Brief thoughts on some of the events making news from around Franklin County and the North Quabbin area:
If Deerfield town and school officials are paying close attention to the plans for a new roof at Deerfield Elementary School, no one who is aware of some local history can blame them. These folks remember the roof collapse at Sunderland Elementary School in 2003 that came just 14 years after the school was built. Thankfully that catastrophe, caused by missing lateral bracing across the trusses, didn’t cause any injuries because students were on February vacation. But having the roof collapse and all the legal and legislative wrangling that followed are all something no school or community wants to go through. No one is suggesting that this would happen with Deerfield Elementary’s project, but it’s better to make sure now than later.
Given the way Montague is structured, with five villages making up the town, we can understand that some people might not actually know where town hall is — it’s in Turners Falls and has been for a long, long time. Therefore, we can understand how seeing an old sign that says “town hall” above the building housing the Montague Center Library could be confusing. Perhaps it is time to have a sign that clearly points out that it’s the library and not town hall. We realize change can be hard. This is New England after all. But since the signs are not actually original to the building (Department of Public Works employees created them from older versions) it’s time to end the confusion.
We join Colrain residents and others in hoping that the new owners of the Brick Meeting House will succeed in creating a new and lasting chapter for the historical building. Brenda Parker Leduc and Karen “Cookie” Parker, sisters from Southwick and Springfield, respectively, have purchased the meetinghouse from the Colraine Land Historic Preservation Trust, a nonprofit organization that’s held title to the building for the past decade. Based on what Leduc said, it sounds like the two are going into it with eyes wide open and aware that restoration of the meetinghouse calls for work and money. That, if nothing else, indicates that the future for the building isn’t all wishful thinking.
We’ll file last week’s storm in the category of “this is New England, we do get some w acky weather.” Most people probably don’t remember the last time the area had thunderstorms in February. Meanwhile, the dropping of almost 3 inches of rain caused plenty of flooding. But imagine if all that rain had been snow? We’d still probably be digging out.