Timberlane OKs $25M to repair schools
Plaistow, Atkinson, Danville and Sandown residents approved a $25 million lease-purchase agreement to improve and repair Timberlane Regional School District’s seven schools.
The 20-year agreement was voted on in March. The project aimed to make immediate repairs and maintenance to the district’s five elementary schools, middle and high schools, along with the Timberlane Performing Arts Center and administrative offices.
Four of the elementary schools’ heating, ventilation and rooftop air conditioning system units were replaced this year with money from the lease agreement. School officials are now looking at how to update climate controls and possibly move exterior duct work inside, which could save energy in the future. A boiler update is planned in the future as well.
Repairs to Timberlane Regional High School’s roof are also planned, along with replacing 17 energy recovery ventilator units on the roof.
Town hires new police chief
Plaistow hired a new police chief in April after the position had been vacant for a year and a half as lawsuits and controversies with its former, ousted chief delayed the process.
John Santoro started the chief’s job on May 1. He came from Framingham State University, where he’s spent the last 12 years, most recently as its chief of police.
Santoro arrived with 33 years of public safety experience, including two decades with the Methuen Police Department in various roles.
Plaistow had been without a permanent chief since former police Chief Douglas Mullin was fired in October 2021..
Town Manager Greg Colby said hiring Santoro will be “good for everyone.”
“Chief Santoro is a respected leader in law enforcement and has a proven record of policing, emergency management and progressive leadership,” Colby said.
Local artist remembered
If a picture tells a thousand words, Thomas “Tomaso” Schena composed thousands upon thousands with his drawings of people throughout the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire.
Schena, a local artist with connections to Haverhill, Plaistow and Newton, New Hampshire, died suddenly in May in Newton at age 43.
He leaves behind a community of supporters impacted by his kindness and the happiness that came with each picture he drew.
Schena was known to sit in numerous booths at local restaurants and shops, equipped with his duffel bag filled with Crayola markers and white paper.
It became his passion to do this after a tragic car accident in 2011 that left him with serious injuries.
He would sketch his colorful renderings of the people in these places and surprise them with one-of-a-kind portraits.
His artwork even adorns the walls of his favorite hangouts.
He never had a schedule of where he would head on his bicycle to go draw, but a piece of him has been left wherever he landed.