Westfield Ward 6 City Councilor Bill Onyski (WNG file photo).
Winter came to our area with a vengeance these past few weeks. With a fairly mild and snow starved season to date, the recent snow storms reminded us that we live in New England. The snow days are a nice break when you go to school but come June………..
In City Council news, most are aware that Councilor Dan Knapik resigned to accept a Town Administrator position in Yarmouth, MA. Councilor Knapik’s last City Council meeting was February 2, 2016. The vacant position has been filled by John Beltrandi. Congratulations and thank you to Councilor Knapik and congratulations and welcome back to Councilor Beltrandi.
Also of significance is the recent resignation of PeterFiordalice from the Westfield Planning Board. The Planning Board is one of the most important and thankless boards in the city. The members make important, thoughtful decisions that affect neighborhoods and the city as a whole. I had the privilege of working with Peter Fiordalice for many years. Peter’s logic, attention to detail, and dedication to the city has been appreciated and will be missed. Thank you for serving our city so well.
One of the hot topics in City Council is the acceptance of private ways to become city streets. There are 208 private ways in the city. Over one-third (72) of the private ways are in Ward 6. Residents drive on private ways thousands of times a day and wouldn’t even know it. Many of the new neighborhoods in Ward 6 are still private ways because the developer may not have applied for conversion to a city street. Another exampleis smaller, narrow dirt roads that may have “expanded” over the years from being just driveways. The city typically provides services such as snow plowing or trash pickup on the private ways. There is sometimes a misconception that because these services are provided, it is automatically a city street. This is inaccurate.
I have talked to many Ward 6 residents that would like the private way where they live, to become a public street. Sometimes this is a result of the private way needing road repairs. Unfortunately, the city is not responsible to better a private way. While converting the private way to a public street doesn’t mean that it will be automatically repaired, at least it will be on the radar. The current private way conversion process is difficult, confusing at times, and requires a specific petition by the private way residents. It can also be costly to investigate ownership of the private way (the homeowner may actually own the road in their deed) and documenting the road through site plan drawings. There have been recent actions in City Council requesting that the Mayor dedicate up to $100,000.00 per year to cover the costs of converting the private ways to public streets. This amount is a lot of money but doesn’t go a long way due to the high conversion costs.
For this reason, myself, Councilor O’Connell, Councilor Babinski, Councilor Bean, and Councilor Beltrandi submitted a resolution to enact a Home Rule Petition to the State Senate and State Legislature to convert all of the private ways in the city to public streets.The end goal is to convert as many private ways to public streets as quickly and efficiently as possible. The Home Rule Petition is also a complicated process and not without legal challenges. We will beworking this process more in depth in the coming months and will do my best for the residents of the 72 private ways in Ward 6 and the remaining 136 private ways throughout the city.
The Joseph Avenue sewer project bids were released on February 15. From now until the bid opening, contractors will be reviewing the project and responding to the bid. The city is hopeful that release of the bid prior to the start of the construction season will result in more competition and lower prices. The bid opening will on March 7.Soon after, the contractor will be selected and the work scheduled. This is a long anticipated project so I’ll keep everyone informed as more information becomes available.
The City Council voted unanimously to approve a $15M bond to expand Whip City Fiber to 70% of the city in the next two years. The remaining 30% will be rolled out after that two year period. The bond will be paid off with revenue from Whip City Fiber and not through our taxes. The fiber provides much higher speed internet service (less pausing for a web page or movie) and greater bandwidth (works better with multiple Wi-Fi devices in your home), all at a price that is lower than our cable provider offers. Whip City Fiber doesn’t provide the cable TV experience as many are accustomed to with the traditional “silver remote” but many of the same shows, and much more, are available through internet services that are best utilized through the high speed that only fiber provides. Remember using that old antenna on your roof to receive TV prior to cable becoming mainstream? The antennas may have disappeared but the over the air TV signals for local channels never disappeared. Most people just stopped using the over the air signals due to the convenience of cable. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way and people are “cutting the cord” and watching TV the old fashioned way, over the air with an antenna, and the modern way, through the internet. As an aside, Comark Communications in Southwick, MA, my main employer, has been designing and manufacturing over the air television transmitters since 1978. Comark transmitters are located locally on Provin Mountain for WWLP and on Mt. Tom for WGBY and WGGB. Hundreds more are located across the country and across the globe.
I am also continuing to work with Barnes Airport and Wyle on the noise mitigation program for nearby homes. I’ll report news as it becomes available.
Have a great rest of the winter season.
Thank you for taking time to read this. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 413-568-7747.
