ADAMS, Mass. — The Cemetery Commission has asked the Department of Public Works to keep a closer eye on the accumulation of trash at the cemeteries.
A concerned resident last Thursday asked the commission about the appropriateness of items placed on graves and maintenance.
"If you ride around the cemetery and look at the stones, it is not the stones that we looked at 50 or 60 years ago," Chairman Bruce Shepley said. "What you will find is little figurines, little statues, non-religious. You might have a can of beer cemented onto the stone and that is what is going on."
Shepley said the commission does not have regulations dictating what can and what cannot be placed on a gravestone and said he would not be in favor of making any.
He said the cultural is changing and people are memorializing the dead differently and that is OK.
"I don't want to be a test case in a court that states something can't be on a stone because it is distasteful in the eyes of someone else," he said. "I don't want to place a definition on what is acceptable and what is not because a lot of this is freedom of speech."
Adams native Milan Markovic, who made the initial complaint, agreed with Shepley and said he was OK with people placing whatever they wanted near the stones. He said his issue was the "overabundance and non-care."
"This is not based on religion for me ... this is simply to me a mild maintenance issue and I think just letting people know that some things are unacceptable," he said. "When you go up there with pinwheels and lights it looks like a circus and people are careless they just dump it toward the side and now there is trash blowing all over."
Markovic said he thought as long as people maintained stones and properly removed decorations when they become weathered and unstable there shouldn't be an issue.
Shepley said he did speak to the DPW crew and they pledged to keep an eye on unkempt stones and what is placed on them.
Markovic said he did not think this should be the town's responsibility and that people should respect other families.
"I don't believe it is all the grounds people's responsibility," he said. "We all need to contribute to this and maintain it and not just say let the town take care of it."
Shepley agreed and said it seems to be a matter of educating people and making sure they know it's a problem.
He added that he was hesitant to place trash cans on the grounds because people tend to just throw household trash in them.
Commissioner Jim Taylor said anything left on the grave plot after the interment must be removed and noted the DPW could be more strict about this regulation.
In other business, Shepley the Bellevue Cemetery garage renovation project is scheduled to go out to bid at the end of the month.
"There is some material that resembles asbestos and they have to talk to a company about it," he said. "It is around the seals in the windows so they expected it to go out to bid at the end of this month."
Taylor also said the cemeteries are looking better this season.
"I was up there yesterday and it looked very nice I walked around and I drove around the whole perimeter," he said. "I was very much impressed it looks like they got some good seasonals."
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Adams Welcomes New Officer; Appoints Housing Authority Board Member
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
Officer Cole Desroches recently graduated from the Police Academy.
ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen welcomed the newest member of the Adams Police Department, Officer Cole Desroches, on Wednesday evening.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane. He attended Hoosac Valley High School and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
"He's going to serve and protect the town of Adams very well," said Crane, who with Sgts. Matthew Wright and Gregory Onorato stepped in to introduce the new officer while Chief R. Scott Kelley was on vacation.
"We don't often get an opportunity to kind of talk about, frankly, some of the positive things that are happening in town and one of the many things that I feel are positive with are the Adams Police Department," said Town Administrator Jay Green. "We are right now at full staff. We have a full complement of officers. We have a chief who just resigned a three-year contract. ... We have four very capable sergeants (including Donna Malloy)."
The force consists of the chief, the four sergeants, a full-time detective and 11 patrol officers. It also has a new position in Cpl. Joshua Baker who is responsible for training and keeping staff equipped.
"We're on the cutting edge of ensuring that we have proper training in a very changing environment with law enforcement," continued Green. "And we have a nice complement of officers and we have a well-respected detective who handles some very complicated cases."
He called out the half-dozen officers who attended the meeting for the work they're doing as well as the K9 unit.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane.
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The Selectmen on Wednesday night voted to award the bid to Mackin Construction Co. Inc. of Greenfield, which plans to invest $11 million to build out 20 or more one- and two-bedroom apartments in the three-story classroom wing that parallels Columbia Street.
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