AMHERST – A portion of the former North Amherst School building will have a new tenant this spring.
Community Action recently signed a lease to use the basement of the 1200 North Pleasant St. building, where the Amherst Survival Center was located before moving to 138 Sunderland Road. Community Action will offer both a Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and fuel assistance beginning May 4.
Interim Town Manager Peter Hechenbleikner said the programs join the Amherst Family Center, which uses the upstairs of the school and offer sessions to empower parents, grandparents and caregivers of children from newborns to 5.
These new programs also meet an objective of late Town Manager John Musante to create a hub in the village center for low-income residents.
“This is carrying out the wishes of John to make the North Amherst school have all social services in one place,” Hechenbleikner said.
Hechenbleikner said Ron Bohonowicz, the town and school facilities director, is overseeing the renovations to the lower level.
The three-year lease will cover the electrical and heating costs, Hechenbleikner said.
To ensure farmers who participate in the Amherst Farmers Market don’t have to set up around vehicles left overnight in the Spring Street parking lot, new parking restrictions will be in place between April 15 and Nov. 15.
The Select Board this week agreed to prohibit parking in the lot, as well as other spaces on Boltwood Avenue and South Pleasant Street reserved for the market, between 2 and 6 a.m. Saturdays.
Signs will be installed to notify motorists their vehicles will be towed if left overnight in spaces used by the seasonal market. The market, which opens for the season April 23, will again have vendors set up both on Spring Street and a portion of Boltwood Avenue closed in front of the Lord Jeffery Inn.
Though town officials considered a plan to shut down a portion of Boltwood in front of the church, representatives from Grace Episcopal Church objected to this idea.
Christopher Freitag, a senior warden at the church, said there were concerns that such a closure would impact weddings and funerals held at Grace on Saturdays.
More trees will be planted along Amherst roads as part of the Amherst Public Shade Tree Commitee’s Second Saturday Plantings.
The plantings start April 9 on North Pleasant Street near the University of Massachusetts campus, then continue in May on Belchertown Road at Rolling Green Apartments, in June on Hallock Street, in July on South East Street near Colonial Village and in September at Chestnut Court. Due to the warm and often dry weather in August, no plantings are scheduled that month.
The Amherst Seniors and Law Enforcement Together Council, in partnership with the Amherst Senior Center and the Amherst Police, is hosting an event to assist senior citizens with running their credit reports online.
Using the computers at the Senior Center, police officers will assist and guide seniors with accessing the online database to print out a copy of their credit report. The event, which is free and doesn’t require pre-registration, will run from 9 a.m. to noon.
For more information, call Police Capt. Jennifer Gundersen at 259-3012 or send email to gundersenj@amherstma.gov.
Amherst residents and business owners, as well as people from other communities, are invited to provide comments on the update of the town’s Hazard Mitigation Plan Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Town Room at Town Hall.
This is a rescheduling of a March 15 event that was postponed. For more information, contact Jaimye Bartak at jbartak@pvpc.org or 781-6045.
MONDAY: Amherst Housing Authority, 4:30 p.m., fifth floor lounge, Ann Whalen Apartments; Town Manager Screening Committee, 5:30 p.m., Goodwin Room, Jones Library.
THURSDAY: Finance Committee, 7 p.m., First Floor Meeting Room, Town Hall.
