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Health & Fitness

OPINION: Work Together on Whiting Avenue

Join forces to make the area stronger.

Maybe it is time for residents to form a neighborhood group around Whiting Avenue in Dedham.

Lots of issues are popping up and there is no central group to tackle them all at once, so they are being handled one by one.

Latest is the closing of Morse Avenue. Private owners decided a little while ago. That is perfectly legal. But it leads to other consequences. Will school children duck into the road to smoke weed? Will the road pose dangers? What will the traffic be like once cars decide where they detour around the road?

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Only the and the owners had any say. No neighborhood group spoke for the area, just a smattering of residents.

What will the traffic going to and from Hyde Park do now? That traffic was what former police chief and selectman Dennis Teehan was trying to stop by putting a few weeks ago.

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Selectmen can rule on that one. But again, no group spoke up with a suggestion. There was no spokesperson.

One big problem faces the neighbors and the school building committee; the town it is trying to figure out how it should restore the ugly scar of behind some of the houses. This was trouble since the contractor cut down 40 trees without telling the town exactly when the trees would fall.

Suddenly, everything about the area changed; quiet back yards were naked. People felt helpless. Residents were told they would get a chance to have a say on what would happen to the ugly scar. They heard a decision would be in January. Then it . Of course the citizens are without any true power here, they are simply being included in the process now because they were utterly ignored when the contractor ripped down trees.

If they had an organized group, the neighbors would have had a stronger voice.

Perhaps none of these individual-but-related issues could have been settled if a Whiting Avenue residents group had been in place.

Everyone would have moved together and act toward a common solution.

A strong voice would have helped.

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