HAWLEY — Ashley Harrison is challenging incumbent Hussain Hamdan for a three-year Selectboard position in the only contested race of this year’s election, set for Monday.
Polls will be open from 11:45 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 8 Pudding Hollow Road.
Williams Cosby is running for the one-year Selectboard seat held by Bob Root, who is not seeking re-election.
Additionally, with the resignations of Hawlemont Regional School District School Committee members, three new candidates are seeking election to Hawley’s three School Committee seats.
Hussain Hamdan has served six years on Hawley’s Selectboard, including five as chair, and he said many people have asked him to run again.
“Our town’s government is a good team that works well together,” he wrote in a candidate statement, distributed in the town’s electronic newsletter. “I enjoy engaging with fellow board members, staff, citizens and state officials. I also enjoy being a firefighter/EMT with Hawley’s emergency services, a truly outstanding group of volunteers.”
Hamdan wrote that Hawley has recently experienced significant turnover.
“Our longtime administrative assistant, Cass Nawrocki, retired last year. Fellow selectman, Bob Root, is retiring in May, which means two Selectboard seats are now up for election,” he wrote. “I am thankful to Cass and Bob for their service. I am also aware we are losing a lot of institutional memory at once. My time on the board means I offer continuity. I know the ongoing projects. I know the people at the state and regional levels. I have the institutional memory Hawley needs to move forward smoothly.”
Hamdan also said his legal knowledge as a practicing attorney and his 11 years of service in local government are valuable assets.
Ashley Harrison grew up in Cummington and moved to Hawley 11 years ago. She and her husband purchased his childhood home, in which they are now raising their two daughters.
For the past 12 years, Harrison has worked for construction companies in various roles — including budgeting and purchasing — within their finance teams, and she believes this experience will help the town as it navigates its constantly changing needs.
“I am running for the Selectboard in the hope that I can bring the concerns of the town’s residents to a central forum, in which the Selectboard can work toward a solution that takes into consideration the needs of the town,” Harrison wrote. “I will work to seek alternative and additional solutions to issues we are facing like the continued need to improve infrastructure, such as roads, our schools, and other services within the town and local community … all while working to preserve this small town we all love.”
Williams Cosby’s family has been in Hawley since 1919, when his grandfather, Gordon Parker, bought a woodlot on Forge Hill. The Parker family has built Singing Brook Farm in the years since. Cosby is co-manager of the family’s business of owning rental houses and selling wood products. He and his wife, Lisa, moved to town full-time in 2014.
He said he has volunteered on several boards in his adult life, including on the town’s Conservation Commission since 2014. He currently serves as Hawley’s Green Communities advisor to the Selectboard.
“We successfully made the town net-zero for electric use by acquiring two solar panel systems, one on the Town Garage roof and one at the Fire Station,” he wrote. “We converted the light bulbs to LED in all town buildings, upgraded the wiring in two buildings, added new mini-splits for heating and cooling at the Town Office, added a wood pellet furnace at the Town Garage, and added attic insulation at the Town Office. All of these improvements were at no cost to the taxpayers.”
Cosby is also the core team leader for the Municipal Vulnerability Plan, examining ways the town can reduce its vulnerability to weather-related risks, such as what happened to Hawley during Tropical Storm Irene, which greatly damaged infrastructure.
Ken Bertsch was raised in Michigan, where his father was a public school teacher and his mother was a nurse. He has had a home in Hawley since 1985 and retired to the town in 2020.
Bertsch’s employment had focused on corporate governance and have included roles at financial firms (including TIAA and Morgan Stanley) and investors’ information providers (including Moody’s Investors Service). He also headed two nonprofits, the Council of Institutional Investors and the Society for Corporate Governance).
“I believe that Hawlemont has been a remarkable elementary school for many years, a community asset that we should make every effort to preserve. We are blessed with strong teachers and staff, and unusual attributes including the amazing HAY (Hawlemont, Agriculture and You) program,” he wrote. “I also believe that the elementary school is critical to the vitality of Charlemont and western Franklin County.
Peggy Travers and her husband retired and moved to Hawley from Buckinghamshire, England, five years ago.
“That move marked many changes in our lives and launched our plan to homestead, but for me, it also meant the end of a 36-year full-time career in elementary education,” she wrote. “For six of those years I was in administrative roles, but for all others I was either a classroom teacher or teacher-librarian. My first 14 years were spent in U.S. public schools in Georgia, and once overseas I taught in international schools in both Munich and London.
“All of this may sound like a variety of roles and locations,” she continued, “but teachers and educational leaders everywhere share the same goals and receive the same satisfaction at seeing students thrive.”
Travers said she respects the work of public schools and believes in their mission to meet the academic needs of every child.
“That alone is a huge undertaking because those needs are so varied,” she wrote.
Liz Billings became involved with the Hawlemont community when her daughter started preschool there this year.
“Hearing about the difficulties that the school is facing and my love for its students, teachers and staff, I am running to serve on the Hawlemont School Committee,” she wrote. “As a parent, volunteer and substitute teacher at Hawlemont, I feel serving on the committee is another way I can help guide the future of the school.”
Billings is also running to be elected as town clerk in her own right, having been appointed in December to take over for Pamela Shrimpton, who stepped away following nine years on the job.
“I like the work and have enjoyed meeting my community,” she wrote. “I would really like to continue to serve Hawley as town clerk.”
Ed Brady is running for a three-year term as assessor.
Kirby “Lark” Thwing is the incumbent moderator and though he is not formally running for the position on the ballot, he has indicated he would be happy to be written in, according to the Hawley town newsletter. The same is true for incumbent Auditor Carla Clark.
A vacant three-year seat as a non-parent member of the Hawlemont Local Education Council is up for grabs. Suzanne Crawford is willing to be written in.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-772-0261, ext. 262.