Historical Preservation Proposals: Site Visits and Warrant Review

In the course of the past few weeks, I presented the Historical Commission's Community Preservation Act (CPA) project proposals in a variety of settings:

1. at the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee (TMCC) bus tour (19 April).
2. at the League of Women Voters/Town Meeting Warrant review (21 April)
3. at the Select Board consideration of CPA articles (22 April)

• TMCC Bus Tour: The best efforts of Carol Gray and other valiant organizers notwithstanding, we were hampered in our efforts by the failure of the bus driver to show up (an omen, or just par for the course in Amherst?). As a result, we formed a caravan or carpool and managed to see most of the relevant sites, though with some omissions and compression.

The video--most of which actually deals with the Historic Preservation portions of the CPA articles--shows (1) me explaining the proposed restoration and display of the Civil War tablets currently stored at the DPW facility in Ruxton (Art. 18 J); (2) Survival Center Director (and my predecessor as Vice Chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee) Cheryl Zoll, giving a tour of the Center and explaining the services that it provides (Art. 23); (3) Jones Library Director Bonnie Isman describing needed roof repairs (Article 18H) and the closely related Archival Material Conservation and Special Collections Climate Control (Art. 18 I & G); (4) Carol Gray at West Cemetery explaining Art. 7 (municipal parking district); (5) me explaining West Cemetery projects: landscape restoration (Art. 18 E), ironwork restoration (Art. 18 C), and Town Tomb reconstructi0n (Art. 18 D). After the end of the tour, I described the West Cemetery Mural (a Historical Commission project completed in 2005), which provided an opportunity to talk about the Writer's Walk markers (Art. 18 L), and, more briefly, the Dickinson District expansion and depot District nomination (Art. 18 M).

• Warrant Review (21 April)

(watch on demand from ACTV: the Historical Commission Articles are discussed between about 8:27 and 8:50 p.m.)

• Select Board, 22 April

See other entries at this site for details on Historical Commission projects:

• Warrant Review presentation and Bus Tour
• Historical Commission Project Overview and Rationale
• Kimball House Historic Preservation (Art. 18 F)
• West Cemetery Projects Overview
• West Cemetery Restoration: Iron Work and Town Tomb (Art. 18 C, D)
• West Cemetery Landscape Restoration (Art. 18 E)
• Civil War Tablet Conservation and Installation (Art. 18 J)
• Jones Library Preservation Projects (Art. 18 G, H, I)
• North Church Roof Repairs (Art. 18 K)
• Amherst Writer's Walk (Literary Landmarks) (Art. 18 L)
• National Historic Register Nominations: Dickinson Expansion; new Depot District (Art. 18 M)
• Historic Resource Inventory, Phase II: Historic Barns and Outbuildings (Art. 18 N)

[* links updated]