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Public Works

The Ambiguous Landfill Vote—What’s Next?

by Mary Serreze | Jan 31, 2010 2:24 pm | Comments (0)

Confused about the Board of Public Works’ ambiguous resolution on the landfill expansion question? You’re not alone.

Even the venerable Daily Hampshire Gazette got it wrong in its headline announcing “BPW Backs Expansion of Northampton Landfill; Council Will Vote.” (Compare the Gazette story with that run in the Republican. — were reporters Owen Boss and Fred Contrada even at the same meeting?)

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BPW Votes to Hold Off on Landfill Expansion Application

by Mary Serreze | Jan 27, 2010 9:18 pm | Comments (0)

On Wednesday night after a turbulent public comment session, the Board of Public Works voted to hold off on issuing a special permit application for the expansion of the city’s regional landfill on Glendale Road.

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Historic Votes Expected at BPW Meeting Tonight

by Mary Serreze | Jan 27, 2010 11:18 am | Comments (0)

The Northampton Board of Public Works (BPW), in anticipation of a big crowd, will hold its biweekly meeting tonight at the JFK Middle School cafeteria at 5:30 p.m.

Two discussions and possible motions are on tonight’s agenda—one having to do with a major expansion of the city’s regional landfill on Glendale Road, and the other with the fate of the historic Upper Roberts Meadow Reservoir and Chesterfield Road Dam.

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Coke Plant Expansion: Can the City’s Infrastructure Take It?

by Mary Serreze | Jan 18, 2010 7:03 pm | Comments (1)

A proposed expansion of Northampton’s Coca-Cola bottling plant will greatly increase biological oxygen demand (BOD) loading at the city’s wastewater treatment plant and draw an additional 400,000 gallons of tap water per day, according to Department of Public Works director Edward “Ned” Huntley.

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Purple Bags and the Strong Arm of the Law

by Mary Serreze | Jan 7, 2010 10:56 pm | Comments (1)

We started seeing them in Northampton neighborhoods last fall—the purple plastic bags. The bags contain an advertising supplement distributed by The Springfield Republican. Problem is, the distribution has been willy-nilly. The bags seem to have been shot from a roving potato gun. The bags are everywhere—in the street, on sidewalks, in driveways, peeking out of old snowbanks, and embedded in the dirt beneath foundation plantings.

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Creative Problem-Solving as 2009 Rolls to a Close

by Mary Serreze | Dec 23, 2009 2:39 pm | Comments (0)

As 2009 rolls to a close, the city of Northampton is once again mired in controversy. Virtuous locavores and sports-minded soccer parents are battling over the best use of the 47-acre former Bean Farm property in Florence, which, by the way, the city doesn’t even own. Organic agriculture of playing fields? Dueling petitions are circulating, and harsh words have been exchanged.

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BPW Takes Emergency Measures to Retire Landfill Debt

by Mary Serreze | Dec 6, 2009 12:40 pm | Comments (0)

Solid Waste Enterprise Fund: $1.2 Million Gap from Northampton Media on Vimeo.

(hour-long video, give it time to buffer. Clipped from video shot by Mimi Odgers for the North Street Neighborhood Association.)

Bag fees will double for Northampton residents who use the transfer station, a cell phone tower lease will be sold for a lump sum, and the city will be asked to take a 50% reduction in its host community fee under a plan approved on December 2 by the Board of Public Works (BPW). The Board, at its next meeting, will also discuss the option of reducing the volume discount that it offers large commercial haulers at the municipal landfill on Glendale Road.

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Amendment of Kollmorgen TIF on City Council Agenda

by Mary Serreze | Dec 2, 2009 9:44 am | Comments (0)

On Tuesday afternoon, city economic development director Teri Anderson called an “emergency meeting” of the City Council’s Economic Development, Housing, and Land Use (EDHLU) committee. The issue? The status of a 5-year, 5% Tax Increment Financing (TIF) arrangement promised to Kollmorgen Electro-Optical, the defense contractor building a new $18 million, 40,000 square-foot headquarters complex on Northampton’s Village Hill.

(Dann Vasquez’ Scrapbook Blog. )

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BPW Wants Numbers on Landfill Closure Plan

by Mary Serreze | Nov 29, 2009 8:42 pm | Comments (2)

The Board of Public Works, after a discussion of landfill-related topics at its November 18 meeting, asked DPW chief Ned Huntley to provide information on the ability of the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund to meet all of its outstanding obligations by the time the landfill closes in 2011.

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BPW Approves More $$ For Legal Battle with Ameresco

by Mary Serreze | Nov 28, 2009 11:16 am | Comments (0)

What’s up with the legal battle surrounding the Ameresco gas-to-energy plant at the landfill? In this seven-minute video, the Board of Public Works reluctantly agrees to devote more money to the DPW’s bid to collect $150,000 from Ameresco, which it says it is owed in the form of “milestone payments.”

(Video shot by Mimi Odgers. Entire BPW meeting can be viewed at the blip.tv station maintained by the North Street Neighborhood Association.)

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Ed Shanahan: So Stimulating

by Guest Columnist | Nov 25, 2009 7:57 pm | Comments (0)

So Stimulating:

Put the Road Builders to Work, But First Cut Down the Tall Trees

This article originally appeared in Edward Shanahan’s weblog, www.downstreet.net.

There is a good deal of debate over how successful the federal “stimulus” program has been in terms of creating jobs by undertaking various public works and other civic projects.

Which brings us, of course, to the construction of an expanded sidewalk as well the addition of a new access ramp from and to the existing bike trail at Jackson Street.

We don’t know how many jobs this project is creating, but it certainly is stimulating the rearrangement of the landscape. I recently read about the earlier work of the CCC during the Great Depression, and one of its greatest legacies was to plant—rather than remove— millions and millions of trees.

If I were Daniel Polachek and family whose house, front lawn, and a large stand of nearly 60-year-old blue spruce trees are feeling the effect of the construction, I’d feel pretty much as if I was under assault.

But in talking to Dan recently, I got the impression he is reconciled to the inevitable, although not entirely happy with what is going on in front of his home. Given the federal and state nature of the road project, whatever land and countless trees had to go to make way for the widening project, so be it. He said he did not get much sympathy about his plight in response to his calls to his city councilor and the mayor’s office. That bugs him a little.

The 10-foot-wide sidewalk being built in front of his house is gobbling up a good deal of frontage, and in some sections actually causing a narrowing of the Jackson Street roadway by about a foot, which could create future traffic bottleneck for an already heavily traveled, narrow street.

Meanwhile, Dan has been able to prevent the cutting of the remaining towering spruce trees, also originally planted by his father-in-law John Gare, in 1951, along the frontage from his home to Barrett Street. Anticipating the recent loss of so many of the other mature trees, he has planted a total of 500 tiny spruce seedlings in his side yard. In time, perhaps several years, they should be ready to transplant along the frontage of his property and eventually will provide excellent protective cover from Jackson Street traffic for his home, perhaps sometime by 2030 or 2040.

Dan and his family should be around to enjoy them then, although some of us who value old growth trees will be long gone.

-Edward Shanahan

-Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Hampshire Gazette from 1971 to 1986, Shanahan has worked as reporter and editor at the Berkshire Eagle, Congressional Quarterly, the Winston Salem Journal, the Detroit Free Press, the Quincy Patriot Ledger and the Torrington Register Citizen. In 1990, he and his wife opened a bookstore , which they ran for fourteen years. Shanahan posts at www.downstreet.net, a web journal that he founded in 2003.

Exit 19 Traffic Engineers Visit Northampton; Provide Update

by Mary Serreze | Nov 21, 2009 11:06 am | Comments (0)

Video by Lachlan Zeigler. Posted to North Street Neighborhood Association BlipTV Channel.

Exit 19 PAC Meeting 11-16 Full Video

by Mary Serreze | Nov 20, 2009 10:42 am | Comments (0)

Ward One Sewer Backups: Promises, Promises

by Mary Serreze | Nov 17, 2009 9:51 am | Comments (0)

Ward One City Councilor Maureen Carney called a neighborhood meeting last night to air questions and concerns about chronic sewer backups in the areas around Gleason Road, Jackson Street and Prospect Avenue.

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City Offered Half a Million for Landill Cell Phone Tower Lease

by Mary Serreze | Nov 8, 2009 10:02 am | Comments (1)

American Towers has offered the City of Northampton $509,000 to purchase a perpetual (lifetime) lease for its cell phone tower installation located at the municipal landfill. If the City stays with the current lease arrangement, American Towers will pay $773,180.70 on its current lease until 2020.

DPW Chief Ned Huntley told the Board of Public Works at its October 14 meeting that accepting half a million dollars now would help the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund with this year’s budget crunch, attributable in part to a $1.2 million dollar landfill-related lawsuit settlement under which the city purchased two properties, but that accepting the buyout would result in a long-term loss.

The Solid Waste Enterprise Fund currently garners $25,000 yearly from the lease arrangement.

BPW Chair Terry Culhane recommended holding off on this vote until the Board makes its decision on whether to advance a special permit for the landfill expansion. Huntley told the Board that American Towers needs a decision prior to the end of 2009. The Board agreed to review this subject again in November.

Voters resoundingly opposed expanding the city’s landfill in last week’s municipal election.

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