North County Notebook: Feb. 23, 2021

NORTHFIELD — Town officials, residents, businesses and other interested community members are invited to attend two virtual workshops to discuss the impacts of climate change on Northfield, and to develop action plans to build resilience to these impacts.

Held Wednesday, March 3, from 6 to 8 p.m. and Wednesday, March 17, from 10 a.m. to noon, the virtual workshops are part of developing a combined Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Community Resilience Building and Hazard Mitigation Regional Plan, in partnership with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) Planning Department. Input from the workshops will be critical to completing the joint plan which, once approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, will make the town eligible for state and federal grants to fund projects addressing climate resiliency, as well as pre- and post-disaster hazard mitigation.

Meeting notices and agendas with Zoom links can be found at Northfield Town Hall, 69 Main St., Northfield, MA 01360 and posted at northfieldma.gov. For more information, contact Town Administrator Andrea Llamas at 413-498-2901, ext. 115 or allamas@northfieldma.gov.

WARWICK — The Selectboard voted unanimously last week in favor of writing a letter to Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Commissioner Jeffrey Riley in response to recent actions by the Pioneer Valley Regional School District School Committee.

Selectboard members agreed to write to Riley to voice their concerns around the procedure, process and “openness” of the recent virtual public hearing on the fiscal year 2022 budget. Selectboard members said they feel the School Committee did not properly allow for public participation or citizens’ comments.

Additionally, members agreed the letter should voice their opposition to the December School Committee vote taken in support of moving sixth-graders from Northfield Elementary School and Bernardston Elementary School to Pioneer Valley Regional School in the fall.

Shelby Kosterman, an applied biomedical science major from Bernardston, and Karl Wheeler, an exercise science major from Northfield, have been named to the Dean’s List at the University of Massachusetts Lowell for the fall semester.