In Greenfield

In Greenfield I write about local government and politics in Greenfield, MA.

There are few different committee meetings happening this week, as well as the March meeting of the School Committee
03/11/2024

There are few different committee meetings happening this week, as well as the March meeting of the School Committee

I have to say it has been pretty great 1) to have a Zoom link for every city meeting that is happening and 2) to have the recordings of those meetings posted pretty quickly by GCTV. It makes keeping up with this stuff worlds easier when I don’t have to pester the Clerk’s office or whoever to get...

The post on the Planning Board's meeting last week took me a bit longer than usual, mostly due to the delightful 🙄 detou...
03/10/2024

The post on the Planning Board's meeting last week took me a bit longer than usual, mostly due to the delightful 🙄 detour into the French King Highway/new library backstory of the Major Development Review process.

The Greenfield Planning Board had their regular monthly meeting this past Thursday: The major topics on the agenda for this meeting were a site plan review for the new Starbucks going into the Friendly’s location off the traffic circle and deliberation on the same, as well as six proposed amendmen...

If you have ever wondered what sort of person, up early on a Saturday morning, decides it's the perfect time to watch a ...
03/09/2024

If you have ever wondered what sort of person, up early on a Saturday morning, decides it's the perfect time to watch a Planning Board meeting, I am that sort of person. It's the site plan review for the new Starbucks!

Alright, it's Planning Board time! They met earlier this week—Mar. 7—with a pretty full agenda. The runtime looks to be just under two hours, so this is likely to take me a while to get through https://youtu.be/FSMYHEKHfhU?si=CArw93gQgbW1EfNi

Anecdotes are not data, but nonetheless…
03/08/2024

Anecdotes are not data, but nonetheless…

A little before noon on a Friday, here is the first level of the Olive Street parking garage: And the second level looks like this: Level 3 was about half full at this point, and there were a smattering of cars parked up on Level 4. I have been using this garage at least once a week for the past few...

Over on the Mastodon instance, I've got a running thread going about the Committee Chairs meeting from this past Tuesday...
03/08/2024

Over on the Mastodon instance, I've got a running thread going about the Committee Chairs meeting from this past Tuesday night. It was a short one, but some interesting topics and a good view about what the month ahead holds for the City Council.

The recording of the March 5, 2024 meeting of the Greenfield City Council Committee Chairs is now available: https://youtu.be/qOA-K6V2ypM?si=GISdVVcu2B1c_Bqg This meeting happens monthly—usually in the first week of the month—and it is where the Council president and the chairs of all the Counci...

The Parking & Traffic Commission holds their first meeting since last summer
03/07/2024

The Parking & Traffic Commission holds their first meeting since last summer

From the Ask And Ye Shall Receive Dept., I was just wondering a few days ago what had become of last year’s downtown parking study, when lo and behold, it turns out that the Greenfield Parking and Traffic Commission held its first meeting in ages last week and that very topic was on the agenda. Ge...

I spent some time yesterday and today watching last week's meeting of the Parking & Traffic Commission. Full post on it ...
03/06/2024

I spent some time yesterday and today watching last week's meeting of the Parking & Traffic Commission. Full post on it coming in the next day or two, but until then, the real-time thread on that meeting is here:

Following up on my question from a few days ago about the Downtown Parking Study from last year, it turns out that the Greenfield Parking & Traffic Commission held its first meeting since last just July just this past week, so what the heck—it wasn't on my list for this week, but why not check it ...

I was only able to catch the last 20ish minutes of this evening's Community Development Block Grant public hearing, so j...
03/04/2024

I was only able to catch the last 20ish minutes of this evening's Community Development Block Grant public hearing, so just a brief thread on the part I was there for: https://greenfield.social//112039846184359335

I'll keep an eye out for the recording to be posted and then follow up once I've been able to watch the whole thing.

I'm able to catch *some* (but not all) of this evening's public hearing on FY25 Community Development Block Grant proposals https://greenfield-ma.gov/calendar.php?month=03&day=01&year=2024&calendar=1&event=1059

The Public Safety Commission gets a first look at FY24 budgets and starts talking about their draft policy on handling p...
03/04/2024

The Public Safety Commission gets a first look at FY24 budgets and starts talking about their draft policy on handling public complaints.

The Greenfield Public Safety Commission held its monthly meeting for February last week. It has taken me a few days to get through the recording1, as it ran more than two hours. In addition to the usual updates and data from the various emergency services departments—Fire, Police, Dispatch, and AM...

Committee Chairs, the Planning Board, and a public hearing are on my list for this week.
03/03/2024

Committee Chairs, the Planning Board, and a public hearing are on my list for this week.

With the turn of the month, the city meeting calendar is getting busy again. This coming week has a bunch of meetings happening. Here are a few that I will be trying to keep an eye on… Monday - Community Development Block Grant Public Hearing This one is on Monday, March 4 at 5:00 PM at city hall ...

Running my usual batch of Saturday-morning errands downtown today got me thinking about empty storefronts
03/02/2024

Running my usual batch of Saturday-morning errands downtown today got me thinking about empty storefronts

I may be wrong, but I kind of think that when it comes to general negative sentiments about empty, abandoned storefronts on Main Street, there are two that are punching above their weight. The first is the old Country Jewelers: The other is the former Greenfield Games location: (Okay, and maybe the....

It's a bit slow-going due to IRL stuff, but I am gradually getting caught up on this past week's meeting of the Public S...
03/02/2024

It's a bit slow-going due to IRL stuff, but I am gradually getting caught up on this past week's meeting of the Public Safety Commission. I'll try to get a blog post up summarizing it eventually but for now, the watch-along thread is here

The recording of this week's meeting of the Greenfield Public Safety Commission has been posted on the GCTV's YouTube channel https://youtu.be/4T6nVfkY-FE?si=654e8pNCHs5BKu3U

I spent some quality time with the School Committee last night as they dug through the details of the FY25 Greenfield Pu...
03/01/2024

I spent some quality time with the School Committee last night as they dug through the details of the FY25 Greenfield Public Schools budget

I spent this past Wednesday evening at the John Zon Community Center for the Greenfield School Committee’s public hearing on the proposed FY25 budget for the Greenfield Public Schools. The hearing ran about two and a half hours and included public comment, a presentation by Superintendent Christin...

And here we are again talking about charter changes
07/11/2023

And here we are again talking about charter changes

Ahead of this evening’s final meeting of the Charter Chapters 7-7 & 7-8 Review Ad Hoc Committee, I have been reading through the recommendations they will be voting on. They can be found under “5. Motions” here. 7-7 and 7-8 are the parts of the Greenfield City Charter that lay out the rules fo...

We've got a bunch of committee, board, and commission meetings coming up this week. Here's what is on the agendas
07/10/2023

We've got a bunch of committee, board, and commission meetings coming up this week. Here's what is on the agendas

Looks like a somewhat busy week ahead for meetings of various city committees, boards, and commissions. Tonight (July 10) at 6 PM is the Human Rights Commission. The main topic on the agenda looks to be “Public access to government meetings enhancement through teleconferencing and hybrid meetings....

Catching up on last week's meeting of the Policy & Programs Subcommittee of the School Committee
07/09/2023

Catching up on last week's meeting of the Policy & Programs Subcommittee of the School Committee

The Policy & Programs Subcommittee of the Greenfield School Committee met on July 6, 2023: This subcommittee is chaired by Glenn Johnson-Mussad and has Elizabeth Deneeve and Amy Proietti as members. This particular meeting was fairly brief, running only about twenty-five minutes. Following roll-call...

The City Council meeting for June is coming up this week, as well as Ways & Means and a few boards and commissions. Here...
06/17/2023

The City Council meeting for June is coming up this week, as well as Ways & Means and a few boards and commissions. Here's the run-down…

There are now agendas posted on the city website for all of this coming week’s (June 19, 2023) town meetings. Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got on deck… Board Of Assessors - 6/20, 9:30 AM First up is the Board Of Assessors on Tuesday 6/20 at 9:30AM. It’s taking place at City Hall. T...

I was able to catch a bit of last night's School Committee meeting, but I had other stuff going on, and then the livestr...
06/15/2023

I was able to catch a bit of last night's School Committee meeting, but I had other stuff going on, and then the livestream died. I'll do a full write-up on the blog once the recording hits YouTube, but in the meantime, here are my watch-along notes for the bit I was able to watch in realtime

I’ve got IRL stuff going on tonight and am not able to attend the School Committee meeting, but I’m watching the livestream on and off as I can https://www.youtube.com/live/ycQHp6ZZKjc?feature=share

While I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading the AWESOME summary I posted a few days ago, you should definitely ch...
06/15/2023

While I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading the AWESOME summary I posted a few days ago, you should definitely check out the *actual* presentation, as I didn't get into all the details, and it addresses a bunch of the concerns, questions, and assumptions a lot of folks tend to have on this topic.

A PDF full slide deck from Monday evening’s Downtown Parking Study presentation has now been posted on the city’s website. I strongly suggest watching the video and checking out the deck. While I posted my summary a few days ago, many of the questions and concerns I have seen raised in online co...

I recommend watching the Parking Study presentation from Monday night, but you can also read my summary https://ingreenf...
06/14/2023

I recommend watching the Parking Study presentation from Monday night, but you can also read my summary https://ingreenfield.org/2023/06/14/the-downton-parking.html

Or why not both?

I spent some time watching Monday evening’s presentation of the results of the Greenfield downtown parking study: The background This study was funded with $25k from the state and the idea was to gather data about parking resources and utilization in downtown Greenfield. It was run by Stantec, and...

The recording of last night's parking study presentation just hit GCTV's YouTube. I'm watching as time permits and posti...
06/13/2023

The recording of last night's parking study presentation just hit GCTV's YouTube. I'm watching as time permits and posting my thoughts. You can follow along here:

The recording of last night's Downtown Parking Study presentation just hit YouTube https://youtu.be/kLA5shRujBM

If you've been wondering what city meetings are on the calendar for this week, I've got you covered.
06/13/2023

If you've been wondering what city meetings are on the calendar for this week, I've got you covered.

Here are the big items on the city meeting calendar this week… Downtown Parking Study Monday, June 12 at 6PM Last night was the presentation of the results of the Downtown Parking Study at the John Zon Center. I as hoping it would also be streamed on GCTV, but couldn’t find it. Now I guess I wai...

At their upcoming meeting this week, the Greenfield School Committee will be reviewing and voting on the 3-year strategi...
06/10/2023

At their upcoming meeting this week, the Greenfield School Committee will be reviewing and voting on the 3-year strategic plan for the district. Here’s what it looks like.

In yesterday’s weekly update to all the families in the district, GPS Superintendent Christine DeBarge says the following: The Strategic Plan will be presented to the School Committee for a vote on June 14th. We are very excited to come to the final steps in creating the Strategic Plan. Unfortunat...

The School Budget Subcommittee provides some early indicators of what might be going back into the FY24 budget
06/09/2023

The School Budget Subcommittee provides some early indicators of what might be going back into the FY24 budget

The Budget Subcommittee of the Greenfield School Committee met yesterday, and surprisingly, the recording was posted almost immediately: Folks, I have sat through a lot of disheartening, soul-crushing town meetings in the last five years and while this one may not have been the worst in that regard,...

I'm watching the recording the School Committee Budget Subcommittee meeting from earlier today. You can follow along ove...
06/08/2023

I'm watching the recording the School Committee Budget Subcommittee meeting from earlier today.

You can follow along over here

The Budget Subcommittee of the Greenfield School Committee met today and surprisingly, the recording is already on GCTV's YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/4tZprZb6QOA

I spent some quality time this weekend looking at the campaign finance data we have so far for this fall's local electio...
06/05/2023

I spent some quality time this weekend looking at the campaign finance data we have so far for this fall's local election.

Another very handy resource is the Massachusetts Office of Campaign & Political Finance’s database of political contributions and expenditures. For those not familiar w/the OCPF, if you are running for public office in Massachusetts and spend any money at all on the race, you have to file campaign...

What we know so far about who’s running for what this fall…
06/04/2023

What we know so far about who’s running for what this fall…

I got a look at the list of people who have thus far taken out papers from the Clerk’s Office to run for local office this fall here in Greenfield. We should keep in mind that the fact that a person has pulled papers (the term of art for taking out nomination papers) doesn’t mean they’ll end u...

The May meeting of the Public Safety Commission was largely a "not much new since last month" affair, aside from a bit a...
06/03/2023

The May meeting of the Public Safety Commission was largely a "not much new since last month" affair, aside from a bit at the end where the commissioners line up to support the mayor and police, furthering the saga of this year's budget drama.

The May 24 meeting of the Public Safety Commission finally hit GCTV’s YouTube channel yesterday. It was a relatively brief meeting, clocking in just under forty minutes: Reorganization With Amy McMahon joining the commission (an interim appointment? the city website still lists the fifth seat as ....

The May 24, 2023 meeting of the Public Safety Commission hit the GCTV YouTube channel yesterday. It may be another day ...
06/02/2023

The May 24, 2023 meeting of the Public Safety Commission hit the GCTV YouTube channel yesterday. It may be another day or two before I am able to get a proper summary together. In the meantime, here are my seat-of-the-pants watch-along notes

The recording of the May 24, 2023 meeting of the Greenfield Public Safety Commission has been posted to the GCTV YouTube channel https://youtu.be/sLzE1rEAEe8

Turns out that I didn't miss much at the start of this past Tuesday's School Committee special meeting, other than a bit...
06/01/2023

Turns out that I didn't miss much at the start of this past Tuesday's School Committee special meeting, other than a bit more consternation among committee members regarding Open Meeting Law.

The recording of the special School Committee meeting from a few nights ago has been posted on the GCTV YouTube channel, so I was able to go back and catch the beginning of the meeting that I missed. As it turns out, the Executive Session that was on the agenda ended up not happening. The committee....

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