Lanesborough: 2018 Year in Review
State officials celebrate the dedication of the Miner Road bridge to Gregory Noonan.
The town welcomed a new town manager, school principal, moderator, School Committee member, and longtime staple Matt Reilly's Irish Pub was sold to new owners.
The town's first full-time town manager Paul Sieloff announced in March that he was going to retire. The town launched a search for a new manager and ultimately settled on interviewing eight people for the job.
Kelli Robbins was a clear favorite. She was the executive secretary in Holland and the Board of Selectmen were so confident in her ability that it skipped out on possibly doing a second round of interviews and voted immediately following the final interview.
Shortly after that, Principal Martin McEvoy left Lanesborough Elementary to take a job at Herberg Middle School. He was replaced by Martha Wiley.
The school system saw a major change when the elementary school became part of the Mount Greylock Regional School District. That eliminated a local School Committee for just the elementary school and shifted decisions to the newly constituted Mount Greylock Regional School Committee in November. The district was overseen by a transition committee that had to work out the logistics of the merging.
The School Committee had a new Lanesborough representative when Christina Conry was elected along with incumbent Regina DiLego.
The middle and high school students in Lanesborough will be going to a brand-new Mount Greylock Regional School. The $65 million school opened in September. Kimberley Grady was officially given the job of superintendent after serving in an interim capacity.
The town voted out longtime Moderator Rob Reilly, who had held the post for more than two decades. He was defeated by a last-minute write-in campaign by Chris Dodig following a June town meeting at which Reilly had Finance Committee member Ray Jones removed from the property. Voters also ousted Jones from his position in favor of JJ Filiault.
Meanwhile, the town's largest commercial property continued to struggle. In January the Berkshire Mall lost power and had to close. The mall has been routinely behind on taxes, lost most of its stores, and has been taken to court on multiple occasions because of unpaid bills. The mall would close for a second time in February after again losing power and again in July for an undisclosed reason.
The mall has been struggling for years and town officials have been focusing on developing a plan to retain and attract businesses. The Economic Development Committee released a plan in February on how to attract more businesses.
In June, sixth-graders Tyler Hynes-Drumm and Riley Babcock joined the conversation about the mall and presented a report they had written encouraging various re-use options for the property.
While the mall may be struggling, the town did see interest in the emerging marijuana industry and the Selectmen had no problems encouraging more. A developer proposed building greenhouses for commercial marijuana growers at Gray Raven Farm and another business pitched an idea of using some of the former Vacation Village property for growing and retail. The town had voted new bylaws aimed to guide such developments at town meeting.
Kim McArdle and Paul Ambrus bought the former Matt Reilly's.
The longstanding Matt Reilly's also saw a change. The restaurant was a family business for some 75 years and was most recently owned by Helen Reilly.
But Reilly was looking to sell and found a buyer in Kim McArdle and her brother Brant Boyington. Paul Ambrus later joined the business. In August, the three took over and rebranded as the Lakeside Bar & Grill.
Concern over ambulance service continued throughout the year. The volunteer service has been struggling and the Board of Selectmen have been trying ways to keep it afloat.
In January, Sieloff proposed the idea of hiring two emergency medical technicians to work in the Highway Department. The idea was they'd be in town to handle calls during the day, calls that had often been missed.
The Selectmen ultimately approved the plan and two were hired. But one later took a job elsewhere, leaving the town with only one emergency medical technician during the shift when two are needed. The town was unable to find another EMT to hire and in December approved a contract with County Ambulance to have the Pittsfield-based private service be the primary ambulance.
First responders had one of the more unique calls for service in June when a man was stuck in a cave off Silver Street.
Meanwhile, renovations to the police station became a hot topic. Selectman Robert Ericson has been undertaking the work to renovate the station. However, the speed of his work led the police union to complain about the condition of the station and push for a new one -- or to have the work contracted.
Ericson, however, didn't want to give up the project looking at it as a way to give back and to save the town money. The condition of the building also raised concerns with state Sen. Adam Hinds and the town's insurance company.
The Narragansett Avenue causeway bridge was under construction in 2018. The $7 million project had been in the works for a while and finally work had begun. Town officials welcomed state Department of Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack on a tour of the bridge.
The construction follows a few years after a project to rebuild the Miner Road bridge. In October, state and local officials recognized the renaming of the bridge in honor of Gregory Aloysius Noonan, a decorated Vietnam veteran who grew up in town.
Unistress took on a project to dedicate benches at Laston Memorial Park to the late Neils "Nick" Kristensen. That was coupled with the addition of a new bookhouse at the park.
The Board of Selectmen also spent much of the year rethinking how it wants to staff the Council on Aging. The board has been keeping a close eye on the operations. In November, the town was awarded a grant to increase financial transparency.
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