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Date: 5/27/2022
BELCHERTOWN – With the Belchertown Community Alliance (BCA) working on a mural in town, they formally came before the Select Board to request approval for the project. During the meeting, the board also continued discussions around the next steps in the town manager transition and search process.
BCA Board President April Jasak-Bangs began the mural discussion by giving an overview about the project’s funding.
“We have been recently awarded a grant to fund a public art project that is community-based and community-sourced in terms of theme, and the physical painting will be done as a community paint project,” she said.
While she could not disclose who awarded the BCA the grant at the time of the meeting, Jasak-Bangs said it would be worth $8,000. The BCA also received a $1,000 grant from the Belchertown Cultural Council and will be matching both grants to bring the total cost of the mural project to $18,000.
For the project, Jasak-Bangs said the BCA will be teaming up with Commonwealth Murals.
“They’re a really wonderful, professional group out of Springfield and they will be facilitating most of the project in terms of finding an artist and coordinating all of the community outreach for this project,” she said.
Jasak-Bangs said the mural will be put together at 6 Berkshire Ave. and the overall theme will be about the history of Belchertown. The mural project is going to be all about the community.
“It’s going to be community sourced with themes and we are going to be asking for a lot of community outreach and have a lot of folks coming in to help us create the project. Then a professional artist is going to take all of those themes, create a design for us and then it is going to be pieced out into a big paint by number,” Jasak-Bangs said.
She added that the plan is to bring pieces of the mural to be painted at different town events, including those run by the Cultural Council and potentially the Belchertown Farmers’ Market as well.
Jasak-Bangs also detailed the timeline for the project and said the workshop and design begin in June, the paint parties will happen in July and the mural should be fully installed by August or September at the latest.
While he said he was in favor of the program, board member Ed Boscher said he was concerned because the board had no official policy in regard to paintings on buildings.
“We were just notified and had this whole flag raising issue and the Supreme Court ruled against Boston in their approach to flag raising. I read that and I look at this project and think there might be some similarities here where we don’t have a policy of where we are going to allow paintings,” he said. “I can see some differences in that they actually have grant funding through our local and state source, but we don’t have a written policy today.”
Jasak-Bangs responded and said as a nonprofit, the BCA is not allowed to post any political messaging.
Board Vice Chair Jim Barry said he was concerned about incoming neighbors
“My question is the location; your neighbors are trying to do a Belchertown Economic Development Industrial Corporation, so depending on what was there and where it faced, it may very well impact their ability to market their development. They have a client in hand who’s going to be in town soon, so I’m not going to say yes to this until those folks have a chance to say this is a great idea,” he said.
Jasak-Bangs said she would reach out to the incoming neighbor to see if there are any issues. She added that the mural could help with economic development in the area.
“The grant that we were approved for is very much hand in hand with economic development, and the way we presented it and are looking at it is as a welcoming entrance piece to that area. It’s going to be the start of the transformation of that area and we’re hoping that it will be a positive impact and increase folks coming to that area,” she said.
Board Chair Jen Turner said she was in favor of the community and economic development aspects of the project.
“What I know from talking to Commonwealth Murals extensively with their ED [economic development] and with all of the activity that’s happened down in Springfield and other communities, it is wholly based in the community. It’s a mural designed by the community, with the community in mind and it does activate economic development,” she said.
Pending legal advice about putting up the mural and waiting for input from member Ron Aponte who was absent from the meeting, the board agreed to decide on the mural at its next meeting.
With board member Nicholas Pucel’s resignation, Turner said she took over the discussions with the UMass Collins Institute and Community Paradigm Associates about the search and transition from a town administrator to a town manager. She said she was unable to get in touch with the Collins Institute but did speak to Community Paradigm.
“They are the firm that recently did the search in South Hadley, they knew the lay of the land, they knew the town managers in the surrounding communities, they recently went through the search, so given that they understand our region a little bit and the candidate pool that exists, my recommendation is that we would go with Paradigm,” she said.
Boscher said he was also in favor of moving forward with Community Paradigm.
“I have also talked with them previously and they do have good command knowledge of the area, the role itself and they are willing to help us fill in some of the blanks that we’re presently missing in terms of the job description,” he said. “I think they would be a tremendous asset in helping us move forward.”
Barry said he was in favor of moving forward with either firm and the board unanimously agreed to move forward with Community Paradigm Associates in its town manager search and transition process.
During the meeting, the board also formally accepted Pucel’s resignation and approved the appointment of Cynthia Habersome as the new director at Clapp Memorial Library with current director Shelia McCormick set to retire. The board also agreed to put a two-month moratorium on raising flags outside Town Hall that do not include the town seal while the board works to put together an official policy.
The Belchertown Select Board next meets on June 6 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the June 17 edition of The Reminder.