Editor’s Note: This week, the Greenfield Recorder begins a series of articles on what residents can likely expect in 2021. This second installment focuses on the North Quabbin towns of Orange, Wendell and New Salem.
The world hopes for a better 2021. And, if all goes according to plan for North Quabbin towns, it will also be a productive one, with construction of a new school set to start and exploration of a new policing model underway.
Elementary school students are learning remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new school building is in the works for them.
A three-story, roughly 50,000-square-foot addition will be built onto Fisher Hill Elementary School, and Dexter Park Innovation School will be demolished. All students will be moved into the expanded and renovated building, which is expected to serve the town’s educational needs for at least 50 years.
Bids on the site work for the elementary school project were due Dec. 22, and a contract was awarded to T&M Equipment Corporation, of Springfield. Orange School Building Committee Chair Bruce Scherer said the work is expected to start in early to mid-January and consist of utilities, retaining walls and a new driveway.
“We are meeting on site on the fourth (of January) — a walk-through, get-to-know-each-other kind of meeting,” Scherer said last week. “And we anticipate work to start shortly thereafter.”
This will be site work, and construction on the new school building is expected to start in the summer.
“It’s nice that we’re actually going to be able to put a shovel in the ground,” he said.
The work is projected to cost $57.6 million, with a $45.7 million construction cost. Orange will contribute $23 million, to be raised through the debt exclusion residents ratified in July. The Massachusetts School Building Authority will cover 80 percent of the project’s eligible costs.
Scherer said Raymond Design Associates is handling the project “from soup to nuts, literally everything from drainage to construction of the building … to computers that are going to be in there, furniture.”
Another big change could be in store for Orange in 2021, with the idea of converting town clerk from an elected position to an appointed one expected to be placed on the warrant for Annual Town Meeting. If it passes then, it will go to a vote at the polls at the next election.
All Selectboard members seem enthusiastic about the idea, with the exception of Alexandre Schwanz, who has argued it would take a significant salary increase to recruit an appointed town clerk, and that the “newly appointed office would be perpetually filled by inexperienced professionals seeking to start their careers and then move on to bigger and better positions.”
This new year will be the first one in nearly four and a half decades that Edward Chase has not been on the Wendell Police Department. But this is only one of the changes coming.
Wendell has entered into an inter-municipal agreement with Leverett for that town to provide its policing services. Wendell has contracted with the Leverett Police Department to respond to calls for service and is now in the middle of a 90-day agreement to experiment with the idea.
Leverett Police Chief Scott Minckler said the towns are in the agreement’s final days, as it ends Jan. 14. The Wendell Police Succession Committee is set to meet again Jan. 11, and Minckler said a new temporary agreement will be discussed.
Minckler said this new agreement will last either another 90 days or until the end of the fiscal year, on June 30.
“It will give us a better amount of time to work out a full agreement,” he said, adding that the towns are making final tweaks to the agreement, which they recently got from their attorneys.
Minckler said there is still a great deal of enthusiasm about this plan.
“We’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from the Wendell residents,” he said. “So far, it’s been a very positive experience.”
The chief said his department has only responded to specific calls for service in Wendell. Starting Jan. 1, however, the department is conducting a few hours of patrols each week.
Minckler said his department has three full-time officers, with the third starting on Jan. 4, and six part-timers. He mentioned Massachusetts State Police troopers respond to calls for service in Wendell when Leverett officers are unavailable.
Jeffrey and Natalie Reynolds have operated a bed-and-breakfast in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a bakery and coffee shop in Orange. But this is their first crack at running a general store, which had previously been under the same ownership since January 1996.
The Reynolds purchased the New Salem General Store at 410 Daniel Shays Highway and its land from Rick and Lori Oliver on June 30, in the middle of the lasting public health crisis.
Jeff Reynolds said the store seems to provide a sense of community and comfort during these troubling times. He said he and Natalie have only added, not subtracted, from the store the Olivers established about a quarter-century ago. The Reynolds expect to sell gourmet chocolates and chocolate-dipped strawberries for Valentine’s Day.
“We’re pretty excited,” Jeff Reynolds said. “Now’s the time we’re going to look at product expansion.”
He said his customers have largely been cooperative and understanding of the mask requirement during the pandemic. He said masks are even at the front counter if customers forget one.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.