Now it’s my turn
By BOB DANE
Published: 5/13/2019 6:48:59 AM

Many of us were very disappointed at the outcome of the vote at yesterday’s Town Meeting in Heath. People came out of the woodwork to vote against allowing the Selectboard to enter negotiations with Carnegie Arch to create a marijuana facility at the former elementary school. The naysayers prevailed. The irony of growing and selling marijuana in a building that had been a school was too much for them to bear.
This leaves the town with a White Elephant on our hands without any funds to pay for upkeep, maintenance, and repairs including the new roof the building sorely needs. The burden is entirely on us. It was disturbing to see 110 people leave the meeting immediately after the vote. I have not seen the vast majority of them on any committee, any board, any work bee, or otherwise participating in the affairs of Heath. The group opposing the sale to Carnegie Arch did an effective job of mobilizing these voters to achieve their goals. They did this with a campaign of misinformation that stirred deep emotions surrounding the growing and selling of marijuana.
I was shocked at Town Meeting to see how quickly the building is falling into disrepair. The roof leaks and some of the ceilings have water damage. The toilets leak and appear not to have been cleaned since the school closed. The road to the building and the parking lot are badly in need of repaving. There is a big pile of refuse behind the gym left there by a renter. Our little town does not have the resources to be able to deal with any of these problems. Now the building will have to be mothballed and will continue to deteriorate. All the while, no one can use it for anything.
Now it is their turn to come up with viable ideas for the disposition of the former school. This will be especially difficult in light of the fact that it will take a two-thirds majority at another Town Meeting for the Selectboard to be able to do anything at all with the building, including moving the town offices or creating a safety complex. The vast majority of people in Heath want to keep the town offices and library in our historic Heath Center. Our fire department is so small that there will be no money from the state to move the fire station. We are fortunate to have a strong partner in Colrain to help us meet our emergency needs.
We have now lost our one best opportunity to get assistance with the future fiscal health of our beloved town. There was only one response to the Request For Proposals issued by the Selectboard earlier this year, Carnegie Arch. Do people think we will get another proposal now, after we have proven how difficult it is to deal with a severely divided town? I think not.
I am at a loss as to where we go from here. I hope the group who worked so hard to prevent the sale of the building will now work just as hard to find a viable solution to our deepening fiscal dilemma. Many of the naysayers are young adults. It is now time for them to take their turn. The next generation needs to step up to the plate and shoulder some of the responsibility and work it takes to run a small town, just as many of us did when we moved to Heath a generation or more ago. Hopefully they will join a committee. Hopefully they will come to a work bee. Hopefully they have some great ideas on how we can generate some income for Heath. Hopefully they will attend Selectboard meetings to help make these ideas a reality. Hopefully they will come to the next Town Meeting and stay until the end to help decide the business of the town. The future of our town is at stake.
Bob Dane is a resident of Heath.

Heath TM rejects selling closed school to pot farm

• Heath voted to oppose allowing the Selectboard to decide to sell its shuttered school to a marijuana company at Saturday's Annual Town Meeting. COURTESY DOUGLAS MASON
• Heath voters passed an overall budget of $2.3 million at their Annual Town Meeting Saturday, in a controversial meeting that lasted more than six hours.   FILE PHOTO

By GRACE BIRD
Staff Writer
Published: 5/12/2019 3:46:01 PM
​HEATH — The empty elementary school will not be sold to a marijuana company, after voters again opposed the article at Saturday’s Annual Town Meeting. 
Of the town’s 541 registered voters, nearly half cast a ballot on Saturday, with 104 in favor and 118 against the article, which asked voters to permit the Selectboard to find a new use for the school building. Passage required a two-thirds majority.
This was the highest voter turnout in two decades, according to Town Clerk Hilma Sumner, who has worked for Heath for 20 years. 
See Page A3 for more coverage of the Annual Town Meeting and election.
Selectboard Chair Brian DeVriese confirmed that this article would not come before Heath again, as it has now been voted down twice: on Saturday and at a Special Town Meeting in March. The article did not specifically ask the town to permit the school building be sold to a marijuana company, but rather asked voters to allow the Selectboard to make decisions about the building on Heath’s behalf.
Currently, the building is only allowed to be used as a school.
The school has remained vacant since its closure in 2017. Following this, a group formed to determine a new use for the school, though it did not reach a conclusion.
Early this year, the town put the building up for sale and received only one bid, $250,000 from Carnegie Arch LLC, which planned to use the site to cultivate, produce and possibly sell marijuana. While the school was built for roughly $3 million, as the building is remote and does not have a municipal sewer or water system, its has an assessed maximum value of $500,000.
While Carnegie made the only bid on Heath’s school, town officials said they would not sell the building if negotiations did not favor the town. 
“We are under no obligation to sell the building,” Selectboard Gloria Cronin Fisher said. 
After the building received an offer from Carnegie, residents became interested in finding a municipal use for the building. Some ideas raised in recent months have included moving town buildings to the school, such as the fire station, the town offices or the library. However, many town officials have said many of these options are inviable. For example, the town offices are one-third the size of the 25,000-square-foot school building and according to town officials, Heath doesn’t have the money to build a new fire station or safety complex. And moving municipal buildings to the school would alter Heath’s historic town center. 
“What are our options? To hang onto something we can’t afford?” Planning Board Chair Calvin Carr said Saturday. “If we keep this building, our tax rate is going to go up. And those are the facts.”
Planning Board member Bob Vierango sat on a committee in 2011 tasked with looking at building a new safety complex, housing all emergency departments under one roof, he said. But the committee determined that the town could not afford to build such a facility.
Now, the town must find a new use for the building — otherwise it will continue to sit empty, using heat and electricity and costing the town thousands every year. The town spends $18,272 to maintain a temperature of 55 degrees between the period of July 2018 and April 2019. Meanwhile, costs to heat Sawyer and Community halls, which are about one-third of the size of the school, totaled $13,828 in the same period. And if the town keeps the school, several additional expenses will emerge. Estimates for these new expenses include a new custodian, $35,669; parking lot repaving, $50,800 to $137,767; roof repairs, $250,000; a generator, $50,000 to $80,000; plus a possible new sprinkler system, $386,469, Finance Committee Chair Ned Wolf said.
Next fiscal year, the town will be wholly responsible for maintaining the building. Maintenance costs until now have been covered by Mohawk Trail Regional School District, which pledged to give Heath three annual installments of $80,000 when the building closed in 2017. That ends In fiscal 2021. 
“We have our work cut out for us,” Selectboard member Robyn Provost-Carlson said. 
Provost-Carlson added that she hopes townspeople who looked into the impacts of this sale would show the same level of interest in finding a new use for the building. 
Tax rate on the rise
Heath residents often groan about their hefty tax rate, which hovers around the 10th highest in the state. This will be no different in fiscal 2020, with the town’s operating budget rising 8.5 percent to $1.3 million. This translates to a tax rate of $22.31 per $1,000 of valuation, up 71 cents or 3.3 percent from the current year.
At Friday’s annual election, the town passed a Proposition 2 ½ override to raise taxes to pay for broadband installation.
Next year, the town’s tax rate is expected to exceed $24 due to the broadband installation costs, Wolf said.
Some elected officials have warned that if the rate increases any higher, the town is at risk of going into receivership, meaning the state will assume control of Heath’s budget.
Marijuana sparks concerns 
While many townspeople who spoke Saturday avoided the topic of marijuana, focusing on how the building might better be used, a handful addressed concerns about the substance. 
Vega Johnson-Bouchard, an 18-year-old student who once attended Heath Elementary, said she opposed allowing a marijuana company set up shop at her alma mater. She said Heath would become synonymous with marijuana if its only business was related to this substance. 
Resident Dana Blackburn expressed skepticism about marijuana, saying the industry is “in its infancy.”
“For me, the risk is too great,” Blackburn said.  
In Blackburn’s view, bringing a marijuana farm to the town would affect the “quality of life” in Heath. She said she moved to the town 33 years ago to raise children because of the “cultural and social identity of this area.” 
“Therefore, I believe that having a marijuana facility on this land … is not an appropriate use of this land,” Blackburn said. 
Resident Mary Holan, who has three children enrolled in area schools, had similar views, saying she is concerned Heath would become a “marijuana town” if the sale went through. 
“We are marketing ourselves as pro-marijuana whether we like it or not,” Holan said. “I know many of you are intellectuals and do not encourage anyone to use this stuff. However that’s what you’re voting for. This will affect the schools. This will affect people … This could affect the value of homes. It’s not so simplistic.” 
While opinions among residents were mixed, most town officials were unanimous in their view that the building should be sold. Bob Dane, a former Planning Board member, said state and municipal laws governing marijuana cultivation were sufficient to protect the town. He said the building would only become more expensive to run if it became a town building. 
“I love this building too,” Dane said. “But my pocket-book cannot afford it and neither can yours.”
Town Coordinator Kara Leistyna also supported the sale, saying the town would benefit from having another source of revenue aside from property taxes. And as another plus, she said, the business would take care of the school building — something the town cannot afford to do. 
“And I say that because I pay the bills,” Leistyna said. 
On the marijuana farm’s impact on Heath’s culture, Leistyna was only optimistic. She said if Carnegie were to set up shop in Heath, the town would have a chance to forge a positive relationship with a business.
“I don’t think that a business coming into town is going to affect the quality of our town,” Leistyna said. 
Reach Grace Bird at [email protected] or 413-772-0621, ext. 280.  

, Recorder Article: Saving Heath’s historic district
By DEL VIARENGO
Published: 5/4/2019 1:33:20 PMI understand that there is some consideration of destroying the Heath Town Center by moving all town activities now situated in Sawyer and Community Halls, to the vacant former elementary school building on Jacobs Road — a pastoral but isolated spot several miles north of Heath Center. I think that this evacuation of the historic center would cost current and future Heathans a sense of how precious gathering around a New England village green can be.
In 2004, when I was chair of the Heath Historical Commission, we began the process of applying for Heath Town Center to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Considerable work ensued to document the history of each building.
Since the late 1700s Heath Center was established as a civic focus. Arthur Krim, on behalf of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, visited Heath, and wrote, “Heath Center emerges as a classic New England village of the Federal period.” Speaking of our founders, he says, “Though modest, they did create a city on the hill during a period of prosperity between 1785 and 1835 … fortunately the town common has been preserved in near original setting as a white clapboarded village green.”
About 100 Heath residents and visitors came together on the Town Common on July 26, 2008, to celebrate the inclusion of Heath Center in the National Register of Historic Places, a distinctive honor.
In a brief talk that opened the festivities, Heath’s own Professor Michael Coe stressed the importance of stewardship: nourishing our architectural, cultural, and historical heritages. Jointly sponsored by the Heath Historical Commission and the Heath Historical Society and organized by all of their members, the celebration was planned as an ice cream social which included Heath Bar crunch. The owners of the 29 properties included in the district received certificates.
My successor, Margaret Freeman, arranged for placement of the signs on each village road that indicate the boundaries of the district.
If the Sawyer Hall and the Community Hall are abandoned and the town offices are moved elsewhere, we will leave behind our remaining historic structures, the Old Town House, our one room school, the Heath Union Church, the Veterans’ Memorial, the homes, and the Village Green as forlorn witnesses a tragic cultural decision to destroy Heath’s heritage.
I urge my fellow citizens to weigh this significant, intangible cost versus perceived, but in my mind, questionable benefits.
Thank you for your consideration.
Del Viarengo has lived in Heath since 1990, is a painter, and has served on the Heath Cultural Council as well as serving for eleven years as chair of the Heath Historical Commission.

By BOB BOURKE
Published: 5/3/2019 6:29:18 AM
Modified: 5/3/2019 6:29:07 AMAt the last Heath Special Town Meeting in March, there was an item allowing the Board of Selectmen to sell town-owned buildings. After a passionate debate, a secret ballot was taken. The simple majority of voters present voted to allow the elected officials to do their job. However, a simple majority was not enough, as a two-thirds majority vote of approval had to be met, and that fell short.
This amounted to a vote of no confidence in our elected officials to deliberate, discuss, and decide on the best future for the town. And the will of the majority of voters was also denied.
It is curious to me why such a basic tool for the Board of Selectmen was not approved. A few years ago, town voters rejected to purchase a building in the town center for town offices. The rallying cries against the purchase were higher taxes, the cost of maintaining another building, and the lack of need for more space given the 700-plus population.
Next a new public safety building was proposed and barely passed. (I was chair of the committee to oversee this project). The rallying cries against the purchase were the same ones as previously mentioned.
Now the issue is the disposition of an ex-school building. One that the town put up for sale and a buyer came forth and offerd to buy it at the asking price. A building over ten times the size of the rejected town center building. One that the Finance Committee projects if not sold, our 10th highest state tax rate will in all likelihood become dangerously close to $25 per thousand, making Heath the highest rate in the state, giving the town a dubious reputation. Add to this a debt override (which bypasses the tax rate calculation) if passed for broadband borrowing, and the real combined tax rate residents would pay would exceed the $25 per thousand ceiling set by the state.
One alternative given to selling is to move the town offices to the ex-school building at 24,000 square feet for a population of under 700 people. By comparison Greenfield has two main town buildings at around 26,000 square feet for 18,000 people and Montague has 6,000 square feet for 8,500 people. And the resultant loss of a town center with two town-owned buildings now empty yet needing to be maintained.
Why the no vote? One main reason, it would be sold to a cannabis business, (one of the most highly regulated business operation in the state). This sale will provide for lower taxes, a positive cash flow of close to a quarter of a million dollars per year, (around 18 percent of the town budget) and dozens of good paying jobs with preference to qualified Heath residents as a first hire. Tax relief needed for all, but especially to those in financial distress.
Any other business would allow for less control by the town and reduce the cash flow to only property tax and Heath would lose around $175,000 per year in revenue.
So on one hand, the voters can sell the school, get much needed jobs, a reduced tax rate, a large positive cash flow to the town coffers, and a shovel-ready project based in reality. I imagine other small hilltowns would love to have this option.
Or keep the school, resulting in no job creation, a guaranteed higher tax rate, no shovel-ready replacement for its use, and no positive cash flow.
The viability of this lovely town is in the balance.


Bob Bourke, a Heath resident, currently serves as town constable, on four town boards and committees, the Heath Fair board of directors as well as a life member of Heath Historical Society.