MONTAGUE — The Brick House Community Connections Coalition is organizing a community walk and “sensory nature scavenger hunt” on the Turners Falls Bike Path on Earth Day, Friday, April 22.
Interested participants of all ages can meet at the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Avenue A, at 4 p.m. The walk will end back at the center, where attendees will get an exhibit tour and enjoy refreshments.
For more information, contact Brick House Parent & Families Program Director Stacey Langknecht at slangknecht@brickhousecrc.org or 413-800-2496.
MONTAGUE — The Selectboard executed the purchase-and-sale agreement with Nova Real Estate LLC for the former Department of Public Works building at 500 Avenue A during last week’s meeting.
The proposals for the single-story, 11,250-square-foot building included storage and commercial usage ideas from Couture Brothers Inc., New England Wound Care, Nova Real Estate LLC and Powertown Properties LLC. The proposals — which Capital Improvements Committee Chair Gregory Garrison said all met the minimum criteria — were evaluated in six categories by committee members: qualifications, reuse plan, investment strategy, economic benefit, neighborhood benefit and economic availability.
The decision to recommend Nova Real Estate’s proposal over the other three followed Capital Improvements Committee member and Town Administrator Steve Ellis’ presentation of each committee member’s completed ratings for the four proposals at their meeting on Jan. 12.
Garrison said at a Jan. 5 meeting that Nova Real Estate’s proposal was “probably the most complete.” Company co-founder Peter Chilton, praised by meeting attendees for his work revitalizing the current Nova Motorcycles property in 2019, aims to implement “multiple industrial and trade-based businesses” geared toward “gearheads, creative woodworkers and tinkerers.” The facility would be divided into 200- to 2,000-square-foot units with space for an automotive repair shop and rooftop solar panels.
MONTAGUE — The prospect of adding an assistant town administrator was met with mixed opinions from residents during a public discussion last week.
Ellis framed the need to create the new position as a matter of both the Selectboard and himself being overextended. He previously said there are several “executive-level tasks that crosscut across departments” and that an assistant would help shoulder the workload.
“I just want to express my complete and enthusiastic agreement with everything that’s in that Powerpoint,” resident Ariel Elan said of the presentation Ellis gave last week. “I have really observed up close how much effort has to go into every capital improvement project.”
“I definitely think that Steve is a hard worker and a smart guy and a talented guy, and we are lucky in the town of Montague to have him on our payroll,” resident Mike Naughton said. “That said … some of this seems premised on the observation that funding from the state is shifting from what might be called stable programs like Chapter 90 to grant funding. My personal opinion is while that may be true — and this may be a realistic response on the part of the town of Montague to that — it’s a bad public policy decision on the state level. … I think we should push back as a town.”
TURNERS FALLS — A week of activities meant to inspire participants to take care of where we live will be held at the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Avenue A, from April 16 through April 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
Activities include a “What’s Wrong in the Watershed?” scavenger hunt, a spring outdoor bingo game, a “Habitat Habits” memory game and an outdoor StoryWalk reading experience featuring “One Earth” by Eileen Spinelli.
MONTAGUE — The Montague Democratic Town Committee voted earlier this month to endorse the Fair Share Amendment, the proposed state tax on incomes above $1 million that would be invested in transportation and public education.
The Fair Share Amendment, backed by the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition of community organizations, faith-based groups and labor unions, will be on the November 2022 state ballot.
Montague Democratic Town Committee member Ferd Wulkan brought the resolution to the committee, saying that “Montague has numerous structurally deficient bridges and overdue road repair projects and inadequate public transportation. At the same time, tuition and fees at our public colleges are among the highest in the country, forcing students and their families to take on enormous debt to get the credentials needed in today’s economy.”
Committee members expressed their belief that multi-millionaires should pay their fair share toward improving public education and transportation.