ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen on Wednesday night thanked Council on Aging van driver Rita Clarke for her 24 years of service. 

 

"We are happy for Rita and sad for us after 24 years she is retiring," Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco told officials. "We just want to say thank you for all of your years of service."

 

The board also blessed the Maple Street Cemetery restoration project.

 

"I certainly think it is a good idea anytime we can get people interested in doing something for the betterment of the community I am all for it," Selectman Joseph Nowak said.

 

"So many graves are covered in brush and a life [can be] lost but if it's lost in a tangle of weeds, that is something different," Nowak said. "This brings alive, in some respect, people who have died."

 

Cemetery Commissioner Bruce Shepley said commissioners during a walk through a few months ago thought it would be advantageous to start a volunteer group to help clean up the disheveled Maple Street Cemetery.

 

"We started this conversation about stones we saw that were falling over or in disrepair at Maple Street and then our conversation turned into getting a volunteer group together if there was an interest in it," Shepley said.   

 

He reached out to Roger Eurbin and Larry Burdick, who have lead an effort to clean up Hill Side Cemetery in North Adams, to help them get the group started. Over the last several years, the group has righted, repaired and cleaned nearly 700 stones in the city's oldest cemetery and Burdick has recently taken on a similar effort at the smaller Blackinton Cemetery.

 

Shepley said there seems to be a small group of volunteers in Adams that have shown interest and currently he is sorting out logistics but does not have a funding source.

 

Eurbin, who attended the meeting with Burdick, said he would help train anyone interested.

 

"We will be willing to help train anybody and show them what we do and how we do it," Eurbin said. "There is a safe way to do this because some of these big stones are tough."  

 

Chairman John Duval thanked Eurbin and Burdick for helping the town.

 

"Thank you gentlemen, and it is good to see cooperation between the two communities and hopefully we can have more of that," he said.  

 

The Selectmen also met with the solid waste advisory committee to go over some of the logistics of the proposed transfer station.

 

Mazzucco said a $75 permit will be needed beginning Sept. 1 to use the recycling center when it will start accepting solid waste.

 

"It will take some stress off the general fund," he said. "Hopefully, it will generate some revenue that will allow us to do more clean up in the town or add more up there."

 

Residents will also have to purchase either 33-gallon bags or bag stickers (that hasn't been decided yet) that will be available throughout town.

 

The bags or stickers will be free for the first year of the program. After that, they will cost a dollar. Senior citizens ages 70 and up will  get 12 free bags or stickers starting July 18.

 

There will be a mobile food bank through the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts for residents at the Visitors Center on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month from 11 to noon. There is no cost and no income guidelines.