NORTHFIELD — In an effort to strengthen the town’s economy, the Selectboard has formed a new Economic Development Advisory Board.
The advisory board held its first meeting on Thursday and will meet biweekly, according to Selectboard member Sarah Kerns, who was elected as chair of the Economic Development Advisory Board. The other members are: Grant Development Director Mallory Sullivan, who was hired in October 2022; Steve Stoia, co-founder of the Northfield Area Tourism and Business Association who owns the Centennial House Bed & Breakfast with his wife Joan; artisan Virginia “Jinx” Hastings; Nohham Cachat-Schilling, whose background includes work in rural economic development, and sales and marketing, as well as involvement on interagency committees that focus on regional development projects; and Robin van der Maat, who Kerns said is “working on starting a new business.”
When reached by phone following their first meeting, Kerns described the board as a “collaborative group” with “diverse experience.”
“This really represents an amplification of our skills,” Kerns said.
Her own background is in biochemistry, data sciences and conservation.
Kerns said the members shared their skills, interests and “what they want to pursue” during their first meeting before deciding to create a Northfield business directory. She said the list will ensure the board understands “what Northfield needs, what our current resources are explicitly and where the citizens want to go.”
Kerns said her goal as chair includes strengthening Northfield’s economy while preserving its character.
“I think of Northfield as a real gem of natural beauty or rural, bucolic beauty,” she said. “What I would love to do is increase our income as a community and our economic footprint without destroying those things that make us special.”
When reached by phone on Thursday, Stoia said he joined the advisory board to help the town recover from the consolidation of Northfield Mount Hermon School.
The school began as two separate institutions, the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies and the Mount Hermon School for Boys, but the campuses became a coeducational preparatory high school and consolidated to its Mount Hermon Campus in Gill in September 2005. The consolidation left the Northfield campus vacant for 12 years until The Moody Center and Thomas Aquinas College gained ownership in 2017.
“Over time, the number of businesses in town began to feel the pinch of losing, how can I say this, 650 grandparents and parents taking care of their kids in boarding school,” Stoia explained. “Basically, it was an economic blow to lose that economic engine and it just continued and continued and continued.”
Stoia said Thomas Aquinas College “did everything right” for the town since its arrival, but the economic aftermath of the pandemic lingers.
“There were casualties of businesses, particularly restaurants, and we haven’t really recovered yet,” Stoia said, “so the idea is to put economic development on the front burner for the town.”
Stoia said growing Northfield into a tourist destination is one approach to invigorating its economy.
“We’re a B&B, and we’re constantly sitting and talking with our guests about what they want to see in the area,” he said. “Because we’re such a small town, we often send them back in their car some distance away.”
According to Stoia, the Economic Development Advisory Board is “going to be a major endeavor and will take a couple years or more.”
The Selectboard, when voting on the advisory board’s formation, passed the motion for the board to start immediately, with dissenting votes from Barbara “Bee” Jacque and Selectboard Chair Alex Meisner.
Both members advocated for postponing its formation until the fall.
Town Administrator Andrea Llamas advised the postponement for the Selectboard to establish a “representative, larger” Economic Development Advisory Board beyond the current six members.
Stoia, who also attended the Selectboard meeting, attributed the small number of people interested in the advisory board to the town’s 350th anniversary events.
“These are your involved citizens, these are the people you want, but they’re busy right now having a birthday party,” Stoia said, referring to the residents who are responsible for planning the anniversary festivities. “Some of them have economic development in their veins.”
Llamas and Jacque also claimed that waiting until fall would allow the Selectboard to streamline the focus of the Economic Development Advisory Board, with Llamas mentioning that the attendees of a rural development planning session “discussed how difficult actually defining ‘economic development’ in small and rural towns can be.”
“It’s not as simple as you think,” Llamas said.
According to Llamas, the Selectboard also expects to hear back about several grants in the fall that could support the advisory board’s efforts.
She argued that setting the goals and objectives of the advisory board before hearing back about these grants would be “premature.”
Kerns disagreed, however, stating that the advisory board should begin immediately.
Hastings, who also attended the Selectboard meeting, echoed Kerns’ sentiments.
“I think you’re going about it all wrong,” Hastings said. “I think a lot of times when you do these grants, they’re from the outside in and they really don’t represent the people.”
After the Selectboard voted to have the Economic Development Advisory Board start immediately, Selectboard member Heath Cummings added he feels that even a partial committee would “have a better chance of coming up with ideas and recruiting more people down the road.”
“I know Mr. Stoia’s ability to get out there and motivate the public,” Cummings said. “I’m sure he’s going to have a band of people behind him by the time fall comes around.”
