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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
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not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” — Mahatma Gandhi
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2014
VOL. 83 NO. 274
“Strength does
75 cents
Residents protest Congamond Road sidewalks
Paper Mill Elementary School fifth grade students, Kaitlin Price, Antonio Phaneuf, Shea Byrnes, Cole Davignon, Jimmy Krupiensk and Angela Bongiovanni deliver a push cart full of food to a waiting van from the Westfield Soup Kitchen during a school-wide food collection drive yesterday. The month-long collected netted 630 food items. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Sophia Roselli, Sophia Franco and Abby Menzel, fifth grades in Kristen Callini’s class at Southampton Road School, pack up some of the more than 900 food items their class collected throughout the school during the past two weeks. The food was donated to the Westfield Food Pantry. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
Soup kitchen ready for Thanksgiving dinner By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Westfield Soup Kitchen is preparing to host it’s annual Thanksgiving dinner at it’s Meadow Street location on Thursday. According to Edward Fournier of the organization’s Board of Directors, the Thanksgiving meal will be held at noon instead of the usual 5 p.m. “We put on a meal every night except Saturday all year long,” he said, adding that the meals are put on by volunteers. “I’ve put up a sheet toward the end of September, early October on the wall here for people to sign up and come in to volunteer.” Fournier said that, over the past week and a half, the sheet has been filled with names, to the point that he doesn’t need any more help putting on the Thanksgiving feast. “We’ve got people coming in Wednesday night at 6 to come in and set up the tables and peel the vegetables,” he said. “Thanksgiving morning, I have people coming in at about 10 to get the hors d’oeuvres table set up with the mashed potatoes and vegetables. Then we have people coming in at 11:30 to work on the serving line.” “We’ll need about five or six turkeys cooked up, so we’ll have people to do that,” he said. “And then we’ll make the gravy out of the meat and the dressing.” Fournier added that the Soup Kitchen
By Hope E. Tremblay Staff Writer SOUTHWICK – Residents of the Congamond Road neighborhood gathered at Town Hall Wednesday night and the majority spoke out against the addition of sidewalks to a proposed road project. A representative from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Tighe and Bond Vice President David Loring, and Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown made a short presentation on the state project and fielded questions from the audience. The scope of the project includes widening Congamond Road from College Highway to the Connecticut border to 32 feet. “Right now, it comes to about 26 feet,” said Brown. Other work includes improving a curve, adding a dry sewer line, improving the storm drain system, and shaving a hill to create a better sight line. The focus of the meeting was to let residents weigh-in on the inclusion of sidewalks, which are set to run the length of Congamond Road on the south side of the street only. Loring said the sidewalks would be five-feet wide and have a grass buffer of more than four feet to the street. “We don’t need any land takings for the sidewalks, but we’re looking for a little bit of land easements,” Loring said. MassDOT requires the sidewalk in order to approve and fund it. A resident asked if sidewalks were necessary for the entire length of the road. Brown said they were, and that a request for an exception was already made to have southside sidewalks only rather than sidewalks on both sides of the street, which is what MassDOT normally requires. “If we don’t meet the MassDOT policy or have an approved exception, MassDOT will not fund the project,” said Brown. He projected the proposal would be 80-percent federaly funded and 20-percent state funded. An audience member asked if the project could proceed without sidewalks and without state money. Brown said See Residents, Page 8
Paper Mill Elementary School fifth-grade students, left-right, Kaitlin Price, Antonio Phaneuf, Shea Byrnes and Cole Davignon, help load a push cart with boxes of food that was collected for the Westfield Soup Kitchen. The school-wide collection was spearheaded by students of the fifth grade class and 630 items were collected during the month-long drive. (Photo by Frederick Gore) is still taking donations for the meal, including turkeys, potatoes and vegetables. Volunteers are even signed up to wash dishes for the meal’s patrons. Fournier estimates the average attendance of the annual Thanksgiving feast hovers around 60 people, but is unsure whether there
will be a spike in attendance “We have people who come in on Thanksgiving who don’t come any other time of the year,” said Fournier. “And then we have people who come in year round to eat, but then on Thanksgiving they get invited to friends or families, so they don’t come in.”
Residents along the Congamond Road corridor examine a set of drawings during an informational meeting on the Congamond Road Reconstruction Project staged in the Southwick Town Hall auditorium Wednesday evening. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Longtime Southwick town employees retire By Hope E. Tremblay Staff Writer SOUTHWICK - Co-workers and friends Marie Traska and Gail Cigal have a combined 57 years of employment with the town as they head into retirement. Both women were feted with parties this past week as they prepared for their last day on Nov. 28. For Cigal, it was a very long career with the town. “I have been an employee for 40 years,” said Cigal, the Department of Public Works administrative assistant. She also spent a year volunteering before being hired. When Cigal started, she was with just the Water Department, but they eventually merged into the DPW and her job became much broader and
more challenging. Cigal said it was fun. “We had a good time here,” she said. “A lot of us have been around a long time.” Cigal saw a number of changes throughout her time in Town Hall, the biggest of which was the computerization of municipal departments. “There was a lot to learn,” she said. Cigal and her husband plan to stay in the area after retirement and spend time with their son and six grandchildren. Traska also said she and her retired husband will stay in town and spend time with their two children and seven grandchildren. The Town Hall custodian for 16 years, Traska said she plans to visit her friends and stop in for “afternoon tea” with her
former co-workers. “Everybody here is great,” she said. Longtime librarian Anne Murray also retired this year and Building Inspector Denis Gaido will retire at the end of this year. The Board of Selectmen will begin interviews next week for a new building inspector and said last week that Gaido has agreed to stay on to train his replacement. Traska’s position is also not yet filled and she agreed to extend her retirement to January to help train a new custodian. Traska joked that she finally has the other Town Hall employees trained well and she wants the new person to continue on the same track of keeping the building in order.
Town of Southwick employee Marie Traska, left, was honored Thursday during a special retirement luncheon at the Southwick Town Hall where she was joined by recently retired employee Gail Cigal. Traska and Cigal were both longtime employees and will enjoy their retirement with friends and family. (Photo by Frederick Gore)