Wild Oats Market to Host "Local Food Producers Day"

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Williamstown - To demonstrate the variety of local foods available to Berkshire County residents, Wild Oats Market will hold tastings and demos from local food suppliers throughout the day on Friday, February 22. Wild Oats invites anyone interested in learning about and/or sampling foods from local producers to stop by the store that day. Wild Oats Market is located at 320 Main Street in Williamstown and is open from 8:30 am -7:00 pm.

Visitors to the store will have the opportunity to sample dairy items from Highlawn Farm, artisanal cheeses from Cricket Creek Farm, pizza from Berkshire Mountain Bakery, salsas from Desperados Restaurant, as well as several other scrumptious items that are locally grown and/or made. Representatives from Leyden House of Leyden, Mass. will also be on hand to demonstrate their aromatherapy products for mind, body and spirit.

“As a small, local business, we’re in a good position to source local food suppliers and offer their products on a regular basis. And as a co-op market, we support all forms of sustainability, including systems that sustain the local economy, such as buying and selling locally grown and produced items,” said General Manager Michael Faber. “Our local growers and other producers have some great products. We want people to know about them.”

Wild Oats Coffeehouse February 22, from 7 p.m.- 9:30 p.m.

Wild Oats invites musicians and anyone who enjoys acoustic music to its first-ever coffeehouse on the evening of February 22. For more details, or to sign up as a performer, please contact Robin Riley at 413-458-8060, or email Robin at marketing@wildoats.coop . The coffeehouse will take place in the café, and refreshments will be available for a small donation.

Wild Oats Market is a member-owned, cooperative-based whole foods market that buys extensively from local and regional natural and organic food producers. One need not be a member to shop at Wild Oats, although membership offers several benefits. The market carries a wide selection of organic and naturally-made products, including: meats, eggs, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, breads, pastas, oils, cereals, juices and chocolate. In addition, the store offers a fresh grab-and-go deli and freshly baked breads, rolls and pastries on-site. Wild Oats Market also carries healthful supplements and body care products, as well as environmentally-friendly household supplies.
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Williamstown Planning Board Narrowing in on Subdivision Bylaw Changes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board late last month discussed specific features of what it plans to pass as a new subdivision control bylaw this year.
 
The board long has discussed the complex set of regulations as being out of date and cumbersome to both potential developers and the board itself, which has needed to hear requests for waivers of outdated rules for the handful of residential subdivisions that have been proposed in town in recent years.
 
This spring, the town engaged consultants from Northampton's Dodson and Flinker Landscape Architecture and Planning to go through the existing bylaw, compare it to more contemporary regulations in other communities and help craft a revised bylaw.
 
Unlike the zoning bylaw, where amendments require approval of town meeting, the subdivision control bylaw is a creation of the Planning Board, which can make changes on its own after a public hearing process it hopes to complete this year.
 
At a special Planning Board meeting on May 26, Dillon Sussman of Dodson and Flinker and his colleagues walked the board through a dozen different decision points that the board must resolve — either by leaving the bylaw as is or making a change — and offered suggestions based on best practices.
 
All of the issues are technical and ranged from the fundamental, like how the bylaw will define types of subdivisions, to the highly specific, like what turning radii will be required in new streets that are constructed to serve planned developments.
 
One example of a topic that came up in the recent approval of a four-home subdivision off Summer Street is stormwater management.
 
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