SOUTH DEERFIELD — The South County Senior Center Board of Oversight laid out plans last week for a study focusing on the South Deerfield Congregational Church, which could become a long-term home for the Senior Center.

The Board of Oversight is seeking to answer four questions in its feasibility study: Is the church environmentally safe and how much would remediation work cost; will the church meet the Senior Center’s present program needs; will it serve the growing center’s future needs; and what other options are available?

“Last time we met, we talked about the feasibility study and trying to work on a plan for where we’re going,” said Deerfield Selectboard and Board of Oversight member Trevor McDaniel. “We have to think of where we’re going to go in the next year.”

Despite receiving a $75,000 Efficiency and Regionalization grant in December 2022 and discussing the feasibility study at its January meeting, the board was unable to begin the process because it did not lay out a scope of work, which Whately Selectboard Chair and Board of Oversight member Joyce Palmer-Fortune expressed frustration with.

“I’m really frustrated. … Wouldn’t this have been a really nice thing to tell us back in January?” Palmer-Fortune said. “It just seems to get delayed and delayed.”

McDaniel replied that Deerfield is frustrated, too, and that the town is always stretching itself too thin with all sorts of long-range projects in progress, along with day-to-day operations.

“We are immensely overwhelmed,” he said. “Everything kind of gets dropped until you can grab it, until you have a meeting. ... As much as we’d love to have it done already and have it perfect, we’re not big cities with a ton of staff to do it all.”

Deerfield Selectboard member Tim Hilchey said the course of action should be to set the scope of work for the feasibility study and work from there. Taking points from their previous conversation and briefly brainstorming some new ones, the Board of Oversight quickly came up with its four points.

“I feel like we just did it in five minutes,” Palmer-Fortune said.

Deerfield is also seeking a separate Community One Stop for Growth grant and is asking Sunderland and Whately to submit letters of support. Connecting Community Initiative Chair and Planning Board member Denise Mason said if the town receives the grant, the money would be put toward several problems in the South Deerfield Congregational Church, including the installation of a vapor barrier for mold, shoring up the foundation, and structural issues with the steeple and trusses.

Palmer-Fortune said she would “be a lot more sympathetic” toward supporting the grant if she had seen environmental assessments that have already been put together outlining the building’s condition.

“I have not seen any of them,” Palmer-Fortune said of the environmental assessments. “I don’t want to [support the grant] until I know what the cost is of that place being safe, mold-free and friendly to people with all kinds of health problems.”

A discussion regarding a letter of support for the grant is listed on the Whately Selectboard’s Tuesday agenda.

McDaniel said they will be reaching out to the Franklin Regional Council of Governments for help coordinating the feasibility study. The Board of Oversight, which meets again on Wednesday, will also ensure the environmental assessments are distributed to its members.

“We can’t make good decisions without data,” Palmer-Fortune noted.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

]]>