If you happen to get a chance to drive through Northfield or even if you live in Northfield, the last thing that you would think is missing is a $14 million public safety building that abuts wetlands. There is talk of merging Northfield Elementary School or even closing it, fewer and fewer students desire to attend Pioneer and instead choose to look elsewhere for their high school education, and what about creating intrigue for anyone going to Northfield to do anything?
When was the last time that you heard anyone say they wanted to go to Northfield and do literally anything? Outside of The Brewery at Four Star Farms and Cameron’s Winery, there is nothing that brings people in (which are fantastic places by the way). When the Northfield Mount Hermon campus was open, people could at least enjoy the fields where kids could play or walk around the beautiful campus, swimming at the pool and sledding in the winter, but thanks to the Select Board continually ostracizing Thomas Aquinas College, there is zero reason for them to open up the campus to the public.
But yes, what’s most important is an 18,000-square-foot hangout for the Police and Fire departments. This would be a nice upgrade to a town on the upswing, but unfortunately Northfield is not. Instead of investing in the school system and creating a curriculum or even a niche academic specialization as the technical school has done so well, it makes the most sense for a massive public safety building for a town refusing to invest in its future or to make Northfield a place where people want to live and grow.
I would much rather see a new gymnasium for the elementary school, a community center, finding ways to keep kids in the district and providing them with the best education available, or even exploring ways to leverage all of the land that Pioneer has and incorporating that into a new facility.
Let the plans for the public safety building just be a sunk cost at this point and make the repairs to the fire station but, in my opinion, this use of funds is not only shortsighted, it ultimately won’t make any difference to residents of Northfield. There is literally no value added for the average resident. Great, they have big conference rooms only available to those departments, but we have greater needs than that.
Rather than put a Band-aid on and act like everything is fine, perhaps Northfield can focus on the larger issues. Northfield needs to be unified in making smart, long-term taxpayer investments that benefit the longevity of the town. So, the next time you take a drive through Northfield, think about all that can be done to improve the town with $14 million.
Robert Bassett lives in Northfield.