The Berlin
Cit itiz ize en
Volume 15, Number 39
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
Meet your neighbors
Couple’s ‘amazing’ romance thrives in the spotlight By Olivia L. Lawrence The Berlin Citizen
Cassie Taylor and her husband Sean Taylor — both actors — married just a few weeks ago on Sept. 4. The talented couple, who recently moved to Berlin, met when they did a play together in Arizona. Now the pair is once again sharing the spotlight in a local production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which opens Friday, Oct. 7 at Chippen’s Hill Middle School in Bristol. There is also a performance Saturday, Oct. 8, at 7:30 p.m.; and matinees Saturday, Oct.
Sean and Cassie Taylor 8 and Sunday, Oct. 9 at 2 p.m. For more information or to
purchase tickets, go to the Bristol Theatre Arts website at www.bristoltheatrearts. org. Sean has the title role of “Joseph” and Cassie is the “Narrator”, which is the female lead. The couple bought a house in town about a year ago. “We love Berlin,” said, Cassie, 28. “The school district is great, the town is beautiful. We live pretty close to Silver Lake in an area with lots of woods, and we also love taking drives through historic Berlin and looking at all the beautiful See Couple, page 5
Humor
How to plan your visit to the Berlin Fair By Olivia L. Lawrence The Berlin Citizen
Get out your spread sheets, slide rules, protractors, calculators and dart
Photo by Paul G. Salina
Frog-jumping contest.
boards. We’re going to come up with a strategy for visiting the fair. You realize it’s right around the corner! Starts Sept. 30, ends two days later. We need to do a lot of planning to cram it all in. Concerts, exhibition halls, rides, entertainment and — oh yeah, what’s that other thing? FOOD. First start with a priority list. Mine starts with these two “must do” items. No. 1, the poultry barn — I love chickens. ‘Nuf said. No. 2, my secret recipe fair food which I will now share with you. For best results, you need two people to execute this recipe, as the
booths in question are miles apart (may I respectfully request these be moved closer together.) Here it is: One person runs to get a fried dough (or apple fritters, just as good) and the other is off to get a cup of vanilla soft serve icecream. You meet at a picnic table and start dunking or spreading, your choice. Just make sure you have one bite of ice-cream for every bite of fried dough. That’s called a balanced diet. Once those critical matters are taken care of, we face the thorny task of what to do next. As the Lions Club sched-
Berlin Fair
See Visit, page 6
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Two candidates will take BOE seats in November Three openings were available By Olivia L. Lawrence The Berlin Citizen Barring the unforeseen, Timothy Oakes and Irene Matulis are ass u r r e d seats on the Board of Education after Oakes the election is held Nov. 8. There’s no crystal ball involved in that prognostication, just s i m p l e Matulis math. There are three openings and two candidates for those jobs. A full school board is comprised of nine members; after Nov. 8, there will be seven seated. It is a non partisan board and candidates do not declare a party affiliation. Mark Holmes had taken out a petition form, from the Town Clerk’s office, planning to run (he would have been assured of a place at the table, too). However, Holmes told The Citizen that “my circumstances changed and I was unable to make the com-
mitment” at this time. That left Oakes and Matulis and one vacancy. The Town Charter allows the school board to fill a vacancy by a majority vote of the remaining members, unless the number fall below seven, in which case a special election is called. Over the past several years, the BOE has filled vacancies created by resignations, unless those occurred shortly before an election. Oakes, who previoiusly ran for the position, and Matulis, an incumbent who serves as the board’s secretary, provided The Citizen with updates on their reasons for running. Oakes, 36, is a lifelong resident of town. He ran in 2009 and was not elected. He did not run in 2010, as his professional and personal responsibilities prohibited his involvement at that time. An IT professional with the Barule Technology Group LLC, Oakes said he wanted to serve on the board because “I want to see the town operate as well as it can and be successful. I have kids in the public school system and want to make sure they get the best quality education they can.” Oakes said his style is to “take the devil’s advocate See BOE, page 7
Special Section 63rd Annual Berlin Fair see page 15.