Here are some brief thoughts on events making news from around Franklin County and the North Quabbin area:
Twelve Franklin County students were recognized last week for their efforts to make the world a more peaceful and kinder place.
The 18th annual Peacemaker Awards highlighted the efforts of students from grades 8 through 12 to better their communities. The awards are sponsored by the Interfaith Council of Franklin County and the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice.
At an event honoring the students, outgoing Greenfield Community College President Bob Pura, who received an honorary award, said “I think to make peace, one must have a core of understanding … and I think at the core of understanding is a brighter light of love.”
It has been nice over the years to see these awards recognizing and encouraging efforts toward peace and friendship, and even nicer in these days when our national political leaders seem all too ready to fuel, pander or acquiesce to feelings of hate and enmity.
We were glad to see that Rowe’s voters have more common sense than to adopt a bylaw that would have required a Selectboard permit to throw a backyard graduation or wedding party.
Town Meeting voters nixed the proposal that would have applied to any gathering of 30 or more people on private property.
Selectman Chuck Sokol had proposed the idea as a means of preventing conflicts in town regarding noise complaints. By the time Town Meeting rolled around, Sokol, to his credit, proposed tabling the issue because of residents’ concerns.
But opponents wanted to see it defeated. And they were right. Having a bylaw to control noise complaints is one thing but the party permit plan smacked of Big Brother, as Ramone Sanchez said, adding “It’s like a rabid coyote. It ought to be put down.”
Playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, director of the Shantigar Foundation for theater arts and healing, alluding to his family’s flight from Belgium during the Holocaust when he was a child, said, “We came to Rowe for freedom. The idea of having to get a permit to play music is fascistic.”
Time to celebrate our freedoms. Party anyone?
Greenfield police may be getting cruiser cameras. We agree with Police Chief Robert Haigh who hopes the cameras will increase accountability and safety of officers.
The $120,000 is in the police spending request the Town Council will consider this week. We hope it’s approved.
The cameras would be installed in 10 marked cruisers and inside the booking and interview rooms at the police station. In the vehicles, the cameras will begin recording seconds before cruiser blue lights are turned on and will continue until seconds after the lights are turned off.
It will be interesting to see if the Greenfield School Department can persuade the City Council to give it $400,000 more than the mayor has proposed for next school year.
City Council’s Ways and Means Committee recommended Mayor William Martin’s proposed budget of $48,810,304, a 1.34 percent increase. But that was before the school request surfaced. Martin’s budget has an increase of $170,180 for schools.
So the debate, if there is one, will take place as the City Council takes up the budget on Wednesday. School board members say the money will make certain the department will not have to cut services.
Northfielders have settled on a design for a new pedestrian Schell Bridge.
They chose from among three options the one that people felt was not only more attractive to observers, but allowed better observation of the Connecticut River watershed from the bridge itself.
The new Schell Bridge will link the east and west sides of Northfield across the Connecticut on the site of a vehicle bridge that has been closed since 1985.
Townspeople have been working doggedly for decades to restore a span at that location, to link area recreational features like hiking trails, bicycling routes and picnic areas.
Persistence has paid off. Now we just have to wait a few more years, as the project works its way up the state’s construction priority list.