Brief thoughts on some of the events making news in Franklin County and the North Quabbin area:
Ideally, there would be no need for a needle exchange program in Greenfield. But the reality is different, with the rise in Hepatitis C infection and other health-related issues that threaten intravenous drug users. It’s about reducing the spread of disease but as important, provides another opportunity for drug users to get some help with their addiction from health professionals, which benefits the community at large as well.
Therefore, the Greenfield Board of Health’s recent decision to back a needle exchange here is a step forward, one that the Town Council should support.
We aren’t surprised by the ratings from School Committee members in evaluating Pioneer Valley Regional School Superintendent Ruth Miller. While there were School Committee members who think Miller’s work has been superlative and some who found her performance “unsatisfactory,” overall, a majority of the committee found the first-year superintendent’s performance “proficient,” a 3 on a scale of 4. The bottom line message was that there’s room for improvements, which we presume will focus on students and education.
Pay for it now or pay much more later. That’s the decision facing Montague voters today when it comes to a question of storm drain repair. It is an expensive question no matter which direction voters might go. Even with Eversource kicking in $250,000 to pay for cleaning out the sand that’s collected in a portion of the storm drain in question, Montague still is looking at a bill of roughly double that for its share of the work
But the cost will be much greater if something breaks. Taxpayers may feel like they’re between a rock and a hard place, but the hard place — that of reacting to a breakdown in the storm drain system — is somewhere Montague doesn’t want to go.
We suppose the Deerfield selectmen could have said “no” to the application by New England Patient Network to open a business that will grow and sell medical marijuana.
Instead, the town set conditions in a host agreement that, as the Deerfield police chief pointed out, controls security, makes money and aims at keeping the public safe. New England Patient Network still has to get state approvals, something that may not happen until the end of the year. If and when those approvals come through, Deerfield has helped provide a serious blueprint to make it work.