ORANGE — The plan is for the new three-story, roughly 50,000-square-foot addition being built onto Fisher Hill Elementary School to be completed by fall 2022, when the old section of the building will be gutted and remodeled as the second phase of the town’s elementary school project.
Bruce Scherer, chair of the Orange School Building Committee, said 1.4 million pounds of reinforced concrete for the first floor slab were poured in the middle of the month and the third floor, which meshes with the roof of the existing Fisher Hill building, is expected to be finished in February. The second floor will be poured sometime before February.
“Everything is working out very smoothly,” Scherer said. “We’re very happy with J&J Contractors (of Billerica), who won the bid. They’re doing excellent work.”
Dexter Park Innovation School is set to be demolished once the addition is built onto Fisher Hill. All students will be moved into the expanded and renovated building, which is expected to serve the town’s educational needs for at least 50 years. Dexter Park was built in 1951 and the Massachusetts School Building Authority, a quasi-independent government authority, in 2006 designated it a “Category 4” school, its lowest rating. Voters approved funding a feasibility study in 2018 to study the Dexter Park issue and come up with options to repair or replace it.
T&M Equipment Corporation, in Springfield, was awarded a contract last year for the project’s first phase, which includes a new driveway. Necessary blasting and construction of the driveway were finished over the summer.
A Fisher Hill groundbreaking ceremony was held mid-October.
According to Fisher Hill School Construction’s Facebook page, there will be three new playgrounds, each for different age groups, plus a new basketball court a new multipurpose field. Students at Fisher Hill and Dexter Park have an outdoor playground during construction.
Scherer said the school building committee is working closely with state Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol, and state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, to try securing a state grant to have a roof-mounted solar panel project installed at the school to help offset the costs of the building’s electricity and to provide a carbon-free footprint.
Last year, residents voted to ratify a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion override they had passed the previous week in Town Meeting to start the elementary school project. The work was projected to cost a total of $57.6 million, with a $45.7 million construction cost. Orange is to contribute $23 million, to be raised through the debt exclusion.
In other Orange news, the Selectboard is considering appointing a new Armory Commission to examine the building’s maintenance challenges, come up with a cost, and make a recommendation for the building’s future.
Due to poor conditions, the Selectboard voted in October to temporarily relocate the town offices based in the Armory building, and devise short- and long-term leases with the owner of a temporary location at 62 Cheney St.
Town Administrator Gabriele Voelker said town officials conducted an in-depth study of the building at 135 East Main St. Town offices housed in the Armory will temporarily operate out of the rectory of the former Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, which a few years ago gave its facilities to the Mission Covenant Church, one block away, for social and faith-based activities.
The town was thrown a curve ball in November when Alisha Brouillet, who had been hired as town coordinator in mid-July, announced she was stepping down for personal reasons and gave her two weeks’ notice. But the town is now in a verbal agreement with Glenn Johnson-Mussad, a newly elected member of the Greenfield School Committee, who is set to begin Jan. 24.
“I’m just excited about getting involved kind of behind the scenes in what makes a town like Wendell run,” Johnson-Mussad said. “I think it’s a really neat opportunity. I really believe in town government and what town government can offer its citizens and I’m excited about getting in and helping to make things run well.”
Johnson-Mussad, who turns 51 on Dec. 31, lives in Greenfield and works as a race equity consultant. He said he will continue this work as the town coordinator position is a 28-hour-a-week job.
“We’re really looking forward to him,” said Wendell Selectboard Chair Dan Keller, who referred to Johnson-Mussad as “young, bright and enthusiastic.”
Financial Coordinator Douglas Tanner, who is also chair of the town’s Finance Committee, is serving as interim town coordinator in Brouillet’s absence.
“We think Glenn’s a great fit and we’re looking forward to working with him,” Tanner said. He declined to reveal Johnson-Mussad’s impending salary.
The town also plans in 2022 to finalize its towns’ inter-municipal agreement for Leverett to provide policing services in Wendell.
Wendell officials decided it would be more cost-efficient to partner with Leverett when Ed Chase retired in October 2020 after about 42 years as Wendell’s police chief. The towns entered into a contract at that time and have since operated with short-term agreements, with a longer-term deal being worked out.
Leverett Police Chief Scott Minckler said the towns are “waiting on the attorneys to get all the ‘legalese’ done” in regards to the insurance aspects of the agreement.
Minckler said it will be a three-year contract, with a clause for either town to back out with a year’s notice.
He said his officers respond to roughly 40 calls per month in Wendell and he said the partnership is going swimmingly.
“We’ve talked to some residents and they seem to like it,” he said. “There are some people out there who aren’t a fan of police in general.”
Some residents spoke up at a listening session at the Nov. 10 virtual Selectboard meeting to say they are not thrilled about the police presence.
Sally Alley Muffin Stuffin mentioned a reported incident in which a Leverett Police officer allegedly approached a vehicle parked at Wendell Town Offices late at night and intimidated the occupants by shining a flashlight in their eyes. The occupants were in the parking lot to use the building’s wireless internet. Stuffin said the officer should have first shined the light on himself and handled the situation more carefully to avoid frightening the vehicle’s occupants.
Minckler, who attended the listening session, responded by saying that this is standard procedure in Leverett and the officer was simply investigating the presence of a parked vehicle at a town building after normal business hours. He said his officers will, in the future, be more mindful that people drive to certain locations in Wendell for internet access and cellphone signals.
Resident Court Dorsey said he does not believe townspeople should feel a police presence. But this sentiment was not shared by all. Christine Heard, Jenny Gross and Anna Seeger voiced support for police presence.
Keller said the partnership has been working out very well.
Minckler told the Greenfield Recorder the towns are finishing up a lease agreement on the Wendell Police Station at 4 Center St., which his officers will use as a satellite office.
A five-member search committee has been assembled to select a replacement for Diana Smith, who on Sept. 30 retired as the New Salem Public Library director after 23 years.
Library Trustee Eli MacCullagh, Selectboard member Hugh MacKay, library staffer Sue Dunbar, resident Jennifer Bamford, and Betsy Bergantino, a member of the Friends of New Salem Public Library were named to the committee this month. Interim Director Linda Chatfield said she expects Smith’s replacement to be selected in the next two to three months.
“Things have been going very well and, actually, every once in a while I check in with Diana about some things we’re doing,” Chatfield said, adding that she doesn’t want to interrupt Smith’s retirement. “The community … (has) been very positive with me and they seem to think I’m doing a good job as the acting library director. And I’m very pleased to know that.”
Chatfield mentioned she moved to New Salem in 2013 and started at the library as a volunteer before leaving when her employer, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, made her full-time. She rejoined the library in January 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. She told the Greenfield Recorder she was the director of the Woods Memorial Library in Barre from 1994 to 1999.
She said a Zoom presentation about the blizzard of 1978 is planned for early February.
Smith grew up in California and majored in clothing and textiles at San Francisco State University and worked in that industry after she graduated. She and husband Chris Smith moved to Massachusetts decades ago to study macrobiotics with Michio Kushi, who helped popularize within the United States the diet based on the Japanese cosmological principles of yin and yang that consists of whole cereals and grains supplemented with beans and vegetables. They eventually moved to Wendell.
Smith had said she worked in a library in high school and worked a few hours a week at the Wendell Free Library before learning of the job opening in New Salem. To become a library director without a master’s degree in library science, she said, she had to take four courses in five years for certification.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.