BERNARDSTON — Implementing the first phase of Bernardston’s Master Plan — in which zoning, community outreach and infrastructure projects chosen by residents will be incorporated into the work of the town’s boards and committees — will begin over the next few months.
On Wednesday, Master Plan Implementation Committee Chairman John Lepore appraised the Selectboard of his committee’s intentions to “work with the various town committees in a very supportive way, not in a regulatory way.”
“(We want to see) things they’re working on, to see how we can interface with those rather than say, ‘Push all your things aside and listen to us,’” Lepore said. “We don’t want to be that way. We want to work with them, to tap them on the shoulder periodically and say, ‘We want to keep this moving. This is what we want to accomplish in five years.’”
Selectman Stanley Garland was not at the meeting, but Bob Raymond and Brian Keir expressed their support of the Master Plan Implementation Committee’s work, also noting the importance of Bernardston’s water system to the successful implementation of the town’s goals.
“This is definitely an issue in the center of town,” Keir said. “There’s not many residents that don’t realize that. There’s not many that have never seen Cushman Park flood.”
On the warrant for Town Meeting, on June 6, 7 p.m. at Pioneer Valley Regional School, is an article to fund a thorough hydrology study of Bernardston. The town’s money will be combined with a grant from the Franklin Regional Council of Governments to pay for the study. The warrant article is supported by the Selectboard and the Finance Committee.
The information from the hydrology study will influence the implementation of the Master Plan’s goals. Of the 18 goals that residents ranked in order of importance, one of the highest ranked was to investigate shared ownership strategies for septic systems and to educate residents on alternative systems. Although multiple septic systems in central Bernardston have failed in recent years, the town does not have the necessary data to determine that the failures were caused by flooding. The hydrology study would clarify that.
“I think the big accomplishment I heard from this (community feedback) was, it’s not just a center village issue,” Lepore said. “The town sees it as, this is our center village. The people that don’t live there see that. That’s a huge step.”