I give the Recorder a fair amount of crap for their local coverage (or rather, the lack thereof), but this weekend's edition provides a pretty good summary of the funding challenges facing rural schools like ours. 🔗 Franklin County school leaders call for equitable Chapter 70 funding - Greenfield Recorder: GREENFIELD —...

I am woefully behind on town meetings—TBH the whole Hope St. lot debate wore me out and turned me off a bit from municipal politics—but I started dipping my toes back in the water this week with a meeting of the Greenfield Redevelopment Authority from all the way back at the end of September.I was drawn to this one...

At their regular meeting last week (September 4), the Planning Board reviewed the site plan presented by the eye doctors that are going into the old Bank Of America location on Federal Street, across from Greenfield Middle School. It sounds like they will be making some cosmetic changes to the existing structure,...

The results of yesterday’s preliminary election for Greenfield School Committee are in: (That image is from the WWLP article on the election results.) I will admit that I am a bit surprised at how things turned out. All of this discussion should be caveated by noting that turnout was quite low. That is not a surprise,...

Polls opened at the high school a little over an hour ago. Turnout looked pretty light when I was there—not a surprise. Turnout always tends to be low for off-year local elections, especially when there isn’t even a mayoral race on the ballot. And this isn’t even the general election—just a preliminary round to cull the...

I spent a bit of time over the weekend watching the recording of last month’s first meeting of the Community Engagement Subcommittee of the Greenfield School Committee.This subcommittee is newly formed and is chaired by Elizabeth DeNeeve and includes School Committee members Melodie Goodwin and Stacey Sexton. The...

I spent a bit of time yesterday watching the last couple of meetings of the Greenfield City Council, wherein they discussed and voted on 1) whether to rescind their vote authorizing the Mayor to put the former Hope Street parking lot property up for sale/RFP and 2) the wording of the question that about the same, which...

I feel like maybe it’s time to pull In Greenfield out of the drawer I’ve had it in for the last few years and dust it off. 

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 amendments to the city’s zoning...

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 months, and what I...

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. Getting the band back...

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 two weird facade...

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 Christine DeBarge providing an...

The Budget & Finance Subcommittee of the Greenfield School Committee met about a month ago (22 Jan 2024), the main topic being the FY25 budget. I’m just catching up on it now. Music programs across the district were a big topic of conversation at this meeting, with Subcommittee Chair Martini and Member Deneeve had a lot...

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 for Citizen Initiative...