LEVERETT — Various projects at Leverett Elementary School, such as replacing wireless access points and upgrading the computer system to control heat, are being added to a list of the town’s priority capital needs.
The compilation of projects for both town departments and the school is being submitted to the Franklin Regional Council of Governments following a brief discussion by the Selectboard last Tuesday. Town Administrator Margie McGinnis explained that the regional organization, for a second year, will be scanning for available grants to see if there is anything that can provide financial support for Leverett’s needs.
Many of the items on the list for 2026 are the same as in 2025, such as the entirety of the capital needs, like a tanker truck, and completing an efficiency study of municipal spaces.
Adding the school-related items will broaden the list. In addition to the Wi-Fi and computer system, the school’s requests entail getting a new water heater and resurfacing the gymnasium floor.
Selectboard Chair Patricia Duffy said any amount of money FRCOG can get for the town would be helpful.
In other business at the final meeting of the calendar year, the board announced it will present a $25,000 plan to the Community Preservation Committee at its Jan. 7 meeting to create a new access path from Woodard’s Corner, a 9-acre town conservation parcel in East Leverett, to the Gordon King Life Estate, also known as the Blueberry Patch. This would provide a new way for people to get to the former Christmas tree farm after Town Meeting in November voted against taking land by eminent domain from the Evans’ family, who have installed a gate and no trespassing signs along Shutesbury Road.
The board also heard about vandalism associated with the ongoing Dudleyville Road drainage improvement project, which resumes in the spring. Richard Nathhorst, who lives on that road and serves on the Planning Board, said survey stakes along the road have been pulled out and orange dots to mark trees that will be cut down have been scrubbed off.
“We’re having a little bit of a vandalism problem,” Nathhorst said.
Ludlow Construction Inc. is handling the $1 million in work on a 1.4-mile long section of the gravel road that runs between Moore’s Corner and Shutesbury.
Lastly, the board issued a Class 2 auto license to Clarence Carey of Dudleyville Road for Dewey Auto Sales and an annual license for the Leverett Village Co-op’s operations.