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Martin Johnson, left, of Monument Conservation Collaborate checks the structural adhesive application in preparation of resetting a small obelisk.
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The work, which started Friday, is expected to take four or five days.
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Many of the older gravestones have heaved over the years.

Clarksburg Cemetery Stones Being Repaired

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
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A conservation crew is working on nearly a dozen gravestones in Clarksburg Cemetery this week.

CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Nearly a dozen historic stones in the Clarksburg Cemetery are getting some much needed repair.

The town hired Monument Conservation Collaborative of Norfolk, Conn., to straighten and repair 10 leaning gravestones and restore that of Laban Clark. Town meeting approved spending $4,900 for this year in what is expected to be a 10-year project to restore the cemetery.

"The ones they're working on are very straightforward," said Martin Johnson, a conservator and a founder of the conservation company. "They were hazardous, they were loose, but fairly straightforward."

His crew was working on Friday to begin digging out the footings and resetting the 19-century monuments. Some merely need to be straightened; others need new structural adhesive as well.

Johnson estimated the work to take four or five days.

"The loose and leaning stones were the priority this year," he said. "[Town Administrator Carl McKinney's] priority would be to absolutely identify and find those stones that could fall."

The 11th stone will need more work because it's fallen off its base and cracked.



"Mr. Laban Clark, who obviously I think is important, that one is going to be the most complicated," Johnson said.

He said MCC's other founder, conservationist Irving Slavid of North Adams, would likely work on that one. Slavid also operates his own restoration company and recently restored the century-old plaques on the new Colegrove Park Elementary School.

The 16-year-old Monument Conservation Collaborative has worked in a number of local cemeteries, including Southlawn in Williamstown and the Mahaiwe Cemetery in Great Barrington. It specializes in historic graveyard conservation and has worked on such varied projects as the restoration of a graveyard devastated by a tsunami in American Samoa to restoring the memorial plaque on George Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon.

Johnson said cemeteries tend to have a 100-year maintenance cycle; in this area, snow, ice and frost can shift and damage stones.

The newly straightened stones in the Henderson Road cemetery will be safer and look better.

"It's certainly going to make a difference but it's going to bring up the fact that there is more than another 11 to do," he said. "Once you get them plumb and nice and straight ... it sort points out the ones that aren't."


Tags: cemetery,   historic preservation,   restoration,   

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Central Berkshire School Officials OK $35M Budget

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
DALTON, Mass. — The Central Berkshire Regional School Committee approved a $35 million budget for fiscal 2025 during its meeting on Thursday.
 
Much of the proposed spending plan is similar to what was predicted in the initial and tentative budget presentations, however, the district did work with the Finance subcommittee to further offset the assessments to the towns, Superintendent Leslie Blake-Davis said. 
 
"What you're going see in this budget is a lower average assessment to the towns than what you saw in the other in the tentative budget that was approved," she said. 
 
The fiscal 2025 budget is $35,428,892, a 5.56 percent or $1,867,649, over this year's $33,561,243.
 
"This is using our operating funds, revolving revenue or grant revenue. So what made up the budget for the tentative budget is pretty much the same," Director of Finance and Operations Gregory Boino said.
 
"We're just moving around funds … so, we're using more of the FY25 rural aid funds instead of operating funds next year."
 
Increases the district has in the FY25 operating budget are from active employee health insurance, retiree health insurance, special education out-of-district tuition, temporary bond principal and interest payment, pupil transportation, Berkshire County Retirement contributions, and the federal payroll tax. 
 
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