Hadley Select Board Puts Scaled-Down $12 Million DPW Building on Town Meeting Warrant

HADLEY -- April 2, 2025, Hadley Select Board advances a scaled-down DPW facility and approves a harm reduction contract. The board voted unanimously Wednesday to place a two-storage-bay DPW building on the annual town meeting warrant, backing a design estimated at $12 million to $13 million, down from the $19.65 million full-scope option presented at the previous DPW Building Committee meeting. Jim Maximowski, the building committee chair, told the board he believes the architect's updated estimate of $14 million to $15 million inadvertently double-counted roughly $2.4 million in soft costs, and said a more precise figure would be delivered before the April 23 public forum. The board also unanimously approved a contract with Tapestry Health to bring mobile harm reduction services, including Narcan distribution, drug-checking, and sharps disposal, to Hadley residents, funded entirely by opioid settlement money; Tapestry's Pedro Alvarez, director of operations for harm reduction services, told the board 12 fatal overdoses have occurred in Hadley since 2016, "quite a lot for a population of less than 6,000 people." Gabriel Chambers, a Northampton resident and Massachusetts Army National Guard specialist currently working as a police dispatcher, was appointed a full-time Hadley police officer effective April 12, with the police academy beginning July 14.