Editor’s Note: This week we set 2016 behind us while looking ahead into the new year. This is the first in the series.
SHELBURNE FALLS — The old saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same” has been frustratingly true for the Mohawk school district towns that have seen an enrollment drop of 45 percent in the last 15 years while their school assessments are still climbing.
Three times in the last 10 years, diligent study committees have recommended closing one or more district schools to save money: a subcommittee in 2006-2007, the 2014-15 Mohawk Long Range Planning Committee of member town’s officials and now Mohawk’s BEST Committee and the Heath Educational Task Force are working on separate, but parallel tracks to consolidate too-small classrooms without compromising children’s quality of education.
Heath, which fought hard to build its own school more than two decades ago, may find closing that school an emotionally difficult thing in the year ahead. But what may help everyone is that Heath is in the driver’s seat, determining where its children will go to school. Heath will make the first decision on whether to close its school, then the other towns will be asked to approve it.
If Heath closes its school and pays tuition for elementary students, there will be assessment reductions for the member towns and more incentive to go on to plan to move sixth-graders into the middle school and eventually school all the district’s pre-K to Grade 5 children in the Buckland-Shelburne and Sanderson Academy. Also, Rowe may come back as a Mohawk member town if the financial impacts of an assessment, instead of tuition, would benefit both the town and the other Mohawk town assessments. Rowe was a founding member town from the 1960s — back when Mohawk was only a Grade 7 through Grade 12 district — until it was asked to withdraw so that Mohawk would qualify for more state education funding.
Two other parallel tracks — the Massachusetts Rural Schools Association and the Small Towns Summit — were both formed this year and will continue in the new, to fight to correct problems common to small towns and school districts that have no “economies of scale.” Both groups aim to garner legislative support for measures such as rural school aid and equitable “payment in lieu of taxes” when 40 percent or more of town land is state-owned forest land.
Charlemont selectmen started the Small Town Summit at a time when the town was overwhelmed by small, failing bridges. Since the group was formed, the governor has implemented a small bridges grants program to fix bridges less than 20 feet long. Also, with fewer volunteers in some rural ambulance services, a legislative act to allow rural ambulances to respond to calls with only one Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) instead of two could make the difference in the coming year between having a viable, volunteer ambulance service and not having one.
“Hawley and Charlemont are currently pushing for the passage of a law allowing for greater flexibility in staffing ambulance services in communities of under 3,000 residents,” Hawley Selectman Hussain Hamdan said. Hamdan said the bill was filed by Sen. Benjamin Downing and got a favorable report from the Joint House and Senate Committee on Public Health. But Hamdan said the proposal is getting some pushback from the Department of Public Health and unionized professional services in urban areas.
“The current regulations … are unrealistic in small communities with few volunteers and often, unnecessary,” he said. Hamdan said calling in a neighboring ambulance with the requisite two EMTs can add a half-hour or more to critical response time.
“As a resident and first-responder, I can tell you that, in all cases, some kind of response by an ambulance is better than a response by a hearse,” he said.
This year, the village has seen some new shops and said goodbye to some old ones. Ponte, the little eatery near the Iron Bridge, has gone, and the shop is up for lease again, and so is the Village Restaurant. The good news is that Chris King of Mocha Maya’s is working on the space, although he hasn’t announced yet what it will become.
Marjorie Mosher has opened a fiber arts print and dye shop next to the Iron Bridge, and artist Laurie Goddard has opened Echo Gallery at 29 Bridge St.
Zachary Livingston, who purchased Jo-Ann Sherburne’s former frame shop and gallery, is still renovating the building to become a craft brewery, to be called Floodwater Brewing Co. LLC. (The name pays homage to Tropical Storm Irene, which flooded that building.)
Also, no plans have yet been made public about what is to become of the former Sweetheart Restaurant, but a beautiful stone wall and many other improvements are evident. Also, the Blue Rock moved into a renovated space in the Salmon Falls Marketplace this year, making room in its former setting for Underdogs Lounge. Molly Cantor bought the former Swan Building lot and plans to relocate there after she builds a new pottery studio and art gallery.