross Street right in front of the school campus. Dover DPW went to this location last night and removed much of the tree debris w/o interfering with the downed lines to mitigate some of the burden of repairs, but as of 7:30 this morning no NSTAR crews were anywhere to be found.

I realize that Chickering is not designated as an emergency shelter because it lacks a back-up generator (a possible issue for our community to contend with at a future Town Meeting), that said I fail to understand why NSTAR wouldn't establish this facility as a community priority for service restoration given the number of people in the community the facility serves.  We are in serious jeopardy of delaying the start of the school year due to the lack of power and conditions around the campus.

The D/S School Administration and Dover PD's persistent efforts to get any information out of NSTAR have unfortunately been fruitless. 

I don't believe your Dover constituents are typically a very needy bunch but we could certainly use your help on this issue.  Any efforts to get some clarity from NSTAR around Chickering's service restoration along with securing the safety of the school campus area would be appreciated.

All the best and thanks in advance for your assistance,

Karl Johnson 

Dover School Committee

doverkarl@verizon.net