June 1984
Among the topics identified by the Land Use Issues Committee as being critical factors affecting the town for the rest of the decade were: possible contamination of groundwater, population size, town government structure, the impact of people working or shopping in Harvard, growth in adjacent towns, the development of Interstate 495, and changes in farm economics.
Ghost Busters, Star Trek III, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were playing in local movie theaters.
The Bare Hill Pond Study Committee made plans to purchase and install on the pond floor, in the swimming area, 7,500 square feet of AquaScreen®, a polyvinyl-coated fiberglass screen developed for weed control. The committee decided on the screening because the York rake that had been used to harvest weeds in the swimming area four times a year wasn’t doing the job.
Full-time summer employment was available with the Harvard Public Schools for $3.35 to $4 per hour.
Among the articles on the warrant for Special Town Meeting was a proposal for a new committee to study housing for the elderly.
A letter-writer commented: “The struggle for peace down through the ages has been the struggle to stay alive. When others envy what you have, you make a choice. You give it up, share it, or fight to keep it. The chances of survival are determined by how well you are prepared to accept either option. Today’s youth, with all their awesome technology, are still at the same old crossroad. Will they be willing to share their wealth and superior knowledge with the rest of the world, or will they live in fear that the next global bully will use this knowledge against them?”
June 1994
A public hearing held by the Massachusetts Land Bank [now MassDevelopment] on the proposed plan for the reuse of Fort Devens after the Army’s scheduled departure in 1995 was called a “sham” by one of Harvard’s selectmen. No more than 10 people attended the meeting, and those who did charged that the paucity of advertising for the event was a deliberate attempt by the Land Bank to keep Harvard residents from attending. Attendees tried unsuccessfully to shut the meeting down due to the poor attendance, and after their ardent persuasion, convinced Land Bank officials to hold at least two more public hearings on the plan before a vote scheduled for the fall.
An editorial opined, “If we are ever to make war an impossibility we must accept that violence, even evil, are potential to all of us—that war is not something that happens out there … but to real people, of whom we are one. Only when we have acknowledged that hard fact can we begin to learn how to make war a thing of the past.”
Based on reports in the old Harvard Post.
