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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
www.thewestfieldnews.com
VOL. 83 NO. 232
Sewer design prep begins By Hope E. Tremblay Staff Writer SOUTHWICK – Work began this week that will help Tighe and Bond complete the design of the second phase of the town’s sewer connection. Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown said Tighe and Bond hired a subcontractor to take soil borings and perform a site survey in the area of Powdermill Road. “The town appropriated funds for the design at the annual Town Meeting last spring,” said Brown. “Once Tighe and Bond has this information, they will incorporate into the design of the sewer system.” Brown expects the design will be complete over the winter and hopes to go to the 2015 Town Meeting for the next appropriation to go to bid and begin construction of the sewer connection in that area. “One of the main reasons we are doing this is to connect the schools to the sewer system,” Brown said. The borings will identify what materials lie beneath the surface of the area, whether it’s sand, rock, gravel or silt. Brown said this knowledge is crucial not only to the design, but to the budget. “If there’s a lot of rock that needs to be excavated, that needs to be built into the design and be part of the bid,” said Brown. Soil boring work is expected to take several weeks, followed by a few weeks of site surveying. Brown said all work should be done before the cold weather sets in. Las April, members of the Southwick Finance Committee met with the Board of Selectmen and School Superintendent Dr. John Barry to discuss connecting the sewer to the schools. Selectboard Chairman Russell Fox asked Barry to explain to the See Sewer, Page 5
The Westfield News will run our masthead in pink, in recognition of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2014
75 cents
Council overrides Russell proposal proponent weighs in committee By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD - Among the potential plans presented Thursday evening at a meeting of the Westfield School Committee’s ad hoc subcommittee, a group evaluating potential sites for the relocation of Juniper Park Elementary students after the school is taken by Westfield State University in 2015, one option was the moving of students to an elementary school in the neighboring hillltown of Russell. No formal decision was made by the ad-hoc committee Thursday evening and another meeting is scheduled for October 15. “I think it’s a good idea. I’d heard about it from a constituent, so I went up to look at it,” said at-large City Councilor David Flaherty, a proponent of the Russell option. “I met with them very quickly. I didn’t have time to go through the school board. I didn’t want to wait a month.” After meeting with Russell’s Board of Selectmen, Flaherty found that the idea sounded even better. “It seems like a winner all around. They need to rent it out. They’re still paying on it,” he said. “It’s less than a 10-minute drive from Juniper. It’s a beautiful little school.” As far as the concerns raised by the dozen or so parents in attendance at the ad-hoc meeting about emergency medical services and snow days, Flaherty believes them to be minor issues in the grand scheme of things. “Route 20 is a state road and has a highway crew that maintains it. It’s not a city crew, so that road is very well taken care of in the winter,” he said. “The state police barracks is two blocks from there, so that road is in very good shape.” “I know from my stuff with the Boy Scouts that Camp Moses is in Russell and that, if you dial 911, you’ll get the Hilltown Ambulance Service,” he said. “All of our leaders (in Boy Scouts) have been trained to call Westfield Police and Fire, because they have EMT’s and other certified people that deal with a lot more volume.” “I’d imagine the same could be done with the schools. There is no reason you can’t send for a Westfield Ambulance. It might take a couple of minutes longer, but you’re going to get a better skilled person,” he said. “I’d
Rich Roy questions the members of the ad-hoc committee for the Westfield School Committee on the relocation of students presently attending the Juniper Park Elementary School. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
imagine any critical emergency could be taken care of fairly quickly and you’ll have a school nurse there, too.” Flaherty doesn’t foresee Boston having any issues with the proposed arrangement. “They have regional school districts all over the state,” he said. “If anything, I’d think the MSBA would be excited about it because it would give Russell a stream of income to pay back the debt on the building.” “It’s a winner for us because it’d cost as much as Juniper Park and there won’t be much upfront cost,” Flaherty added. “It has a nice field, a playground, plenty of parking and the building is in decent shape. It really looks pretty nice.” While he believes the idea of placing the students in the Greater Westfield Boys and Girls Club is an “interesting idea”, Flaherty doesn’t think it’s the district’s best option. “I don’t think we need to spend that kind of money,” he said, citing the estimated $1.6 million in startup funding the district said would be required for the project, with an annual cost of $222,500 for rent and modular units. The estimated annual costs for the Russell proposal over three, five and ten year periods are roughly $260,000 per year before factoring in the consumer-price index. The district estimates that the Russell proposal would cost $780,000 over three years, $1.3 million over five and $2.6 million over a decade, while See Proposal, Page 5
By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The City Council rejected a motion of its Legislative & Ordinance Committee to defer action on installation of a stop sign at the intersection of Spruce Street and Western Avenue. The L&O had requested a vote to remove the stop sign ordinance from its committee after conferring Tuesday with Police Chief John Camerota, chairman of the city’s Traffic Commission, on a stop sign installation request initiated by former Ward 3 Councilor Ann Callahan. Camerota said that the Traffic Commission agreed that there is a need for a stop sign at the Spruce Street, Western Avenue intersection, but requested that the traffic ordinance be amended in a comprehensive manner as part of the Western Avenue road improvement project. “Councilor Callahan wanted stop signs on all of the side streets along Western Avenue,” Camerota said. “Spruce Street is a through street (which crosses Western Avenue), so it can be confusing. People are not stopping.” Last night Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell said that the problem is that the Western Avenue road improvement project is still several years in the future. “The constituents of that neighborhood wanted that stop sign,” O’Connell said. “The state DOT (Department of Transportation) says the Western Avenue project is not going to happen soon, at the earliest for another four or five years.” At-large Councilor said the Traffic Commission did send a positive recommendation, earlier this year, to install the Spruce Street stop sign. The L&O made a motion to remove the issue from committee, stating that it would come back to the City Council and committee as a comprehensive plan for the entire Western Avenue corridor. At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan, chairman of the L&O, said the stop sign ordinance amendment was not rejected by his committee. “It got left in committee because we thought that the (Western Avenue Improvement) project was going to happen and that the (Traffic See Overrides, Page 5
State election absentee ballots available By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – City residens desiring to vote in the Nov. 4th state election, but who may not be able to go to the polls, can obtain absentee ballots from the City Clerk’s Office. Residents can obtain the absentee ballots in three ways, including going to the City Clerk’s Office, providing they are currently registered voters, and filling out the ballot and turn it in. Another method of casting an absentee ballot is to download a ballot from the Secretary of State’s website, or the City Clerk’s website (cityofwestfield. org, click Departments, click City Clerk) print the ballot, fill out the ballot and sign the ballot. Registered voters can also request an absentee ballot through the mail by sending a request to have the ballot mailed to them. Resident are required to provide their name, date of birth and mailing address, for verification they are a registered voter, and the ballot will mailed. There is also a box to allow a family member or care provider assist voters who are not capable of completing the ballot because of illness of physical impairment. Absentee ballots have to be received by the City Clerk no later than noon on Nov. 3, 2014.
Aviation Board presents progress report By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The group helping the Westfield Vocational-Technical High School’s planned Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) program take flight presented a detailed progress report to Greg Bialecki, the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development for Governor Deval L. Patrick at the school’s Tigers Pride restaurant on Wednesday. Bialecki visited WVTHS during a western Mass. tour of several vocational-technical high schools and their manufacturing shops during Advanced Manufacturing Week. Brian Barnes, manager of Barnes Regional Airport and a member of the school’s Aviation Advisory Board, described the initiative to bring a high school aviation program – the first-of-itskind in the Commonwealth – as a matter of leveraging the city’s aviation resources to “invest in tomorrow’s leaders.” “Introducing kids at the middle school level with science, technology, engineering and math through the Wright Flight Program, to high school physics classes and the A&P program and then to college,” Barnes continued, stating that a more “rounded and fundamental” baseline education can put students on an aviation management, maintenance, operations, or military career path. Listing the 104th Fighter Wing and local engineering firms as companies that want educated, homegrown kids filling their future workforces, Barnes spoke of commercial aviation corpora-
tions such as Boeing. He said they will require a whopping 27,000 additional pilots a year for the next 20 years in addition to 29,000 maintenance personnel. Fran Ahern, general manager of Gulfstream’s Westfield facility and head of the board’s finance committee, attested to the industry’s needs. “Gulfstream is a worldwide company with 14,000 employees and at least one third of those employees have been hired in the last five years,” he said. “I have employees who have 25/30 years with our company and make a good wage. But you don’t drive down the street and see an airport on every corner. Unless you were introduced in one means or another, to actually fall into it is unusual.” Ahern then spoke of his committee’s budgetary plans. “We’ve targeted between $2.8 – $3 million as a start-up budget.” he said. “$500,000 has been raised so far – made up from the Community Preservation Commission (CPC) for renovations to one of the buildings, a Perkins grant and also from MassDOT – so we’re well on our way to raising some funds.” Ahern mentioned a $100,000 grant from Gulfstream that WVTHS applied for that he said has “upside potential” and spoke of over 50 companies that the board can reach out to for funding. Westfield City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell, a former airport commissioner who is heading the board’s land committee, spoke more about the building targeted for use by the program.
“It’s right at the heart of the airport, close to where the tower is,” said Mitchell of hangar two. “It is centrally located. There is parking available. It has 10,000 square feet, is currently underutilized and unfortunately, in a state of disrepair.” Mitchell highlighted the approach the board is taking to rehab the building – fixing the roof, windows and brickwork and outfitting the interior with heating, electricity and plumbing – repairs and installations highlighted in Ahern’s budget. “(The A&P program) would enable young men and young women to leave the school with a rating of Airframe and Powerplant and go into the aviation industry,” said Adrian Marjoram, director of maintenance at Janus Equities, LLC and head of the board’s technical committee, adding that his tech team is the point of contact between the school and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He said that the committee is following FAA Advisory Curricular (AC) 147 guidelines and has submitted a pre-application to the FAA and is now in the process of introducing the curriculum for the school. “They (FAA) will tell you what you need and how you’re going to conduct the process,” Marjoram said. WVTHS Principal Stefan Czaporowski said that he’s optimistic that the program will be admitting the first students next fall. “We met with our FAA inspector yesterday and kind of came up with a plan for what we
A middle school student participates in the Wright Flight aviation program at Barnes Regional Airport and the local school district. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
need to do, but certainly we have needs in the areas of funding, but the curriculum and real estate are coming together nicely,” he said. “One of the things we’re worried about is that this program may grow faster than our capacity to grow it. But there’s a clear need.” “I didn’t realize their plans for this (A&P program) were this far along,” said Bialecki of the presentation. “I didn’t realize they had figured it out in this detail, picked the hangar, got the budget.” Bialecki stressed the state’s continued emphasis on creating opportunities for workers of all skill sets. “We’re a state famous for our colleges and universities and we have a lot of sectors that are really focused on college grads and people with See Aviation, Page 5