Sakonnet — a look back at 2024

Posted 12/31/24

Political issues. Public water use rights. Housing, money and the environment. All took center stage in 2024 — Here's a quick look back at some of the stories that captured the Sakonnet area's …

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Sakonnet — a look back at 2024

Posted

Political issues. Public water use rights. Housing, money and the environment. All took center stage in 2024 — Here's a quick look back at some of the stories that captured the Sakonnet area's attention this year.

The housing squeeze

The problem has been years in the making and is only getting worse. But Little Compton saw more progress on the affordable housing front than it has in memory.

As prices continue to rise and long-time residents worry whether they’ll be able to afford a future here, various organizations made significant leaps forward over the past 12 months:

The housing trust purchased five acres of land off Old Harbor Road and will soon come before the planning board with a plan to build four units. The town passed an attainable housing ordinance that will fill a need here — the chance at home ownership for those who might fall above the threshold for affordable, deed-restricted homes. And the first full year for the Commons Foundation, which to date has raised $2 million in pledges toward its effort to increase the affordable housing stock.

There is a lot to overcome. The median single-family home price in 2023 was $900,000, nearly 70 percent more than four years earlier. And the retail market's inaccessibility is changing the fabric of the town, creating a homogeneity Little Compton never knew through much of its history.

Said Patrick Bowen, of the housing trust:

“The pressures of land conservation and high end seasonal residential development continue to increase the cost and value of all property in town, resulting in fewer opportunities for individuals and families to work here. Among the most compelling arguments in favor of affordable housing is maintaining the socio-economic diversity which has defined this town from its settlement.”

Rescued from a fire

Ebb the cat got lucky in February when Lt. Michael Amaral got the call.

Amaral, a Tiverton fire fighter, was responding to a trailer home fire on Bulgarmarsh Road just before midnight, Feb. 1, when he learned that although everyone had gotten out, the family cat was unaccounted for.

"I said, 'Where would I go if I was a cat?'" he recalled thinking as he searched the smoke-filled home. So he started checking every room, trying to get as far away from the worst of the smoke as he could, and found Ebb under a bed.

The cat was suffering from smoke inhalation and he rushed it outside, where he and others started administering oxygen. After about 10 minutes, Ebb came to.

"I've been an animal lover all my life," he said. "It's a good feeling when you have your four-legged friends by your side."

Erin go big!

2024 is the year the World's Shortest St. Paddy's Day parade got big.

The third annual Adamsville parade, an equal parts parade, party, community event, fund-raiser and party (yes, it was such a great party it deserves being mentioned twice) drew what could be the largest crowd the village has ever seen.

Fueled by press reports of a rivalry with Hot Springs, Ark. over whose is shorter (Adamsville, of course), several thousand showed up for the event. An Irish band even packed the tent after the corned beef and cabbage dinner, stopping in Adamsville to conclude a United States tour.

What's coming this year? We'll find out in two months.

Guilty as charged

A year and a half after police and prosecutors said he improperly activated his taser at several school functions, Tiverton police officer Jacob Rapoza, a former school resource officer at the high school, was found guilty in May of two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct.

Rapoza was suspended from the force in December 2022 after parents complained about what they said was his inappropriate reaction to a prank involving students who had decorated his school office door with graffiti.

While investigating that incident, police

learned of allegations that Rapoza had activated his department-issued taser several times at a school-sponsored football game and at an assembly in the high school’s library.

Rapoza has appealed the guilty verdict.

Thank you, Sydney

Her writing has charmed and entertained countless readers, but it's her eye and heart that sets Sydney Tynan apart.

The Little Compton resident, who this year decided to retire her regular "Letters from the Back 40," was and is still a Little Compton institution.

Her musings on the natural world, published in countless editions of the Sakonnet Times and several books, were simply and effectively written. But they were also full of lush detail about the seasons and the habits of animals and humankind, and touched on subjects as grand as hope, faith, death and renewal.

Fisher cats, deer, raccoons, pesky squirrels, flowers, her dog, and many other critters and growing things played roles in her dispatches, and they were a joy to read.

Again, thank you Sydney!

Is that a flamingo?

Birders by the hundred beat a steady path to Briggs Beach in late June and July, when an American Flamingo took up temporary residence in Briggs Marsh.

Scientists believe the bird may have been the same one spotted a month earlier in the Cape Cod town of Dennis — Mark Faherty, of the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, said he believes the bird may from a group scattered when Hurricane Idalia hit Florida last summer. Following that storm, the birds were spotted in more than a dozen states, including some as far inland as Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Little Compton's visitor stayed for more than a month and in that time, many dozens of birders took the long walk to Briggs Marsh to catch a peek.

You walked where?

What do you do when you're a songwriter and need to get to Nashville for business? If you're David Eugrow, you walk. The Little Compton resident started walking from Lloyd's Beach in July and didn't stop until he hit the Music City, some 50 days and three million steps later.

"The trip was 100 percent successful," he said about a week after he arrived back in Little Compton. "I got there. For the first two weeks, I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. I think the takeaway is a bit of a cliche, but it's somewhere along the lines of having faith and taking the leap" not just on a trip, but toward a dream."

"That's what the whole walk was about for me. In a larger sense, it tells me I can keep going, I can do it."

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