WILLIAMSBURG — Two weeks after residents engaged in a contentious shouting match at annual Town Meeting over easement approval needed for proposed construction of a section of a rail-trail that will eventually connect to Northampton, residents of Haydenville’s South Main Street neighborhood opposed to the project and town officials were equally apologetic at a Select Board meeting on Thursday.

At the end of a nearly two-hour discussion, the Select Board appeared ready to call for a special Town Meeting in the next few months at which it will ask residents to approve an article granting permanent easements to some South Main Street property needed to build the rail trail, dubbed the Mill River Greenway.

Plans for the Greenway, which have been in the works for several years, call for construction of an 8-foot-wide shared-use bicycle and pedestrian pathway on South Main Street. The construction will create the first section of the long-planned Greenway, an initiative to create a trail connection between Northampton and Williamsburg.

The most contentious part of the proposed project remains a 1,700-foot section of South Main Street, between the town’s bridges and the Northampton Bike Trail. Some residents along that stretch contend the trail would pose a safety hazard with bicyclists riding past the end of their driveways.

The project has been approved and funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, but in order to move ahead, the town needs to acquire easements of private property along South Main Street.

The issue came to a head at the June 2 annual Town Meeting during discussions of Article 27, which requested those easements and eminent domain of some property along the Greenway. The article failed to get a two-thirds majority vote by just four votes, with 219 voicing yes, and 115 casting a vote for no.

During the heated discussion, residents were critical of the article’s wording, saying that it was confusing and hard to follow. In response, the Select Board agreed to rework the article to address its deficiencies and to bring it back to residents for another vote. That new article would be on the warrant for the future special Town Meeting.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, the Mill River Greenway Committee, formed 12 years ago to help develop plans for the town’s portion of the statewide rail trail, voted to step back from the project in light of the current conflicts between the town and South Main Street residents. After voting to make this decision, the committee sent a letter to Select Board stating that it no longer wanted to be the leading advocates for the project.

“I just want everyone to understand that this isn’t the committee’s project,” Gaby Immerman, the committee’s chair, told the Select Board on Thursday. “This is the town’s project, and the committee was asked to move this project forward.”

In calling on the Select Board to take over, Immerman noted that the board has approved various aspects of the project — signing contracts, approving design submissions and grant applications — on about 50 occasions to date.

According to the letter addressed to the board, “Town infrastructure projects with secure funding and occurring almost entirely within the town’s Right of Way should be and typically are managed by the Highway Department, under the jurisdiction and oversight of the Select Board.

“As such, with this letter, we formally notify the Select Board that the Mill River Greenway Committee has successfully fulfilled our committee’s objectives, and believes that it is the Select Board’s role to provide all further leadership and advocacy as relates to the ongoing processes, decisions, and outcomes of the South Main Connector project,” it said.

Select Board member Paul Wetzel agreed, telling his peers that “we are in charge” of the project. With $6.3 million in state and private funding, and contracts signed with the state to complete the project, the Select Board has the intention to move forward with the Greenway.

Discussions will continue and if a special Town Meeting is called, ample notice will be given to the community, board members said.

Residents still upset

In addition to safety, residents on South Main Street say they don’t feel heard by town officials.

Leslie Schneider of 15 South Main St. who is opposed to the Greenway, said “There was a lot that wasn’t made clear in the article, but I blame the lawyers for that.”

She also wants the town “coming together and actually listening, not paying so much lip service,” to the demands of many residents in her neighborhood.

Many of those residents have expressed concerns for the Greenway’s safety in more than a dozen community forums, in Select Board meetings, and other public venues. They have pitched new plans for the design that would not involve an 8-foot-wide shared-use path for bikes and pedestrians.

Madelyn Breen is the fourth-generation resident of 17 South Main St. She said that, “It’s not the project itself, it’s the design of it — the shared-use path.”

“People who don’t live here don’t understand that it is a highly residential neighborhood, with walkers, bikers, kids,” she said.

Schneider said it will make getting out of her driveway dangerous not only for her, but for her 92-year-old mother, and for bikers who may not see cars and can’t break at high speeds.

“We’d like to have the road repaved and potentially redo the sidewalk, and have any bike that wants to be on the sidewalk,” she said, adding that electric bikes, like her husbands, can stay to the side of the road.

Apologies

On Thursday, the community also took the opportunity to issue apologies.

Residents of South Main apologized to members of the Greenway Committee for the use of ad hominems at the annual Town Meeting, and the Greenway committee expressed its intention to not be a dividing force in the community.

Town officials apologized to residents for the disorder that Select Board member William Sayre called a “perfect storm.”

For one, the meeting started about 40 minutes late. A noncontroversial contention among all residents, both those for and against the project and even the Select Board, expressed that the article was poorly written and full of jargon. The town’s legal counsel, KP Law, was blamed for the wording by town officials.

There also were not enough booklets printed, or adequate seating arrangements for the day, which the Select Board took responsibility for, and said measures will be made that similar issues do not arise in the future.

New Town Moderator Kayla Solomon, elected when ballots were cast in town last month, issued an apology attached with an intention to resign.

Solomon, who was elected to a one-year term, took responsibility for not being able to harness the “chaos” that ensued at Town Meeting.

“I am more than willing to resign because I feel like I do not have the grasp of the rules that people need to have when it gets contentious,” she said on Thursday. “And if there’s somebody else that wants to step forward, I would greatly appreciate it so I can resign.”

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.