PETERSHAM — For Dracula, it was a wooden stake. For the Wolf Man, it was a silver bullet. Now many residents of Petersham residents are hoping a June 6 special town meeting vote is what dispatches — once and for all — the decades-long saga of the Nichewaug Inn.
Voters approved an article to spend $721,000 for the complete demolition of the former inn and parochial school. The project will be paid for with $100,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) monies and $621,000 in borrowing. The decision to approve the funding, however, did not come until after an amendment to the original article offered from the floor of the meeting had been considered.
Resident Marie Erie asked that, instead of approving the demolition of the entire inn and school complex, voters instead approved spending $723,000 to raze all but the garage and that portion of the structure known as the chapel wing. Her plan also called for using $100,000 in ARPA funds and making up the difference through borrowing.
Erie pointed to a public survey, completed in early 2021, in which 59 percent of respondents expressed support for repurposing the chapel — also known as the music room. She said, “Fifty-six percent supported its use for arts and education. Seventy-one percent supported a senior/community center. Voting on this will give an option to the town that they have never been given.”
Madeline Mosely, objected to the amendment, pointing out that Petersham residents had voted twice to support the complete demolition of the complex.
Speaking in support of the amendment, Stephani Selden argued the chapel “could have a good use as a community center, for art space, senior center, music center.”
“My question,” said Robin Koenig, “is what is it $2,000 more to save the chapel?”
Her amendment, said Erie, was based on an initial bid amount submitted to the town at a Special Town Meeting in December. At that time, three possible strategies were presented to voters, one of which included keeping the chapel intact while razing the rest of the complex.
Speaking in favor of the amendment was Larry Buell.
“While I have been very involved in the Nichewaug issue,” he said, “I am very aware of what’s happening on the planet right now. People need three things. We need community; we have it. We need local food; we have it. We need affordable housing because we have young people coming back to town. We have elderly like me, living in an 11-room house, and I’d love to spend my twilight years on the common. Certain parts of (Nichewaug) are going to have to be taken down, but a very significant portion of that could be retrofitted to affordable housing.”
In response to a question from Allison Nicoletti, Selectboard Chair Nancy Allen said the town had not undertaken a structural analysis of complex. She did say that, in 2006, someone who had expressed interest in purchasing the inn and academy did do an analysis and “as the record shows, they walked away from the property.”
Ann Lewis, who had served as chair of the Nichewaug Inn and Academy Committee, said that panel had urged the Selectboard to “hire a structural engineer to analyze the properties that we were planning to keep. That has not been done. In private conversations, some people have said that parts of that property are fairly easily reusable.”
After more than a half-hour of debate, the amendment was put up for a vote and defeated 103-18. The original article needed a two-thirds majority for passage and easily met that test, 126-10.
Article 5 on the Special Town Meeting warrant, which asked voters to approve a plan to cobble together the funding needed to cover a more than $437,000 deficit in the FY22 budget of the Petersham Center School, was approved unanimously. To erase the red ink, town officials will use $87,569 in free cash, $78,923 from the Board of Assessors Excess Overlay account, a total of $2,200 from the revolving accounts of the Board of Health and Planning Board, and $268,841 from the town’s stabilization fund.
The deficit was created when an oversight at the 2022 annual town meeting resulted in voters approving a $1.2 million FY22 budget for the school, rather than the $1.6 million that had been recommended by school officials, the Selectboard, and the Advisory Finance Committee.
Following the Special Town Meeting, Petersham held its Annual Town Meeting, cruising through 38 articles in just over an hour. Among other things, voters overwhelmingly approved an FY23 town budget of just under $4.8 million, representing an increase of nearly 10 percent from the previous year. Also approved by a solid majority was a proposal to change the official seal and flag of the Commonwealth.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com