2. Size
Middleborough is the second largest town in the Commonwealth at over 72 square miles. (Plymouth has 103 sq mi.)
3. Population
22,207 is the 2007 estimate from the Town Clerk.
2000 census was 19.941.
1990 17,867
1980 16,404
1970 13,607
96% white
51% female
55% married
20% college degree or higher
median household income $59.7K (just above state average)
24% below poverty line
5.7% unemployed
median house value $310K (well below state average)
pop density 319 per sq mi.
14,519 registered voters. 22% Democrat, 15% Republican, 62% unenrolled.
4. Legislative Representation
Middleborough is divided into 6 precincts. the northern two (1 and 5) are in the 12th Plymouth district represented by Tom Calter (D-Kingston). The middle two (downtown; 2 and 4) districts are in the 12th Bristol represented by Steve Canessa (D-New Bedford). The southern two (3 and 6) are part of the 10th Bristol, represented by Bill Straus (D-Mattapoisett).
Middleborough is on the eastern end of the 1st Plymouth and Bristol Senate district represented by Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton).
Middleborough is in the southern tail section of the gerrymander that is the 4th congressional district represented by Barney Frank (D-Newton).
5. Media
Middleborough is served by the weekly Middleborough Gazette, which chronicles news and events in Middleborough and Lakeville. The Gazette is part of the Hathaway publishing family (Standard Times).
From a daily major perspective, there is little coverage of Middleborough in any of the surrounding major newspapers as in every case it is outside of or at the edge of their coverage base (Enterprise (Brockton) , Old Colony Memorial (Plymouth; no longer daily), Taunton Daily Gazette, Standard-Times (New Bedford), Patriot Ledger(Quincy).
Middleborough has no local radio station, the last one signing off a decade ago.
Middleborough is served by Comcast cable and shares its local system with Lakeville, Freetown, and Berkeley.
6. Business infrastructure
Middleborough is home to the Cranberry Country Chamber of Commerce, which boasts roughly 350 businesses in Middleborough, Lakeville, and 7 surrounding communities. Each of those seven is also “claimed” as territory by a neighboring Chamber.
Middleborough has no hospitals (regardless of the map on the Enterprise’s Casino Watch page)
Middleborough has no major retail and no department stores. Rich’s went out of business over a decade ago and the store still stands empty. There is a small Stop & Shop and small Hannaford (each as compared to the usual store of that chain). There is a CVS, a Brooks (now RiteAid), an AutoZone, a Benny’s, an Ocean State Job Lot.
Middleborough shares the corporate headquarters of Ocean Spray with Lakeville. Middleborough has corporate parks hosting New England Sportswear, Chrsitmas Tree Shops warehouse and future? headquarters, Champion Exposition, Sager Eelctronics, Butler Automation, Serta Mattress, Brookfield Engineering; a Pavestone regional manufacturing plant; old time businesses like Louis M Gerson and Alden Shoe.
Agriculture is a major industry with acres and acres of cranberry bogs. There is one remaining dairy farm, no remaining egg farms, numerous horse farms.
Middleborough has a municipal electric and gas utility and town water and wastewater enterprise systems.
Middleborough shares the terminus of the Middleborough/Lakeville commuter line that runs into South Station.
Total commercial tax revenue is $3.5 million.
7. Education
Middleborough has no colleges.
Middleborough has a full public school system with over 3700 students K-12
8. Government and Politics (opinion warning)
Middleborough tends to be conservative, and voters in the town preferred Bush over Kerry in ’04 and Healey over Patrick in ’06.
Selectmen are Adam Bond (D), Marsha Brunelle (U), Steve Spataro (U), Pat Rogers (R), Wayne Perkins (R).
Middleborough’s long time Town Manager Jack Healey just retired. Jack had a very strong management style and a prominent agenda.
Middleborough’s Finance Committee tends to be ignored by everyone and frequently has fewer than the seven members that are supposed to comprise it.
why do the residents want to ruin it?
Strangely enough, Middleborough’s hometown paper does not use the “ugh,” and hasn’t in my memory — even when it was locally owned.
What has changed in Middleboro to necessitate alternative revenue sources?
First: costs of (a) providing basic local services plus unfunded state mandates that grow at well in excess of (b) 2-1/2 percent per year.
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Then: The gaping failure of the state to make up the difference between (a) and (b) since 1990.
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You can blame the people of Middleborough, I guess, but that seems like blaming the victims to me.
The one piece of information that still seems to be a matter of dispute wasn’t addressed: Is or isn’t it difficult to find the Honey Dew Donuts?
I went there yesterday and got a mocha madness. It pretty much made my day.
Here’s your definitive answer: It’s easy. It’s right next to Benny’s, and kind of diagonally across the street from the post office. But let’s not make it sound like some sort of local institution … it only popped up in the past few years. I’m sorry to say that I can’t remember what was there before.
It had been a Honey Dew for many years, but a few years back, the owner’s dropped the franchise and it became “Valentine’s. Coffee House” Apparently that failed and it became a Honey Dew again under different ownership (it may be corporate and not franchised now). Honey Dew tends to have a distinct political flavor to its regulars and conversations. It is also the closest coffee shop to Town Hall and the Town Office building. The Dunkin’ Donuts are more commuter oriented in their locations. The Post Office is the “big draw” to downtown, so location across from that is ideal, particularly when it is time for nomination papers and shaking hands and kissing babies.
One more question: what do citizens of Middleborough call themselves: Middleboroughians, Middleburgians, Middleburghers, perhaps even Middleburgers?
and never received a good answer. I like the more quixotic versions: Middlebudlians; Middleborovians; Middleborovites; Middleboronians.
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I think I have heard the name “Middleboro-ans” used, but don’t ask me to spell it.
Middleborough is also home to the 800-lb gorilla in the corner of Town Meeting. Oak Point is an 1150-unit home adult active over 55 manufactured home community located in North Middleborough, 3 miles north of the casino project site. In recent Town Meetings, Oak Point proprietor Gary Darman (Saxon Partners Real Estate) has been busing residents to meetings and elections. Imagine if they decided they wanted to run the town…
I have to say, I got a good giggle out of all these promises that “future mitigation will be handled in town meeting” as if that matters.
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Town meeting and town elections are essentially unregulated by finance law. In our last town meeting, the development of Oak Point flooded the area and had its way on the two articles on which people voted.
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How do you think it will be once the casino opens? If town meeting is subject to the whims of Oak Point, do you think the casino will have any trouble pushing all their employees to the meeting, organizing them to vote for the “correct” selectmen, and voting the “correct” way on referendums. While it’s true that not every Middleborovian (and yes, that’s just the fanciful term I like to use…though I’m increasingly referring to this town as “Slotburg”) will owe their jobs to the casino, a large number of them will. Enough to drown out the fraction of interested residents.
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I keep thinking of Potterville from It’s a Wonderful Life…
… for Middleborough to switch to a representative (elected) town meeting.
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FWIW, we had double sessions in the Middleborough schools for years back in the 1960s and ’70s because the anti-tax folks packed town meeting and voted “no” every time there was a plan to build a new high school. It finally passed, and opened in 1971 or so.
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So Middleborough probably should have switched to a representative town meeting 40 years ago!
Shameless plug.
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Middleboro is also home to Twice Upon a Time, a buy/sell bookstore opened a few years ago.
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http://www.twiceupon…
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It was a dream enterprise for the owner who deserves applause for taking the risk of opening her own business with modest means and growing children.
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Anyone on this site should love reading. And now that they have detailed directions to Middleboro they should venture over to Twice Upon A Time to buy a book for themselves or someone they care about.
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DISCLAIMER: No, I don’t own the store. It’s a cousin of my wife. I don’t get a cut of profits and don’t ask for or receive a discount or commision. I give her all the books I can’t fit in my house anymore.
from the Post Office that’s across from the Honey Dew, for those of you keeping score.