AMHERST — North Amherst residents are repeating their calls for enacting portions of the town’s master plan, such as improving vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian circulation in that part of town and creating an inventory of developable properties.
At the Sept. 15 Town Council hearing on the master plan, adopted by the Planning Board in 2010 and the Town Council in 2020, Meg Gage of Montague Road, a representative of the District One Neighborhood Association, explained how North Amherst has two village centers and two cohousing developments and is home to the Amherst Survival Center.
“But we also have horrific traffic and pedestrian and bicycle safety problems,” Gage said, noting that the neighborhood integrity is also compromised by 10 apartment complexes and a significant amount of student housing.
“It’s a huge plan, it’s really good, but we’re not moving it along, and if we could, it would solve so many of the problems we’re facing,” Gage said.
“We really need to implement some of the things in the plan that we think would help us address these things,” Gage added.
Eve Vogel of Harlow Drive said some of the issues facing North Amherst are relevant to the whole town, including the need for better infrastructure, and using underutilized assets like the North Amherst School building.
“We’ve moved … very slowly and inadequately toward a robust multi-modal transportation system that will seriously invite people to do anything other than drive their cars,” Vogel said.
Andy Churchill, who lived in North Amherst for 30 years, said an integrated transportation plan is needed to connect the town to the University of Massachusetts. “The traffic circulation in North Amherst is kind of strange,” he said.
Churchill also suggested an inventory of properties where development can and can’t happen, village design guidelines for buildings and how economic development happens in the age of online shopping
Senior Planner Nate Malloy said a master plan update will happen around 2030. Successes from the current plan include development of affordable housing and infrastructure projects, such as building of multiuse paths on North Pleasant and East Hadley Road.
POW/ MIA Recognition Day
A special “missing man” table, also known as a fallen comrade table, was set up at the twice-monthly Veterans Community Breakfast on Sept. 19, to honor National Prisoner of War/ Missing in Action Recognition Day.
Held at the Bangs Community Center, on the first and third Fridays, the event paid solemn tribute to the fallen, missing or imprisoned military service members.
On the table were various symbolic items, such as a lighted candle in memory of those lost, an inverted glass to show their inability to toast and an empty chair for their absence, representing the hope that they will not be forgotten.
Fort River Cleanup
The Fort River Watershed Association is organizing a cleanup of the Fort River from Groff Park, 83 Mill Lane, Saturday morning, as part of the Connecticut River Conservancy’s Source to Sea Cleanup.
The event begins with coffee and snacks at 9:30 a.m. with the cleanup to be complete by noon.
Registration is required for all participants, including children, at https://sourcetoseacleanup.org/event/fort-river-source-to-sea-cleanup/.
Citizenship ceremony
Fifty individuals hailing from 26 countries, including Colombia, Ghana, Lebanon, Nigeria and Portugal, became U.S. citizens at a Naturalization Oath Ceremony held at Munson Memorial Library Sept. 17.
The event marked the fourth time in recent years that Amherst and the Jones Library hosted such a ceremony. The Jones Library is the home of the English as a Second Language program coordinated by Lynne Weintraub, where many newcomers to the United States learn their language skills.
Horseshoe sculpture
Two years after first being proposed to be installed next to the North Amherst Library, a sculpture of a horse’s head, with the neck, shoulders and flowing mane, to be fabricated from horseshoes used by draft horses at Muddy Brook Farm, remains unfinished.
Hilda Greenbaum of Montague Road recently brought her concerns to the Public Art Commission, observing that Catherine Stryker received a Cultural Council grant for the project, yet the “wonderful sculpture” to be made by Eric Dennis of Greenfield, and pay tribute to a farrier once located on the library site, remains unfinished.
“Why is it not built yet? Why is it taking you a whole year of emails and nothing happens?” Greenbaum said. “It’s not fair to somebody who’s offering her talents and time to the town that she should get such a run around.”
Chairman Thomas Warger, though, said appropriate approvals need to come from other town officials.
“The whole concept of public art is that the town needs to have certain control over what it accepts as public art and takes possession of as public art and maintains as public art, and so there are conversations that need to be had around that,” Warger said.
Warger said there have also been questions about the merit of the public art, with both the Design Review Board and the Department of Public Works to have a say.
“We in North Amherst don’t seem to count for anything in this town, and we just keep getting all of the junk no one else wants, and we want something good,” Greenbaum said. “We’re very angry up here.”
Meetings
MONDAY: Historical Commission, 7 p.m., hearings on demolition projects at 36 Railroad St. and 66 Bridge St.
THURSDAY: CDBG Advisory Committee, 7 p.m.