Town of Hawley

IN THE INTEREST OF DECREASING the chance of contamination from the virus, the Selectboard is encouraging the following steps:

TOWN OFFICE OPERATIONS: Visits to the office are discouraged, but arrangements can be made by telephone or email – see “Town Business” below for details. Hours of operation will be limited and may change without notice. If you need to do business in person, call or email in advance. 413-339-5518; info@townofhawley.com.

SELECTBOARD MEETINGS: For the time being, the Selectboard Meetings will be held as scheduled. However, this could change from week to week, so check back 24 hours in advance of any meeting to make sure it’s still “on.” Please note that all meetings are audio recorded and that anyone who would like to attend, but is uncomfortable about it, can request a copy of the audio file.

Also, the Selectboard encourages people who want to get in touch, but do not want to attend, to “email, call, or write” to them.

COMMITTEE MEETINGS: All Town Committees are encouraged to set their own protocols at this time, respecting the CDC’s recommendations regarding limiting personal exposure to staff and residents. Open Meeting Law requirements have been modified; and many regularly scheduled meetings have been postponed and/or cancelled. We will continue to post meetings on the website and at the Town Office; but watch for continuing cancellations. Remote participation is encouraged as much as possible, however our resources in this respect are limited. Continue reading →

CANCELLATION — The Sons & Daughters of Hawley board has cancelled its annual Mud Party as a precaution against the corona virus.  The board felt this was the wise decision to make, especially considering the age of many people in our community.  We will miss being together!   Be safe, stay healthy, wash your hands!

To authorize purchase of a

REPLACEMENT FIRE PUMPER TRUCK

(Download Town Meeting Warrant)

THE TRUCK, presently located in Plattsburg, NY, is an E-1 1996 1250 gal/min pumper truck.  The Fire Department would like to replace the present 1980 Ford 1000 gal pumper, its oldest truck, with the E-1.

With the Ford on the Long-range Financial Plan schedule to be replaced this year, Bob Root the Deputy Fire Chief has been looking for a replacement for almost a year.  This new truck is definitely an upgrade and yet still fits the East Hawley Fire Station’s size limitation. The new truck is a diesel, with a plastic water tank (an improvement because it doesn’t rust), has 27,000 miles, and is better organized and more efficient.

The funds are presently available in the Fire Equipment Stabilization Fund. The Selectboard, Finance Committee, and Fire Chief Greg Cox recommend approval of this purchase.

THE SELECTBOARD INTENDS TO HOLD THIS MEETING IN A MANNER THAT LIMITS RESIDENT’S EXPOSURE TO THE COVD-19 VIRUS.  Since it’s likely to be a short meeting, we are considering holding it outside (weather permitting).  Of course as the wider situation evolves, the meeting may need to be cancelled – please watch for any changes/updates.

We encourage your questions/concerns in advance regarding this purchase, please contact Bob Root at 339-5592, Hussain Hamdan at 339-5320, or the Administrative Assistant at the Town Office 413-339-5518. 

1.     Wash your hands regularly, especially before eating and after being in public places.  Ordinary soap and water will do the trick.

2.     Avoid putting your hands near your face.

3.     Carry around hand sanitizer or disinfecting wipes.

4.     When at the store, wipe down the handle of your shopping cart or basket with a disinfecting wipe before use (many stores now have these), and wipe your hands again after leaving stores and public places.

5.     If you cough, cover your mouth and nose with a cloth or paper towel, or your sleeve if necessary, but never your hand.  If you do use your hands, wash them immediately.

6.     If you are sick, don’t share it! Stay home.

7.     If you have to call 911 for an emergency and you suspect that you or people in your household are sick with Coronavirus or any other contagious illness, please let the dispatcher know that, so that emergency responders can wear proper protective gear.  Our firefighters and EMTs can’t help people if they get sick themselves.

8.     Get plenty of sleep, eat well, avoid stress, and try to stay in good shape.  Your chances of recovering from just about any sickness have a lot to do with how you were doing before you got it.

The information from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the .pdf link shown below is very basic. Included are recommendations for the Workplace, Schools, Home and Commercial Establishments.

Here’s the Link:
workplace-school-and-home-guidance

While these four slides offer a compact summary, more information is available at https://www.cdc.gov/.

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS, but we took in $575 !!!!!! at the primary election day bake sale and there may still be some outstanding contributions yet to be made.

We should be so grateful for all the cooks in town who baked items then bought some others to take home. With everyone doing just a little bit (except for Beth [Thwing] who goes over the top! And Juanita [Clark] who must spend her life in the kitchen along with others who prepared multiple items), this has become a fundraiser worth looking forward to.

Yeah!
Melanie Poudrier

(Proceeds go to the Sons and Daughters of Hawley.)

SUPER TUESDAY – MARCH 3, 2020
by Pamela Shrimpton, Town Clerk 

The Presidential Primary will be held on Tuesday, March 3 at the Hawley Town Hall, 8 Pudding Hollow Road.  

All registered voters in Hawley will be eligible to vote in this primary.  Registered Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Green-Rainbow party citizens will be voting in their party.  Unenrolled voters may vote any party.  Polls will open at 7 am and close at 8 pm. 

ABSENTEE BALLOTS

Absentee ballots are available up until noon on Monday, March 2nd by stopping by Town Hall and filling out an application, or by contacting the Town Clerk at 413-339-4091 / 413-339-5518   or   townclerk@townofhawley.com.  Ballots must be received by 8 pm on Election Day.

EARLY VOTING

Early voting hours will be held at Town Hall on February 26^th from 9 am to 2 pm.

HAWLEY BROADBAND UPDATE – FEBRUARY, 2020

By Lark Thwing

Communications Committee Chair and
Chairman, FHMS Four Town Broadband Committee

Posted 2/1/2020​

I’m sure it feels like Hawley’s broadband is never ever going to happen. But don’t lose hope.  It is happening slowly but surely. Infrastructure is being installed and once that is done people are being connected.

Here’s how the infrastructure process works. We started with a desktop model with the most likely locations for poles. Some of those locations must be confirmed with actual radio signals before the pole is put in place. But here’s the general procedure: install the pole; notify the utility company that we need electricity brought to the pole; install the hardware and antennas on the pole; have utility company come, and in most cases, install an electric utility pole on the same side of the road as our broadband pole, then run electricity to that new electric pole; then we run underground conduit from the new electric pole to our broadband pole. Before any pole can be put in we have to have a pole hearing in the local community.  We’ve had the pole hearing for Hawley’s poles but if we need to relocate a pole more than a hundred feet we need a new pole hearing. The electric companies need pole hearings as well. All of these steps take time.

. . . and the process applies to all Four Towns

The priority that the FHMS Four Town Broadband Committee set for our vendor, WiValley, is first and foremost to get the poles in while we have access to the ground, then to get the utilities brought to those poles, then to get the hardware installed on the poles, and then to get a signal link from our main pole location in Savoy on Chapel Hill Loop Road to the individual poles or whatever relay pole is necessary. Just having a pole up does not mean we’re getting a signal to it and therefore does not mean that it can be serving customers. Right now we can serve customers from the main pole in Savoy and we can serve customers from the pole established at Berkshire East which is linked to the main Savoy pole. By the end of January we expect to have poles at the Florida Town Hall and Bliss Hill in Florida linked to the main Savoy pole and able to serve customers. To be clear, we only connect customers when the WiValley crew(s) cannot build infrastructure.

[Next: status of poles.] Continue reading →