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How do you trust that news isn't "fake" -- on Monday, Williamstown panel will offer answers

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Two libraries are sponsoring a public forum that will help members of the public to discern quality, trustworthy news from material that is based on rumors or lies.

 ” Fact or Fabrication in Today’s News,” is set for on Monday, March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Williamstown Youth Center. It is co-sponsored by the North Adams Public Library and the Milne Public Library in Williamstown.

 "Intended as an educational rather than a partisan conversation, it will feature a panel of journalists, educators and a library advocate taking questions on how news is presented and consumed in modern culture and how that process affects our views as informed citizens and voters," says Pat MCLeod, director of the Milne library.

 Panelists will touch on the state of media literacy; ways to improve it and the role schools and libraries can play in meeting that challenge. Audience participation is encouraged. State First Berkshire District Rep. Gail Cariddi,  (D-North Adams) will moderate.

Journalists on the panel are Tammy Daniels, managing editor of iBerkshires; Carrie Saldo, a Berkshire Eagle news reporter with a background in radio and television; and Martin Langeveld, former publisher of The Eagle and The Transcript, who currently comments on the future of media in his blog “News After Newspapers.”

 Educators are Jennifer Browdy, associate professor of comparative literature at Simon’s Rock of Bard College, who is teaching a course on “Media Production and Consumption in the Age of Fake News and Alternative Facts”; Shawn McIntosh, a journalist who teaches English and Communications at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and is the primary adviser to The Beacon student newspaper; and Peter Niemeyer, history teacher at Mount Greylock Regional High School and adviser to the Mount Greylock Echo student newspaper.

 Krista McLeod, director of the Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen and a member of the Massachusetts Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee, will speak to the role of libraries. The session will be videotaped by WilliNet for later viewing on television Channel 17 and online at WilliNet.org.

 For more information, contact McLeod at 413-458-5369 or [email protected];  or Mindy Hackner, librarian, North Adams Public Library, 413-662-3133 or mhackner@#cwmars.org.

 ..

Thirteen firms propose helping build Greylock Glen education, ski center; town now mulls Brill’s eco-reality camping bid; Audubon interest affirmed

By Bill Densmore

(CROSS POSTED WITH THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE)

ADAMS, Mass. – The town has received 13 responses to a request to design and supervise building a estimated $5-million, 11,000-square-foot outdoor skiing and education center at the Greylock Glen.

It’s a crucial next step in a decades-long effort to jump-start a $53-million cultural and eco-tourism education and entertainment center on the 1,064-acre public parcel abutting the Appalachian Trail and the state's highest peak — and largest public park.

Eleven of the 13 architectural and design firms are from Massachusetts, with one each from Vermont and Connecticut. “Thirteen firms is a nice response,” said Jean Rice, community-development specialist for the town.

LINK: Design bidders: http://newshare.com/greylocknews/glen-rfp-replies-02-13-17

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Audubon Society confirmed it is watching the project with interest in possibly stepping forward to manage programs at the education center if it is built. “We want very much to be a player when it comes to the Environmental Education/Nordic Ski Center,” Gail Yeo, vice president of wildlife sanctuaries and programs, said by email.

Some 10 other firms downloaded the RFP but did not submit. The town asked for expertise in “design of green building technologies.” The RFP said a successful bidder would do schematic design, consruction designs and would supervise construction.

The disclosure comes six weeks after North Adams artist, architect and “green-industry” entrepreneur Ralph Brill submitted a 140-acre campground proposal for “Hobbit-style” sleeping huts and rustic cabins and said he wanted to combine it with hostel-style lodging and virtual-reality training facility in the vacant Adams Memorial Middle School. Adams officials are now mulling his proposal.

Audubon, the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA) and the Appalachian Mountain Club all helped the town over the last several years to develop a comprehensive recreation-tourism-education plan for the Glen.

The 14-page RFP issued Dec. 21 by the town does not provide any estimate of the likely total cost of the education center, but it speaks about an intention that any respondent plan on helping the town to raise funds for costs excess of the $5 million -- before any detailed architectural drawings are created.   It says the town will work “to secure construction funding for the proposed facility.”

With 13 proposals in hand, the next step is for the town’s Designer Selection Committee to sift through them.

The campground and education center comprise the first two pieces of the Glen project; the third would be an amphitheater and, ultimately, a 170-room lodge-style hotel. Only the education center is slated to be built in whole or part with public funds, but state money has already extended water, sewer and utility infrastructure to the sites, and put permits in place.

The RFP sent out in December described a “green” building including exhibit space, a media room, four classrooms, and an indoor-outdoor cafeteria. it’s not clear how much of the design and construction would be covered by that figure.

The multi-use building   would include space for a private-venture Nordic skiing operation, plus spaces for exhibits and a potential MCLA “field station” for its environmental-studies program. There would be parking for 100 cars.

In keeping with its intention to be a key partner with Glen developers and operators, the town’s RFP says it will “develop the final program scope and budget for the outdoor-center project in conjnction with the selected design consultant team using the design concept and other supporting materials created during schematic design phase and beyond.” The town’s RFP says utilities and all state and local permits are in place.

One anticipated funding is in place, the RFP says, the town would authorize its consultants to prepare full construction plans, specifications and public-bidding documents.

RELATED LINKS:
http://newshare.typepad.com/greylocknews/2016/12/adams-to-weigh-single-proposal-received-by-deadline-for-greylock-glen-development-.html

http://newshare.typepad.com/greylocknews/2016/10/calling-all-ecology-minded-entrepreneurs-a-wide-open-opportunity-in-adams-mass-to-seed-eco-tourism-a.html

Williamstown seeks regional grant to study broadband options as state unveils proposals; two experts in VERBATIM interviews

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Without taking a formal vote, Williamstown selectmen on Monday endorsed an already-submitted request for a regional study of broadband fiber-optic options among Berkshire County cities and towns already served by the Spectrum-Charter Communications cable giant.   Meanwhile, state officials were preparing to unveil and take testimony from towns in Windsor on Thursday about proposals to build fiber networks in hill and smaller towns that have no broadband at all.

LINK: READ MORE AT GREYLOCK INDEPENDENT.

The MassBroadband unveiling of six proposals to provide broadband service to underserved towns is the subject  of a public hearing — starting at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16 at the Worthington Town Hall and running for as long as it takes to get through testimony from town officials and other testimony — up to as late as 6 p.m.

RELATED LINKS: 

• Gov. Baker and the politics of stalled broadband
• Williamstown seeks regional grant to study broadband options

Related articles

Citizens, experts to join public June 10 in figuring out how to keep the Greylock region on the fastest information superhighways

'Net neutrality' foe Ajit Pai is new FCC head

Verizon-Charter Merger: Report Indicates Verizon Is Looking To Buy Charter

Public forum set Saturday in Northampton on Berkshire broadband stalling; Gov. Baker and politics?

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Residents of towns in Berkshire County and elsewhere in Western Massachusetts will be able to learn on Saturday about a community-based effort to create public-ownership of regional broadband Internet services to the public. 

WiredWest, a Municipal Light Plan Cooperative made up of 27 member towns in western Massachusetts, will hold a workshop for interested town officials on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, at 9:30 a.m. at the JFK Middle School, 100 Bridge Road, Florence (Northampton) MA. The organization will present, for the first time, a regional solution for operation of a broadband fiber-to-the-home network in any of the unserved towns in western Massachusetts that choose to join. WiredWest will also inform town officials what the actual costs to their subscribers will be under the plan.

READ: FULL NEWS RELEASE FROM WIREDWEST

last week, Susan Crawford, a brilliant legal scholar and former top White House science advisor, wrote on her blog about the slow pace of broadband modernization and access in Western Massachusetts.   She suggsted politics could be a possible factor in why competitive community broadband is stuck in neutral in Western Massachusetts:

"This is the story of a dramatic failure of imagination and vision at the state level: Governor Charlie Baker’s apparent insistence that Massachusetts relegate small towns to second-rate, high-priced, monopoly-controlled (and unregulated) communications capacity. It’s a slow-rolling tragedy that will blight Western Mass for generations. The likely outcome: Only those plucky, scrappy towns that elect to build on their own will escape the grip of unconstrained pricing for awful service. The rest will fade into irrelevance."

The town of Williamstown has been studying the broadband situation and issued a Request for Proposals last year. iBerkshires reported on Wednesday that Williamstown is joining with Great Barrington, North Adams and Pittsfield in seeking funds from the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission to study the service they are getting from Spectrum, the new name for the merged Time-Warner/Charter cable service. "While this service is currently broadband per the federal definition of such service, there is regional concern that local officials must continue to encourage system investment so our region is not left behind in terms of technology access and can support varied new types of businesses that rely on such services well into the future," the application reads, according to iBerkshires.

RELATED LINKS: 

Crawford's blog post:

https://backchannel.com/who-is-killing-the-towns-of-western-massachusetts-5dcf6bcd770#.jh95dkks4

 

Mine from April 2016:

http://newshare.typepad.com/greylocknews/2016/04/company-which-manages-nationally-cited-super-fast-internet-broadband-for-leverett-says-it-will-respo.html

 

April 20, 2016: 

https://backchannel.com/why-western-mass-doesn-t-have-the-internet-77922828048c#.73nsm6puk

REPORT: https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2016/wiredwest_case_study

 

June 10, 2015  community roundtable in Williamstown:

http://newshare.typepad.com/greylocknews/2015/05/citizens-experts-to-join-public-june-10-in-figuring-out-how-to-keep-the-greylock-region-on-the-faste.html

 

ASSORTMENT OF LINKS: 

http://newshare.com/wiki/index.php/Broadband​

Howard Dean calls press a “failed institution” in talk at Williams College; urges millennials to enter and change institutions

By Bill Densmore

READ LONGER STORY AT THE GREYLOCK INDEPENDENT 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. --  Speaking at Williams College on Thursday evening after a day rallying students to join government institutions and change them . . . former Vermont governor and national Democratic leader Howard Dean said for corporate media it's all about money -- but that's beginning to change. "They know what they did" to elevate President-elect Donald Trump's candidacy, he said.

Dean critized the media for not "calling out" Trump for telling untruths and he said some media organizations were influenced by the fact that they could make more money by featuring Trump and spiking ratings.  "The press is a failed institution in this country," he said. "But the media are [now] learning. They know what the did."

Most of his talk, however, was aimed at inspiring students. Trump's election was not a repudiation of youth values, he says, it was a recognition that millions of Americans have been left behind.

---

Listen to the audio here:  http://newshare.com/greylockindependent/howard-dean-williams-college-01-12-17.m4a

READ LONGER STORY AT THE GREYLOCK INDEPENDENT 

Entrepreneur Ralph Brill files plans for campsite Phase 1 of Greylock Glen -- with some innovative twists / town plans RFP this week on Phase 2 education center

(Above: Architect/entrepreneur Ralph Brill)

By Bill Densmore
(see Disclosure, bottom of post) 

ADAMS, Mass. -- The town is evaluating a lone proposal received by last week's deadline for the first-phase development of the Greylock Glen.

North Adams artist, architect and "green-industry" entrepreneur Ralph Brill submitted a proposal by the town's Dec. 15 deadline and Adams Community Development Director Donna Cesan says the proposal will be "carefully reviewed." She said selectmen would probably be involved and that it is likely there will be meetings with Brill to understand his proposal.   Ceasan declined for the moment to make the proposal public. Cesan also says the town hopes this week to issue a Request for Proposals for Phase Two of the Greylock Glen -- a public-private education center. The Massachusetts Audubon Society has express interest in that phase.

BACKGROUND: Opportunity to seed eco-tourism / the Glen RFP

Brill, in turn, said he would respect the town's desire not to make his proposal public at the moment.  He said he will only proceed if the town wants to participate in a broad partnership with the aim of turning the town's economy in a new direction.

"I"m talking about economic development and turning the town around," said Brill. "It is not going to happen on the back of a napkin. But in the end the town would have something like MassMoCA, and that is the risk -- and the rewards." 

He discussed his ideas generally, saying they may not be exactly what the town was seeking, which he said was basically a private operator for a two-plot seasonal campground on the Glen parcel. Instead, Brill said his proposal includes the following features:

• Creation of one camp area consisting of "Hobbit-style" sleeping huts, and a second camp area consisting of rustic cabins, both able to be occupied nearly year round. He is thinking of ways to theme the camping area to both J.K. Rowling's designation of Mount Greylock as a fictional headquarters of North American witchcraft, as well as to be compatible with the interests of hiking, mountain biking and art enthusiasts.
• Use of a substantial of the vacant Adams Memorial Middle School building, particularly its large gymnasium, for hostel-style lodging and as a training and recreational facility for virtual-reality technology, and to support "geo-caching" games on the Greylock Glen parcel. 
• Contracting with property owners along Park Street in Adams for a series of hiking- and bicycling-themed businesses that would support the interests of travelers to the Greylock Glen, and also highlight Adams native Susan B. Anthony's record as a major promoting of women riding bicycles. 
• An education component, support a "Forest Kindergarden" school similar to hundreds operating in Scandinavia and northern Europe, as well as in Saratoga Springs, N.Y,  The school would use the Glen as a learning environment for young children -- a feature that he thinks might appeal to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which is interested in Phase 2 of the Glen project -- an education center.  

Brill operates an eclectic art gallery in a North Adams Eclipse Mill loft.  As Ralph Brill Associates, he has been involved in a major solar-electric power cooperative in Adams and is a supporter of industrial hemp. An architect by training, he was a developer in a Colorado ski resort town.  He is know for writing detailed,  fact-laden, opinionated and sometimes critical emails on a wide variety of regional topics, including MassMoCA.  

DISCLOSURE: The author of this post accompanied Mr Brill to a discussion with Adams Town Planner Ceasan in November after Brill reacted to an October blog post about the Glen opportunity, and also walked the Greylock Glen property with Brill, land planner Harry Dodson and mountain-biking enthusiast Heather Linscott.  The author has no involvement or economic interest in Brill's proposal or Brill's businesses. 

 

Did the town's voters intend a hotel to replace the Grand Union in 2013 zoning revision, or more office space?

SEE RELATED STORY FOR BACKGROUND

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- A $12-million, 95-room chain hotel proposal is being proposed on land that was, until three years ago, zoned for residential use only -- and voters may have intended that it be used for office space. 

Town records show that, until the 2013 Town Meeting, the land on which the former Grand Union supermarket sits -- behind Cumberland Farms on State Road (Route 2), was too far from the road to be included in the commercial-zoned district.  But in 2013, the town's voters agreed to amend zoning to change the parcel's zoning to "business" from "general residence." 

The approved article was accompanied in the Town Warrant by the following explanation: "This bylaw amendment will rezone one parcel and a small portion of another parcel that are currently zoned as residential space but used as a business space. Occupying these parcels are the former Grand Union Building and the Chopsticks Restaurant. This zoning reclassification will greatly enhance economic opportunity by allow additional office uses at the Grand Union Building."

However, now a hotel is proposed for that land, not "additional office uses."   Would that frustrate the intent of the town's voters? It will be up to the Zoning Board of Appeals to decide at its Jan. 19 meeting. 

When Town Meeting voted the zoning change at a May 21, 2013, the change was introduced by Anne McCallum, who was at that time a member of the Planning Board. She is now the architect for the proposed hotel developer.  A viewing of the WilliNet archive video  (go to 1:15:00 in the video) of the meeting shows that McCallum stated:

"What this article is doing is also reflecting what is sort of defacto situation right now which is where Chopsticks is and the old Grand Union, which was Litchfield, I think you all know it behind Cumberland Farms. Those two lots are currently zoned General Residence. But they are abutting the Limited Business District and they are now acting as businesses, and it would be much easier for those businesses if they were zoned as planned business. So we would like to, and the planning board feels that this is  appropriate. So we hope you will vote in favor of changing those two lots to Planned Business."

There was no discussion and the item passed on a two-thirds voice vote. 

95-room chain hotel would replace office building under $12M proposal before Williamstown board

By Bill Densmore

SEE LONGER STORY AND MORE PHOTOS

LINK: LETTERS OF CONCERN FROM NEIGHBORS

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The town could lose a 32,500-square-foot commercial office building, and gain a 95-room chain hotel, if a proposal before the Zoning Board of Appeals is approved in mid-January.

A motel owner worried about competition -- and neighbors worried about peeping toms, noise and flooding -- brought their concerns before the Williamstown Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday as it began considering whether to approve a three-story, 95-room, 53,000-square-foot chain hotel on State Road (Route 2). 

“Those hotel rooms are going to be looking into my home,” said abutting neighbor Cathy Johnson.

Navin Shah

Experts hired by Navin Shah, of Lenox, who owns four chain hotels in southern Berkshire County and Sturbridge, Mass., presented his $12-million proposal in a two-hour hearing before the board, which set 2 p.m. on Dec. 28 to visit the site, behind the Cumberland Farms where a Grand Union supermarket was once located.

Shah needs a series of special permits for arrangements that would not conform to the town’s zoning bylaw. However, a hotel is a permitted use in the business district.   Neighbors greatest concern seemed to be that Zoning Board members felt they were obliged to continue non-conforming aspects of the current 32,500-square-foot office building, even though that building will be razed and the use changed.

 Clapping erupted at one point in the hearing, when Kjell Truedsson, owner of the Maple Terrace Hotel, also on State Road, expressed concern for his livelihood should a 95-room competitor open about 1,000 feet down the road. He said Williamstown now has 406 hotel rooms, nine B&Bs and 100 AirBnBs.

“The marketing of that hotel can only be by taking tourists, school visitors from the smaller operators and I thought that the community we have served for a long time would protect us to some extent from implementing chain hotels in the Village Beautiful,” said Truesdsson, who has owned the Maple Terrace for 20 years. “And I wonder if this forum can address this and I would appreciate hearing something of that.”

Architect Ann K. McCallum said the building would have a brick façade, intended to look like a factory, rather than a typical chain hotel. She said the idea was to harken to Williamstown’s heritage as a town with brick factories and academic buildings. McCallum also described plans for a short hiking and jogging trail in the residentially-zoned rear portion of the property, and removal of some trees to improve mountain views for hotel patrons.

To clear the hotel development at its Jan. 19 meeting, the ZBA will have to issue special permits for a hotel which exceeds a floor-area threshold of 20,000 square feet, for alteration of preexisting non-conforming impervious surface coverage, for location of a retention basis in the residential zone, and for some nonconforming parking. Neighbors also asked that the project be required to complete an environmental-impact assessment.

Judging by the back of this truck, Amazon is helping keep the U.S. Postal Service solvent

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Take a look in the back of U.S. Postal Service letter carrier Dave Montgomery's delivery truck and you see a lot of boxes with one logo -- Amazon. 

Parked on is route at Westlawn Cemetery on Tuesday, Montgomery reflected on what the back of the truck might have looked like 11 years ago when he began deliverying mail. "Pretty empty," he said.  But now, it is chockfull of Amazon deliveries.  And buried further inside -- some United Parcel Service boxes, too.   

Both the world's biggest online retailer and the largest parcel delivery service now have contracts with the postal service for delivery.

 

Williams College seeks soil samples from Water Street site -- part of museum location study?

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. --  Williams College  is conducting four days worth of soil sampling at a potential Water Street site for a $65-million art-museum complex. However the town, which gave permission for the drilling, says it is not a precursor for any particular project. 

Dustin Humphrey, a geo-technical engineer for a Springfield, Mass.-based speciality geoenvironmental engineering firm said on Wednesday that his firm had been retained by Williams to do the work.  They were on site with a drill rig that has an eight-inch, hole-drilling auger that can take soil samples above bedrock.  He said work by O'Reilly, Talbot & Okun would continue for two more days.

Town Manager Jason Hoch said the town gave permission for the college to hire the sampling work on the town's property. "There more we all know about what is underneath the better," he said, adding that the town has had other testing and work done over the years at the site, and Williams has agreed to share with the town what it learns from the new borings.

"There are a handful of things in play now so I can't say this is a precursor for a particular project," added Hoch. "We've talked about a variety of potential uses on that site, obviously there has been talk in the past about buildings."  The college also has in mind some possible stormwater improvements, Hoch said.

The truck is at the former site of the town's municipal-equipment garage, which was razed and the site is now a gravel parking lot, owned by the town, which abuts Williams property on two sides, including the Spencer Art Building.  The town has permitted various uses on the site since the building was removed.  

A year ago, some 300 people signed petitions opposed to an initial location the college was reviewing as a possibility for the museum building -- at Southworth and Main streets.  That site was subsequently abandoned by the college, after it held a community discussion. The college said it was look at other possible locations. Those have included the site of the current Williams Inn at Field Park. The college owns the inn land and operation and has said it isn't sure what it would do with the property once it completes planned construction of a new hotel at the south end of Spring Street.  In January, a Williams official said the idea of putting the museum at the town garage site was "an interesting scenario." 

Williams College has been invited to comment on this post.