The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 15

Ofi i MARCH 28, 1999 Opinion 2 Around the Towns 3 Business 8 Home Garden 9 People Places 14 Sports 17 TRANSPORTATION SNARLS Amtrak rail riders may need taxi first MBTA dispute with Dedham, Westwood stalls construction of station's garage ft 1 i i By Robert Preer GLOBE CORRESPONDENT tion or to Providence," said Amtrak spokesman Russell Hall. "The parking is going to get worse." For regular commuters and the occasional riders to New York and Washington, D.C., it is hard to imagine conditions at the station worsening. Situated on the border of West-wood and Dedham and close to Canton and Norwood, the station is already the busiest stop on the MBTA's rail network. Two suburban lines to Boston's South Station con- STATION, Page 4 GLOBE PHOTO KERRY BRETT An eight-month dispute between the Massachusetts Bay, Transportation Authority and the towns of Dedham and Westwood has stalled construction of a garage at the Route 128 Amtrak-commuter rail station. The station, near the junction of Interstates 93 and 95, will be one of the main stops for Amtrak's new "Acela Express" trains, which are projected to trim travel time from Route 128 to New York City to 2 hours and 45 minutes from the current 4V hours.

Westwood and Dedham conservation officials have been negotiating for months with the MBTA and state Department of Environmental Protection to try to reach an agreement on protection of town wells and sensitive Neponset River wetlands next to the station site. Even if that controversy is resolved soon, though, it is unlikely the $25 million garage will be ready by the planned fall launch of the new train service. The MBTA expects construction to take at least six months, so completion is not likely before the end of this year. Also, regardless of the timetable on the garage, Amtrak's new Route 128 station building is not expected to be ready when the train service starts. The station, which is under construction, would connect to the new garage and lead to new high-level platforms.

It is not scheduled to be completed until January. Thus, when the service, designed to compete with the airlines' shuttle flights to New York, is launched in the fall, most suburban riders will have nowhere to park. "We are recommending that people either be dropped off and picked up at Route 128 or go to South Sta Patrick Felix of Brockton, Susan Bell of Holbrook, and Erin Martin of Brockton enrolled at Avon High through the school choice plan. Avon schools learn to seize the day By Alexander Reid GLOBE STAFF Avm used the opport unity provided by school choice to turn its $ize into an advantage its jriemly small-town school atmosphere appealed to many parents and students in communities all around the -square-mile town. Resistance to runway at Logan broadens ByAlanLupo GLOBE STAFF By early this month, Representative Robert A.

DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, began sensing a shift in the political substrata underlying what had been the Massachusetts Port Authority's momentum to build a new runway at Logan Airport. For more than two months, Massport, even in the eyes of its opponents, seemed to be dictating the agenda for its proposed runway and new taxiway, which it said would reduce delays and spread airplane noise more fairly over communities. Massport officials had met privately with movers and shakers in RUNWAY, Page 5 AVON Ten years ago, Avon High School's freshman class numbered 19 students, barely enough to' fill a classroom. Enrollments in the 600-student K-12 system had been dwindling for several years, but the problem had grown serious and the small town's independent school system was very much in jeopardy. The town ran newspaper ads to recruit ition-paying students from outside districts.

Talk of merging Avon schools with a neighboring district escalated, and split the town. Town Meeting created an ad hoc committee to consider a merger, and after studying the matter at length the panel rejected the idea. "Things snowed no sign of getting better; majority of townspeople want, proud as they are of maintaining a spunky stand-alone school system in a town of just 4,500 residents. The resolution to Avon's crisis came from Beacon Hill, with the passage by the Legislature of the school choice law, which took effect in 1991. Avon seized the opportunity provided by school choice to turn its size into an advantage its small class sizes and friendly small-town CHOICE, Page 7 we were becoming too small to survive," said John Nolan, who was head of the Avon School Committee in 1989 and is still a member.

"We had to do something," continued Nolan, who favored a merger. "The logical thing was to merge with another system, like Holbrook, but a lot of people were not in favor of it" 1 Flash forward to 1999, and Avon's school system is very much alive. Enrollment is about 800 still small, but viable, which is just what a At school, a free pass to fool around Mansfield not amused by theme park plans 1 Residents argue play site a slap to water savers By Alexander Reid GLOBE STAFF i -j 1. 1. i 1 4 By Karen Hayes GLOBE CORRESPONDENT PEMBROKE-Poet T.S.

Eliot may have overstated the case a bit in "The Waste Land" when he said April is the cruelest month. But for generations of schoolchildren, it is definitely the most foolish month. That's because April 1, which happens to be this Thursday, is April Fool's Day, when even the strictest principals and teachers let students act up, if only a little. And, in many cases, school staff members prove to be the greatest pranksters of all. Take North Pembroke Elementary School, for example, where April Fool's Day antics are a time-honored tradition.

Elaine Rankin, the school's secretary for the past 12 years, has acted as the "middle man" behind the mischief for scores of children. "I'm the facilitator," Rankin conceded. "I do what the children tell me. But 111 always tell the kids IH only do it if it's not malicious because we don't want anyone to get into trouble." APRIL 1, Page 6 hurdle March 19 when state environmental authorities ruled that the park complied with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act The project must still be reviewed by several other agencies, including the Mansfield Conservation Commission, the state Department of Environmental Protection, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Richard Samuels, the managing partner for Great Waves, is hoping to open the park in summer 2000 on a 28-acre parcel next to the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts.

The park would use two water sources. About 73,000 gallons a day would come from Mansfield's municipal system for bathrooms and showers. Developers would also drill deep bedrock wells, that would not be connected to the town's system and would pump up to 40,000 gallons a day to fill the pools and other water amusements. "I understand their water problems in Mansfield but we're not going to make their problems any worse and we'll be good neighbors," said Samuels, who also owns and operates the Water Country theme park in Portsmouth, N.H. WATER, Page 6 MANSFIELD For the past two summers, town residents have honored rules governing how often they can wash their cars or run yard sprinklers in the warm weather.

Now comes news of a $15 million water theme park, with giant water slides and swimming pools. The park, called Great Waves, would use only a small portion of Mansfield's water and not threaten its supply. But the very idea of a water park in a town where residents re expected to limit their own water hse is seen by many as "a slap in the face." "People here can't wash their cars or turn on their sprinklers when they want," said Mansfield Town Manager John D'Agostino. "They're oing to see this great big water park with people splashing in pools and the water slides. It's not rtght." Great Waves cleared a major GLOBE PHOTO KERRY BRETT Practicing April Fool's Day pranks at North Pembroke Elementary School are 6th graders (standing) Kristina BoldL Meghan Kelley, Corey O'Keeffe, and Molly Aubert, and their teacher Gay Rendle.

I Reporting on: Abington Avon Braintree Bridgewater Brockton Canton Carver Cohasset Dedham Duxbury East Bridgewater Easton Foxborough Halifax Hanover Hanson Hingham Holbrook Hull-J Kingston Lakeville Mansfield Mirshfield Middleborough Norton Norwell Norwood Pembroke Plymouth Plympton Quincy Randolph Raynham Rockland Scituate Sharon Stoughtonw'Walpole West Bridgewater Westwood Weymouth Whitman S3.