Editor’s note: Many media outlets write about the year’s top national and international news stories and newsmakers. As a community newspaper, the Greenfield Recorder chose to focus on local news. The editorial team started with 10 stories but that number grew to 13 — a baker’s dozen. This series began Thursday. This is the last day of the top news stories of 2019, which are presented in no particular order. Look for our choices for Top 10 Newsmakers next week.
SOUTH DEERFIELD — The Channing Bete Co., a publishing company founded in 1954, ceased operations as of June 30.
The first position eliminations came June 24 and most employees were released between June 24 and July 3. Workers were informed of their fate at a company-wide meeting April 9. Two full-time employees and two part-timers remain on payroll to deal with the final matters of accounting and legal findings.
“Lawyers say it could take year,” said company President Michael Bete, grandson of the company’s founder.
Founded by Channing L. Bete Sr., the for-profit company produced booklets, folders, handbooks, presentations and other publications, typically pertaining to public health and wellness. The company could not shake the effects of the 2008 worldwide financial crisis and the advent of the internet and other technologies.
Mike Bete, 60, said it’s been sleepy at the company’s roughly 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility on 40 acres at 1 Community Place in South Deerfield. He said the business is collecting money owed by its former clients and is continuing to pay severance to laid-off workers. Channing Bete was the largest distributor for the American Heart Association, having partnered with the nonprofit organization in 1996. The company lost its AHA contract on June 30, hence the closure date.
Former company President Channing “Joe” Bete Jr., 82, son of the founder, wiped tears from his eyes in April during an exclusive interview with the Greenfield Recorder about the impending closure. He stressed, however, the decision was the proper one.
“My dad and I are doing fine, as best as could be expected,” Michael Bete said this week.
He said 80 percent of the business was owned by employees.
GREENFIELD — Baystate Health announced this year that it plans to close the mental health unit known as East Spoke at Baystate Franklin Medical Center. But the plan for a new mental health facility in Holyoke has hit a speed bump, leaving the future of local mental health care somewhat uncertain.
In February, Baystate Health announced plans to close the mental health units in Greenfield, Westfield and Palmer, and instead create a new mental health facility in Holyoke, which would have 30 percent more space overall. The new facility was presented as a regional solution to aging infrastructure at its hospitals.
Baystate Health’s business partner in this venture was to be US HealthVest, a national for-profit mental health provider.
The restructuring was the subject of local protests, and the Greenfield City Council considered a resolution urging Baystate Health not to close East Spoke, but the resolution has been put on hold for now.
In November, Baystate Health cut its relationship with US HealthVest, after the Seattle Times reported that the company’s model was proven to exploit vulnerable patients. The paper found that, at the Smokey Point Behavioral Hospital in Marysville, Wash., patients who requested to leave were intentionally delayed or intimidated into staying longer.
Baystate Health has not announced a new partner since then. But it does still plan to develop the building it purchased in Holyoke, and still plans to close the mental health units in Greenfield, Westfield and Palmer over the next two years.
BUCKLAND — Members of the Mohawk Trail Regional School community spent much of the spring hosting discussions regarding its Native American mascot and gymnasium mural.
Superintendent Michael A. Buoniconti said the school has made a lot of progress, on two fronts, since the discussions began.
“One is thinking of how to honor the Class of 1978,” Buoniconti said.
The mural, which featured the head of a Plains Indian in a head dress, has been painted over and the school is assembling a display case honoring the 1978 class, which donated the mural. Buoniconti said the school is assembling a display case that will be featured in the hallway outside of the auditorium.
“The case will have a note from the class about the history of the mural, along with a picture of the original mural,” he said.
The second item, Buoniconti said, is creating a new mural. Mohawk Trail Regional School has sought new ideas to replace its mascot and gymnasium mural depicting it. It accepted ideas from any interested party — students, parents, staff or community member.
The school made a change to its logo a few years ago without much fuss, but discussion around removing the gymnasium mural sparked discussion within the community. Alumni, some from the Class of 1978, spoke out against the change, saying they viewed it is a symbol of honor and pride related to their school.
According to Buoniconti, the new mural will be located in the main hall of the building that goes into the high school area, where it will be more visible throughout the day. He said the School Committee will likely award the contract for painting the mural during its Jan. 8 meeting.
Following several months of discussion and multiple public meetings, the School Committee voted in May to remove its Native American mascot, of which there were only a few vestiges remaining: on a stone entrance sign and the mural in the gymnasium. At the same meeting, the committee voted to form a subcommittee that would make a plan to enact the change.
At the end of last school year, the Ad Hoc Mohawk Trail Regional School Art Subcommittee asked the community to weigh in on the replacement painting. Suzanne Crawford, of Hawley, has been leading this subcommittee. Members of each town in the school district were asked to vote on an iconic local symbol or landmark to be included in the mural. Nature will be the main theme of the mural, and will feature the Deerfield River as the “unifying image.”
“We should have both projects completed by the end of the school year,” Buoniconti said.
GREENFIELD — Two labor strikes were in the news this year.
In April, workers at Stop & Shop locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island walked off the job. Negotiations between the company and the United Food and Commercial Workers union had been going on since January, and had come to an impasse over wages, health insurance coverage and pension plans.
There were about 120 unionized workers at the Greenfield Stop & Shop who participated in the strike. Meanwhile, store managers were still at work, and the store remained open.
But the store’s business slowed to a trickle. Striking workers encouraged shoppers to go to other grocery stores instead, and locals were largely supportive of the strike. Foster’s Supermarket noted an increase in business.
Ultimately, the strike lasted 11 days. The union and the company had reached a tentative agreement, and employees went back to work.
Notably, Taunette Greene, one of the union stewards and a Greenfield resident, ran for City Council’s Precinct 3 position in this November’s election. The major qualification she cited was her political experience with the union.
Then in August, unionized workers at the Greenfield Kennametal plant went on strike. The company had proposed a contract that the union said would force overtime, increase workers’ costs for health care and not provide livable wage increases.
It was the first time the workers had gone on strike since 1986. At that time there were about 500 employees; this time there were 65.
The strike lasted three days. The company agreed to continue contract negotiations, and employees returned to work.
COLRAIN — The state Department of Environmental Protection will not comment on the September sulphuric acid leak that killed thousands — potentially tens of thousands — of fish in the North River, as the incident is still under investigation.
However, Kathleen Fournier of the MassDEP’s Western Regional Office, said the department “does not believe there is an ongoing threat to the environment at this time.”
David Slowick, section chief for emergency response for MassDEP, said the leak came from a tank at the Barnhardt Manufacturing Co. at about 3 a.m. on Sept. 1. He described the leak as “not catastrophic” because the acid that dripped from the tank was contained in a holding area. But some spray made contact with the side of the building and dripped down the raceway toward the North River.
Barnhardt manufactures bleached cotton fiber products.
MassDEP and the state Division of Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife responded to the site and conducted testing along the stream. The acid flowed downstream from the plant to where the North River joins the Deerfield River at a spot commonly known as Sunburn Beach. The leak occurred days short of the 20th anniversary of another acid spill in the North River.
Colrain Central School Principal Amy Looman said the fish kill had a profound impact on the school’s students, some of whom live on the river and saw the dead fish. The first-grade class has since taken to raising brook trout, which they’ll release into the North River in the spring.