Williamstown Trust Chairman Ready to Answer CPA Questions

By Stephen DravisWilliamstown Correspondent
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The Housing Trust is asking for more funding from Community Preservation Act funds this year; also in the mix is funding for Margaret Lindley Park, a trail and contined work on preservation at Southlawn Cemetery.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The chairman of the Affordable Housing Trust is looking forward to the opportunity to discuss the body's application for a Community Preservation Act grant at Tuesday's meeting of the Community Preservation Committee.

Stanley Parese said he was surprised that the CPC chairman suggested at the Jan. 9 meeting that the trust withdraw its application, but Parese is prepared to respond to that suggestion Tuesday night.

"I'm confident that we can respond fully to the chairman's concerns," Parese said on Monday afternoon.

He declined to get into the specifics of that response, preferring to keep the discussion limited to the meeting room and not carry on the conversation through the media.

Parese said he had not discussed the issue with CPC Chairman Philip McKnight since the Jan. 9 meeting.


At that meeting, McKnight raised questions about the wisdom granting the Affordable Housing Trust money from the town's CPA revenues. The CPA fund is generated by a property tax surcharge of 2 percent, excluding the first $100,000 of valuation.

The CPA's intention is to help fund "to community housing (senior and affordable), historic preservation, open space, and land for recreational use," according to the town website.

Last year at town meeting, the town approved a $200,000 CPA grant to the Affordable Housing Trust, which was created at the same Town Meeting. The trust is asking for the same amount this year.

McKnight said on Jan. 9 that he planned to ask the housing trust to withdraw its application.

The CPC is considering four other applicants this year, ranging in size from $548 for a recreational trail around the town-owned Lowry Property off Stratton Road to a $65,000 application from the Conservation Commission to drill a new well to supply potable water to the bath house at Margaret Lindley Park.


Tags: affordable housing trust,   Community Preservation Act,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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