Category Archives: Hawley News

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 →

STARTING IN MID-MARCH, residents across Franklin County will receive a letter asking them to complete the 2020 Census questionnaire online or by telephone (or later with a paper copy). It’s very important that everyone in Franklin County is counted. This data determines the distribution of billions of dollar of federal resources and defines our legislative districts for the next ten years.

It is estimated that $2,372 per person in annual federal resources will be lost for every person not counted in the Census. If Franklin County is undercounted by just 3% (i.e. just 3 people out of every 100 are not counted), we could lose over $50 million in federal resources over a ten-year period. — Jessica Atwood, Economic Development Program Manager, Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG)

WATCH OUT FOR:

► Melting and Flooding
► Slippery Intersections
► Falling Branches, weakened by the storm
► Other Hazards Overhead (Wear a Hard Hat in the Woods)

Ice Storm Information & Precautions

12/29/19

Download .pdf Here

The National Weather Service has issued an Ice Storm Warning for western Franklin County including Hawley from 6 pm Sunday evening until 7 am Tuesday morning.   Freezing rain, sleet and some snow is forecast to fall during this period, leading to significant icing of trees, possible tree damage and downed power lines.  Ice accumulations are expected of between a half and three quarters inch, and possible snow of up to 2 inches.

Residents should prepare beforehand for serious icing and loss of power on Monday and Tuesday.  While the highway department will be sanding our roads, travel will be hazardous at best and may be impossible at times.  Residents should be ready to treat their walks and driveways to prevent falls or accidents.

Prepare for the Storm:

Before the storm arrives, residents should make these preparations

• Charge cell phones and keep them charged. 
• Make sure you have sand and salt mix to treat your walks and driveways
• Have a supply of bottled water and any medications you will need on hand 
• Get any food you need for this period before the storm comes
• If you plan to use a gas grill to cook, make sure your propane tank is full
• Make sure you have working flashlights and batteries for them
• If you have a wood stove or backup heat source, make sure it is ready to use and keep flammables away from it when in use 
• If you have a backup generator, make sure you have fuel for it and test to see if it starts and runs.
• Make sure that pets or livestock have sufficient water available to weather a period of power outage
• Have a rotary or non-electric phone available to use when the power is off

Continue reading →

AMBULANCE CALL INFORMATION

* Know what to expect in a medical emergency. *

1. To summon an ambulance, the caller calls 911 and reports the situation and answers any questions the dispatcher has.  The dispatcher is trained in handling medical situations and will probably have very specific questions.  It is important to be as calm and specific as possible.  Always provide your location (never count on the system automatically locating you even though it’s designed to).  If there are complicating factors, (i.e. patient is in a room only accessed by a narrow hallway) please tell the dispatcher about this.  The more information we have, the faster we can mobilize the right resources.  Same if patient has a medical history. (Click to download .pdf of this articlle) Continue reading →

IMPROVEMENTS TO HAWLEY’S EMS
(Emergency Medical Services)

THE HAWLEY SELECT BOARD HAS APPROVED a Memorandum of Agreement with the Adams Ambulance Service, a not-for-profit ambulance company which provides EMS service to the Town of Adams and several neighboring communities. The Agreement formally enables Hawley to request Adams Ambulance on an as-needed mutual-aid basis. The Agreement has also been approved by Adams Ambulance and Hawley’s Fire Chief Greg Cox. The Select Board voted unanimously in favor of it on November 12, 2019.   Continue reading →

THERE’S A NEW TREE ON THE BLOCK, and it’s possible that it is the only one  of its kind in the Town. It’s an American Elm, a.k.a. White Elm, and is reputed to be more disease resistant than its earlier relatives.

The elm, which has a two-inch diameter trunk and stands about eight feet tall, was donated to Hawley by Greenfield Savings Bank (GSB) as part of the Bank’s Sesquicentennial celebration. GSB has been in business for 150 years. Continue reading →

THIS PICTURE SHOWS THE CURRENT appearance of the 1995 L-8000 Hawley highway truck that took a severe beating in an accident early last winter. Continue reading →