Town Postpones Historical Commission’s Public Hearings on Jones Library Project

Nate Malloy, town liaison to the Amherst Historical Commission, announced on July 30, in an email to commission members that the three public hearings scheduled for Thursday August 1 had been postponed indefinitely because of the town’s failure to provide sufficient legal notice to the public of their scheduling.  The hearings were announced in an email and on the town website on July 26.  Massachusetts General Law  MGL ch. 40A sec. 11, and the Amherst town bylaws 3.60E(2)(b) both specify that legal notice of public hearings must be given at least 14 days prior to the hearing.

Malloy suggested in his email that the Historical Commission would try to reschedule those hearings to Thursday, August 22.

Malloy and Town Manager Paul Bockelman had received several letters of complaint (see e.g. here and here), pointing out the failure on the part of the town to give proper notice of the hearings and noting that this did not allow interested parties time to prepare – especially in light of the ongoing design changes that have yet to be finalized (see e.g. here, here and here).  Letters noted that the three back-to-back hearings were attempting to address complex and rapidly changing conditions and that completing three hearings in the course of two hours was unrealistic. 

Concerns were also expressed about the conduct of the required Section 106 review of adverse impacts of the proposed demolition/expansion project. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act ensures that government agencies take preservation values into consideration when they propose a project that may affect historic properties. The town has yet to announce the contact person for this effort or presiding official overseeing the review, nor have they filed an amended project notification form documenting design changes that have been adopted since the original filing, nor have they responded to requests for participation in the process. How the town intends to comply with the multi-step process has yet to be shared.

At the time of this posting, the Amherst Historical Commission meeting is still scheduled to take place on August 1 at 6:30 p.m. The town calendar has not yet reflected the intention to reschedule the public hearing portion of the meeting.