Editor’s note: As part of the Greenfield Recorder’s end-of-the-year features, we are publishing in two parts our choices for the top dozen news stories of 2023. Part 1 was published in Thursday’s edition. They are listed in no particular order.

Greenfield Skate Park and new Greenfield library open to public

This year was a big one for major infrastructure projects in Greenfield, with the long-awaited completion of the skate park on Chapman Street and the new Greenfield Public Library on Main Street.

In May, 13 years after the closure of the former 17,000-square-foot skate park on Olive Street, local skaters celebrated the opening of the new skate park. Construction began in September 2022. The $980,000 cost was covered through a state grant, capital funds, community donations and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.

The new Greenfield Public Library, meanwhile, opened just over a month later, after roughly two years of construction.

The grand opening in July came more than a decade after the vision for a new library was first discussed and nearly four years after Greenfield voters approved building a new library with a 61% positive vote. The $19.5 million appropriation accounted for construction costs as well as those of the architect, project manager, and the furniture and fixtures. Ultimately, the project was completed nearly $1.4 million under budget.

The 26,800-square-foot building includes two meeting rooms, several study rooms, a laptop vending machine, two makerspace rooms for adult and children’s crafts, a local history room, and a cafe-like setup near the front entrance with a vending machine managed by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.

The new Fire Station is also inching toward completion, with an anticipated move-in date in March or April of 2024.

— Mary Byrne

French King Highway rezoning proposal passes

After a year of discussion and two failed attempts at voting it through, Greenfield City Council supported a proposal to rezone land on the French King Highway.

The proposal, which was the subject of a joint public hearing by the Economic Development Committee and Planning Board in May, involved rezoning six parcels over 40.98 acres on the French King Highway from General Commercial, which provides for mixed retail, to Planned Industry, which is meant for manufacturing and industrial development.

A different version of the proposal was initiated in 2022 by Mayor Roxann Wedegartner, who suggested a zoning change for 48 acres, or 11 parcels, from General Commercial to Planned Industry. The 11 parcels this zone encompasses include land owned by Ceruzzi Properties, where a 135,000-square-foot big box store was long proposed. That land is still under lease by Stop & Shop.

That proposal, however, was defeated twice by City Council. The revised proposal received support from councilors, who argued the zoning change would hopefully attract developers and therefore, jobs to the city.

— Mary Byrne

Greenfield Police staffing fluctuates after cuts

At the start of the year, Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. announced a cut to his department’s overnight shift, effective March 1 — a plan that he and Mayor Roxann Wedegartner said was necessitated by cuts to the fiscal year 2023 police budget.

Those cuts included $400,000 for salaries and $25,000 in expenses. According to city councilors at the time, the cut was meant to signal that “major change” was needed in the department following the 2022 jury verdict that found the chief and the Greenfield Police Department racially discriminated against former Officer Patrick Buchanan and that the city was liable for racial discrimination during the promotional process for sergeants.

The initial staffing plan, however, was revised a week later so local police coverage would be provided for all hours, except between 3 and 7 a.m. Between those hours, State Police would respond to calls as needed. The plan was expected to last until June 30, the start of the new fiscal year.

In February, City Council voted to accept a matching Department of Justice grant. The $375,000 multi-year reimbursement grant would allow the department to hire two officers in early spring and a third officer in June, each for a period of four years.

By March, the department had extended three offers of employment to officers whose salaries would be paid for using the grant funding. A fourth officer transitioned from part-time to full-time.

— Mary Byrne

Warwick Community School reopens, along with expanded Fisher Hill Elementary in Orange

Big changes occurred this year when it comes to education in the neighboring towns of Warwick and Orange.

In late August, Warwick Community School students entered the building at 41 Winchester Road for the first time since 2020, having been educated in Northfield for three years after the Pioneer Valley Regional School District School Committee voted to close the Warwick school in the face of declining enrollment and increasing costs.

Since that time, Warwick has withdrawn from the Pioneer school district and formed its own Warwick School District to educate elementary-age students. Students in grades seven through 12 can attend Pioneer through a tuition agreement.

And Fisher Hill Elementary School now accommodates all Orange students in preschool through sixth grade, with the newly expanded 97,000-square-foot building opening its doors in early September following a $45 million project.

Students through third grade moved from the school’s pre-existing section to the new three-story, roughly 50,000-square-foot addition when the holiday break ended on Jan. 3, and returned to the gutted and renovated portion when summer vacation concluded on Sept. 7. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders at the longstanding adjacent Dexter Park Innovation School finished out the facility’s final academic year in June and now sit in Fisher Hill classrooms.

Dexter Park, which opened in the 1950s, was demolished in August and will be replaced with a pollinator meadow.

— Domenic Poli

Northfield votes down public safety complex

Northfield is looking into second, and even third, options to house its three emergency services departments after residents twice shot down plans for a combined public safety complex.

Fire Chief Floyd “Skip” Dunnell III said the Emergency Services Facility Committee is exploring the possibility of establishing separate homes for the Northfield Police and Fire departments and Northfield EMS or consolidating any two of those three agencies under one roof. A vote at a Special Town Meeting in April failed to receive the required two-thirds majority to raise and appropriate $13.5 million for a new 18,200-square-foot public safety complex on a nearly 27-acre property at 121 Main St.

This was followed two months later by Annual Town Meeting, when voters rejected two necessary articles, including one that would have authorized officials to start buying a property proposed for the EMS and Police departments.

“We’re no longer concentrating on everybody being in the same facility,” Dunnell told the Greenfield Recorder this week. “We’ve tried it twice and it got turned down, basically, due to the cost.”

The chief mentioned the Selectboard recently appointed three new members to the Emergency Services Facility Committee. He said an initial meeting has been held and the committee will hold more in 2024 “to see what our options are and then we’ll move forward from there.”

— Domenic Poli