The completed shed, with Adam Hall (L) and Jim Easton (R)
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Over several weekends this April, the Rotary Club of Williamstown donated funds and labor to help the Williamstown Cal Ripken League build an equipment shed next to its newly reconditioned softball field behind the former Broad Brook School.
In early 2021, league board members Jim Easton and Chris Johnson approached Jim Mahon, grants chair of the Rotary Club of Williamstown, and requested help. In order to better establish a new softball, program a shed was needed to store equipment on season and off.
The Rotary Club board agreed, and last August the club obtained grant funding from its Rotary District (7890, which includes most of western Mass and central-western Connecticut). Work was to begin in early spring 2022.
Apart from the steep rise in prices over the year since the grant was funded, conditions looked favorable as construction started. Easton and Mahon started on April 9, setting concrete blocks onto stone pads and leveling them; the following Friday afternoon, the two of them framed a foundation of 2x6 lumber with a plywood floor. The next day, April 16, a crew of five Rotarians and four parents from the league set to work erecting a metal shed from a kit they purchased.
Unfortunately, later that day a rainstorm forced them to pause work. The following Wednesday, the half-erected shed blew down in a spring storm.
Nevertheless, with the help of Adam Hall, son of Rotarians Allen and Valerie Hall and a recent engineering graduate of Union College, a small crew re-erected and repaired the structure in late April.
Easton then tasked some of the softball parents with the assembly of four plastic shelf units, also donated by Rotary, to place inside.
Opening day for the girls' softball league was May 7.
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Williamstown Affordable Housing Trust Hears Objections to Summer Street Proposal
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Neighbors concerned about a proposed subdivision off Summer Street last week raised the specter of a lawsuit against the town and/or Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity.
"If I'm not mistaken, I think this is kind of a new thing for Williamstown, an affordable housing subdivision of this size that's plunked down in the middle, or the midst of houses in a mature neighborhood," Summer Street resident Christopher Bolton told the Affordable Housing Trust board, reading from a prepared statement, last Wednesday. "I think all of us, the Trust, Habitat, the community, have a vested interest in giving this project the best chance of success that it can have. We all remember subdivisions that have been blocked by neighbors who have become frustrated with the developers and resorted to adversarial legal processes.
"But most of us in the neighborhood would welcome this at the right scale if the Trust and Northern Berkshire Habitat would communicate with us and compromise with us and try to address some of our concerns."
Bolton and other residents of the neighborhood were invited to speak to the board of the trust, which in 2015 purchased the Summer Street lot along with a parcel at the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street with the intent of developing new affordable housing on the vacant lots.
Currently, Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, which built two homes at the Cole/Maple property, is developing plans to build up to five single-family homes on the 1.75-acre Summer Street lot. Earlier this month, many of the same would-be neighbors raised objections to the scale of the proposed subdivision and its impact on the neighborhood in front of the Planning Board.
The Affordable Housing Trust board heard many of the same arguments at its meeting. It also heard from some voices not heard at the Planning Board session.
And the trustees agreed that the developer needs to engage in a three-way conversation with the abutters and the trust, which still owns the land, to develop a plan that is more acceptable to all parties.
Developer David Traggorth asked the trustees to make the contribution from its coffers to help unlock an additional $5.4 million in state funds for the planned 54-unit apartment building at the south end of the Cable Mills site.
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The donors, who wish to remain anonymous, say the gift reflects their desire to not only support Williams but also President Maud S. Mandel's strategic vision and plan for the college.
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Neighbors of a proposed subdivision off Summer Street last week asked the Planning Board to take a critical look at the project, which the residents say is out of scale to the neighborhood. click for more
The Select Board and Planning Board this week clashed over a proposal that would add to the town charter a mechanism to ensure compliance with the foundation of town government. click for more