WESTFIELD – City Clerk Karen Fanion said the city has taken aggressive steps to restore and preserve vital city records, many dating back to the decades following the establishment of Westfield in 1669.
Recent work to transform the City Clerk’s vault, which had been a part of the preservation problem, was turned into an asset as environmental controls were installed. The vault, which in the past was dank and damp, a hostile environment for paper documents, now has equipment to dehumidify and cool the air surrounding those historical documents.
“There were lots of people involved in this process,” Fanion said. “There was Kofile Preservation Inc., of Vermont which restored documents (which were damaged in the uncontrolled vault environment), preserved them and digitalized those documents.”
Two engineering consultants were involved, Spencer & Volt Group of Charlestown which provided archival engineering services, and Tighe & Bond which did the environmental control systems. Also involved in the construction of the environmentally controlled vault was Elm Electric which rewired the vault before the new walls, ceiling and floor were installed and treated with a eco-friendly finish.
Fanion said that city officials had discussed the problem of deterioration of the city’s historical records, but funding and a cohesive plan never got sufficient traction to move forward.
Two years ago the city’s Historical Commission started laying the groundwork for a comprehensive approach to maintaining the city’s historical archive.
“Kitt Milligan (Historical Commission Chairwoman), with the support of the commission, approached me,” Fanion said. “Then in 2013 we went to Southwick to see what they were doing to preserve their documents and we went to other communities as well.
“There was never any push to do this before, for the money to do this,” Fanion said. “And the timing was right because the Mayor (Daniel M. Knapik) was very supportive of this program.”
The Historical Commission and Fanion approached the Community Preservation Commission for $120,000 to preserve the records. The CPC balked at preserving the records at the cost of $120,000, and then returning them to the damp vault where deterioration would begin immediately.
The CPC requested Fanion and City Purchaser Tammy Tefft investigate the cost of installing the environmental controls as part of a comprehensive preservation program, and then approved $135,902, with the city contributing $100,000 toward the project.
“We’re still completely within budget,” Fanion said. “With the climate controls operating as designed, this system will protect the records; keep them from deterioration for decades or longer.”
“The documents that were restored are on acid-free paper and every piece of paper is now in an archival sleeve, so there is a long-term benefit,” Fanion said. “We do need to continue preservation of records. I just put in our five-year capital plan and for the past 10 years, all vital records, marriages, births and deaths, are going straight into archival sleeves so they don’t deteriorate.”
