Council President to offer annual address at Jan. 7 meeting

By Adam Swift

The Winthrop Town Council will hold its first meeting of the new year on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the Harvey Hearing at Town Hall. During the meeting, Town Council President Jim Letterie will give the annual State of the Town Address. For Letterie, it will be his fourth address to the town as council president. It will also mark the beginning of Letterie’s 20th year serving on the council. During the address, Letterie said he expects to talk about some of the big issues that will come before the council in 2025. “We will absolutely be touching on the firehouse debt exclusion, the school override, the middle school site,” said Letterie.

“We will be talking about flooding issues on Morton Street, Girdlestone, Tilestone, and Pico. I think those are the major points that we will be discussing over the next several months.” While the past year saw its share of challenges, Letterie said there is plenty that makes Winthrop a special community. “I drive a lot, I drive through a lot of the other cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, and I’m just so happy to be part of this community,” said Letterie.

“We discuss a lot of items in and out of the town and a lot of people get upset, but you drive around this town and it is just so beautiful. The infrastructure is in pretty good shape, the shoreline is just magnificent, our proximity to Boston, although the traffic is more than we would like, it is still a pretty short ride to get in and out of the airport. “It’s just a special place to live, you have all of the beauty and amenities of a small, quaint town, yet you have the geographic flexibility to be in the city so quickly.” Letterie said the amount of discussion generated by the issues in the town also shows that its residents genuinely care about Winthrop and what happens to it.