Here are brief thoughts on recent happenings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
Northfield was transformed in 2015 by its new, wide, concrete sidewalks along both sides of Main Street, a project spearheaded by Jack Spanbauer during his 17-year leadership on the Selectboard. People now come downtown just to get out and walk, and enjoy events that take advantage of the new sidewalks, such as the weekly summer road races and the Monster Dash Halloween 5K. Now, Northfield is poised to further enhance its livability quotient with the completion of the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan.
With the help of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, Northfield officials identified some 17 transportation-related projects, like new sidewalks on Moody Street and Highland Avenue, pedestrian crosswalks at Maple and Moody streets, streetlights along Moody Street and Winchester Road, and the addition of Franklin County Bikeway signs, to name just a few. If their plan is accepted by the state Department of Transportation, Northfield can apply for up to $400,000 in funding to implement some of the projects outlined in the plan.
Kudos to the Selectboard and town officials for embarking on this multi-year-long project. If successful, construction could start in spring 2021.
Montague Town Administrator Steve Ellis laid out the three options facing Montague — indeed, all towns — for holding an Annual Town Meeting: First, hold the meeting as usual; secondly, hold it in a modified setting, such as a large tent outdoors, to allow for greater distance between voters, and, thirdly, hold a remote meeting via video conferencing.
The first looks unlikely, given the continued restrictions on social gatherings. The second option worked for Hawley, which held a Special Town Meeting outdoors for about 20 voters in the Town Hall parking lot recently. But other towns draw more than a hundred voters to an Annual Town Meeting. That would require a pretty big tent. A bill filed in the state House of Representatives on April 10 lays the groundwork for the third option, remote Town Meeting.
“I foresee massive issues having 82 people, or whatever our number is, trying to ‘Zoom in,’” said Selectboard member Mike Nelson, referring to a popular video conferencing platform.
Selectboards are working hard to figure out their next moves.
It seems like The Recorder is really mining its archives lately — and no one is complaining. There have been influenza pandemic stories from a century ago, an Earth Day editorial from 50 years ago, and sports retrospectives such as the recent story by Sports Editor Jeff LaJoie about the hockey transition from outdoor games on Highland Pond to indoor games at the Collins-Moylan Arena.
Such looks back start with a trip down to the bowels of the Recorder building on Hope Street, flashlight in hand, to wend one’s way through a warren of poorly lit (or not lit at all) rooms whose original uses are lost to time. Here are stored hundreds of bound volumes — some moldy, some fragile — comprising a physical history of The Recorder through all its mastheads, filed haphazardly following a relocation from a third-story vault.
These weighty volumes get lugged upstairs (no elevator, here) for a more leisurely perusal. Part of the appeal of these historical deep dives are the family names contained therein that live on in the memory of present-day readers. That, and the wonderment at things that change and things that remain the same.