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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
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— JOHN BUNYAN
MONDAY, AUGUST 31, 2015
VOL. 84 NO. 218
“When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.” 75 cents
Council seeks to improve sewer betterment process
Gateway Towns Advisory Committee co-chairs Darlene McVeigh and Derrick Mason. (Photo by Amy Porter)
WESTFIELD – It’s never a gdebit cardood feeling to receive a letter in the mail from one’s bank stating: “MasterCard International has informed us that your debit card ending in . . . may have been compromised due to a security breach of information that occurred at
By DAN MORIARTY Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Law Department and Legislative & Ordinance Committee will review a motion by Ward 5 Councilor Robert A. Paul Sr., to revise the betterment process for extending sewer service in the city. Paul, speaking at the Aug. 20 City Council meeting, said that many residents cannot afford the cost of extending sewer service under the current betterment process in which residents pay the full cost of a sewer line extension over a period of time, usually 20 years. The city bonds for the work and residents pay a betterment fee to retire the ROBERT bond. A. PAUL Paul is proposing a new betterment process in which the city would “waive” betterment fees if residents agree to connect to the sewer line within one year of it being put on line. Paul has argued that the city should be more aggressive in expanding the sewer lines throughout the city because the Planning Board has, for decades, required subdivision developers to install dry sewer lines, the cost of which is added to the price of the lots in that subdivision. Dry sewer lines are not connected to the city’s sewer infrastructure or to homes built in that subdivision. The developers also install septic systems for homes built in that subdivision, so people buying property in that subdivision are paying for both a functioning septic system and non-functioning sewer lines. Even when those dry sewer lines are connected to the city sewer, many residents do not connect their homes until their septic system fails. The Health Department requires homeowners to connect to the active sewer line. Paul said that each subdivision, or project, should be added to the list of active sewer projects when 51 percent of residents sign a petition. Paul has proposed that once 51 percent of residents sign the petition it would trigger a memorandum of agreement (MOA), a legal document prepared by the Law Department and attached to the deed of that property. Under the terms of the MOA, as proposed by Paul, the city is responsible for completing the sewer betterment within 14 months and the residents connectiing within a year of completion. Paul also argues that any residents with access to an active sewer line, but who are still on a septic system, would be required to pay the same quarterly $75 sewer fee that people connected to the sewer now pay. Paul said that current sewer users are subsidizing residents who
See Security, Page 3
See Sewer, Page 3
Task force puts together to-do list, talking points By AMY PORTER Correspondent HUNTINGTON – At Saturday’s Gateway Towns Advisory Committee (GTAC) meeting in Stanton Hall, co-chair Derrick Mason of Russell, co-chair Darlene McVeigh of Huntington, Gateway Superintendent David B. Hopson, Blandford Select Board member Andy Montanaro and Middlefield Finance Committee chair Joseph Kearns met to lay out initial plans and talking points for the Gateway Collaborative Task Force. According to a handout, the objective of the task force is to take responsibility for the future of the six towns in the Gateway region, and actively engage in forming that future through a joint body of community and school participants whose goal is to avoid immediate financial failure, and ultimately reach financial stability for all its members. Montanaro said he presented the talking
points to the Select Board in Blandford, who gave him positive feedback and are interested in moving forward with the task force. Mason said he also presented them to the Russell Select Board members, who are taking them under advisement. “That being said, we have a lot of work to do,” Mason said. He said the key to success will be community engagement by as many stakeholders as possible. “If we can get that, I think we have a shot at success” he said. “If it fails to get the publicity and engagement it needs, we’re going to have some serious problems.” Gateway town officials, School Committee members, parents, taxpayers and businesses are among the groups that the task force is seeking to enlist. McVeigh noted that at the last School Committee meeting, GTAC member AnneMarie Buikus, who is the School Committee
representative from Montgomery, and Diane Dunn, new School Committee representative from Chester, both volunteered to participate on the task force. M“One of our major issues is a PR or marketing campaign to draw in the stakeholders, siad Msoan. “For example, we could use a catch phrase along the lines of `We’re Engaged (In Our Community).’ “ McVeigh asked whether they should set up a public forum meeting to announce the task force and its goals, and invite all the stakeholders. Mason said he is hoping for a public rollout sometime in October to coincide with the hoped-for release of mitigation funds of $630,000, which have been promised to the district to lessen the impact of Worthington’s withdrawal on the remaining six towns. “I’ve heard that the drop dead date is See Task Force, Page 3
MasterCard alerts local banks of possible security breach By CHRISTINE CHARNOSKY Staff Writer
This is Part One of a three-part series on debit/credit card fraud.
Hikers behaving badly: Appalachian Trail partying raises ire ATTENTION TEACHERS !
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By ALANNA DURKIN Associated Press BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine (AP) — When Jackson Spencer set out to tackle the Appalachian Trail, he anticipated the solitude that only wilderness can bring — not a rolling, monthslong frat party. Shelters where he thought he could catch a good night’s sleep while listening to the sounds of nature were instead filled with trash, graffiti and people who seemed more interested in partying all night, said Spencer, who finished the entire trail last month in just 99 days. “I wanted the solitude. I wanted to experience nature,” he said. “I like to drink and to have a good time, but I didn’t want that to follow me there.” Spencer, or “Mission” as he is known to fellow thru-hikers, confronted what officials say is an ugly side effect of the increasing traffic on the Georgia-to-Maine footpath every year: More people than ever causing problems. At Maine’s Baxter State Park, home to the trail’s final summit on Mount Katahdin,
officials say thru-hikers are flouting park rules by openly using drugs and drinking alcohol, camping where they aren’t supposed to, and trying to pass their pets off as service dogs. Hundreds of miles away, misbehaving hikers contributed to a small Pennsylvania community’s recent decision to shutter the sleeping quarters it had offered for decades in the basement of its municipal building. With last year’s release of the movie “Wild,” about a woman’s journey on the Pacific Crest Trail, and what experts call a growing interest in outdoor activities, the number of people on the Appalachian Trail has exploded. And the numbers are only expected to climb further after “A Walk in the Woods” — a movie based on the 1998 Bill Bryson book about the Appalachian Trail— hits theaters this week. More than 830 people completed the 2,189-mile hike last year, up from just 182 in 1990, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, based in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. At Baxter, the number of regis-
A group of section-hikers pose for a photo on a logging road outside Baxter State Park before continuing on the Appalachian Trail to Mt. Katahdin, in background. (AP Photo) tered long-distance hikers grew Katahdin if something doesn’t from 359 in 1991 to more than change soon. “If we have 2,000 hikers 2,000 in 2014. The growing number of hik- now, how will it be when we ers is becoming a management have 3,500 or 4,000 hikers?” nightmare at Baxter, where offi- Bissell said. Some say there appears to be cials say they also believe the culture and attitude of the peo- a growing sense of entitlement ple using the footpath is chang- among thru-hikers, many of whom are just out of college or ing. Jensen Bissell, director of the have enough money to leave park, said in a letter to the work for months at a time. “We had to take off half a Appalachian Trail Conservancy late last year that AT hikers are year of working, and not a lot of “open and deliberate in their people can do that,” Karl desire for freedom from all Berger, a 24-year-old Maine rules and regulations.” He resident known on the trail as warns that the trail may need to GQ, said from a camp site in end somewhere besides See Hikers, Page 5