Hatfield Boards Appoint Engelhart to School Committee, Award $282,791 Water Contract

HATFIELD -- June 2, 2021, Hatfield Select Board appoints three officers, approves $282,791 water main change order, names school committee member. The board unanimously awarded the Phase 2 West Street sewer contract to Ghelardi Enterprises of Southampton and approved Change Order No. 2 for $282,791 to replace more than 2,000 feet of pre-1900 cast iron water main along West Street, pushing the project's combined $3.6 million MassWorks-and-local appropriation to within roughly $10,000 of its limit. In a joint session with the School Committee, the two boards voted 7-2 to appoint Kathy Engelhart to an 11-month School Committee vacancy created when a write-in election ended in a tie; former School Committee member and MASC consultant Liz Lafond told the boards that with a superintendent search looming, "having no one on that school committee now with any real knowledge base around the rules, the laws, the regulations, and the statutes that govern the school committee's work would be a very, very big mistake." Attorney John McLaughlin, representing West Street property owner Sue Berry, warned before the Phase 2 vote that the project's easements remain subject to active Superior Court litigation and that a 200-voter petition for a special town meeting article remained possible.