Flower Thief Strikes Mystic Valley; Wakefield Residents Vote to Sell Vacant School to Developer

Every Saturday, Melrose Patch will run a round-up with links to stories from surrounding communities that are of interest to Melrosians.

• : MALDEN—Surveillance cameras at the high school facility captured an odd sight Sunday night. A man wearing a hat stole flowers from two large planters near the Highland Avenue school’s entrance—not taking the planters, but dumping the flowers from the planters into bags and walking off with them.

• WAKEFIELD—at the May 9 town meeting, Wakefield residents voted to sell the town's 108-year-old property, the former Franklin School, for $800,000 to Colllins Development, Inc., who will turn the property into 20 one, two and three bedroom condominium apartments. The sale of the building passed by an overwhelming vote of 156-16.

• MEDFORD—As Melrose City Hall begins its own , with an this week, Medford City Hall is moving forward with plans to construct a parking garage on Governors Avenue that will likely take a bond to be paid for. Early plans call for the garage to be four stories with between 175 and 200 parking spaces; and early estimates said the garage would cost about $7.5 million.

• STONEHAM—While neither of the proposed Stoneham Middle School sites are a perfect solution, the Stoneham School Building Committee ultimately chose the Central Elementary School location over the Stoneham High School one Monday night. The comittee was split 3-3 on the initial vote to decide the future Middle School site; ultimately, the tie-breaking vote belonged to School Building Committee chairperson Jeanne Craigie. Despite the narrow vote, the committee unanimously voted in favor of the Central School site in a second vote.