Greenfield Recorder - 07/02/2018 Page : A08

Copyright © 2018 Greenfield Recorder 07/02/2018July 2, 2018 12:40 pm (GMT +4:00) Powered by TECNAVIA

Copy Reduced to 91% from original to fit letter pageA8 GREENFIELD RECORDER | M o n day, J u ly 2, 2018 recor der.com

Ernest E. Lively Jr.ERVING — Ernest E.

Lively Jr., 76, of High Streetdied Saturday, June 30, 2018 atQuabbin Valley Healthcare inAthol. Funeral arrangementsare pending with Witty’s Fu-neral Home, 158 South MainSt., Orange.

Thomas K. SchatzATHOL — Thomas K.

Schatz, 69, of Brown Street

died Friday, June 29, 2018 atQuabbin Valley Healthcare inAthol.

There are no calling hours.A celebration of life will be

held at a later date.In lieu of flowers, donations

may be made to Quabbin Val-ley Healthcare, memo DanaUnit in memory of ThomasSchatz, 821 Daniel ShaysHighway, Athol, MA 01331.

Witty ’s Funeral Home, 158South Main St., Orange, is as-sisting the family. You may of-

fer your sympathy online at:wittyfuneralhome.com

Richard J. WellsEASTHAMPTON —

Richard J. Wells, 75, the Presi-dent & Chief Operating Officerat Hampden Papers, Inc. inHolyoke died Wednesday (6/27/18) at UMass MemorialMedical Center in Worcester.

Calling hours will be Thurs-day, July 5, 2018 from 4 to 7p.m. at the Mitchell Funeral

Home, 15 Park St., Easthamp-ton. The family will observe aprivate interment service atthe Massachusetts VeteransMemorial Cemetery with USAir Force Honors.

Donations in Richard’smemory may be made to St.Jude Children’s ResearchHospital, 501 St. Jude Place,Memphis, TN 38105mitchellcofuneralhome.com

DEATH NOTICE S

Send death notices toOBITUARIE S@RECORDER.COM

fundamental issue. This is themethod to down to someonewho not only has the core sup-port of 20 percent but who alsohas broad support, so thatmore voters are satisfied withthe outcome.”

Amherst adopted ranked-choice voting as part of its newtown charter and expects touse the method in its first towncouncil election in 2021, saidAnderson. The only otherMassachusetts communitywith it until now has beenCambridge — with the oldestinstant-runoff system in thenation for its city council andschool committee elections.

But that could change, ei-ther with a 2020 ballot ques-tion, or through pending legis-lation that’s been co-spon-sored by Rep. Solomon Gold-stein-Rose, I-Amherst. HouseBill 2897, which was also co-sponsored by the late Rep. Pe-ter Kocot, D-Northampton,would provide ranked-choicevoting as a local option; theother, House Bill 377, wouldestablish ranked choice votingfor all state contests.

Goldstein-Rose, who wonelection after a six-way Demo-cratic primary in 2016, said,

“Right now, two similar candi-dates running could reallyhurt each other’s chances, be-cause they’ll split votes. Underranked-choice voting, they canhelp each other’s chances, be-cause they’ll be providing sim-ilar messages and won’t splitvotes.”

Goldstein-Rose, whopointed to the subtleties andstyles among large pools ofcandidates who seem to havevery similar positions, saidranked-choice eliminates theneed for voters to have to“vote strategically” to avoidspoilers.

“You can always preventthe person you think is worstfrom being elected, withoutsacrificing support for the per-son who you” want most,” hesaid. “It more accurately rep-resents voters’ choices.”

The system could even al-low for ranking multiple write-in candidates, as there are inthe race for Rosenberg’s for-mer Senate seat. And sincethe standard is that the voter’sintent is clear, rememberingall of the candidates’ ad-dresses and correct namespellings wouldn’t even becritical, said Goldstein-Rose.

More than 65 percent ofvoters in the 1st Franklin Dis-trict approved a nonbindingreferendum question on the2004 ballot supporting ranked-

choice voting for state office,while a pair of 2002 referen-dum questions in two Hamp-shire County House of Repre-sentative districts own withmore than 68 and 71 percent,r e s p e c t i v e l y.

“We know a lot of people outhere already heard of it andfeel strongly about it, so weneed to go out and talk withpeople to harness that sup-port, making it a runway to aballot question,” said LizPopolo, who heads the VoterChoice Massachusetts’ P io-neer Valley Chapter. Eventhough there were differencesover the Amherst charter it-self earlier this year, she said,the ranked-choice aspect ofthe charter had unanimoussupport.

Instead of facing “adilemma a lot of voters have tomake,” she says, between a fa-vorite candidate and one who’smost viable, balancing whetherto choose “somebody you don’tlike as much because you’reworried about getting someoneyou don’t want,” ranked-choiceballoting allows voters to ex-press a their range of feelingsabout the candidates withoutthe risk that their ballot iswasted if their top choiced o e s n’t get a majority.

The current system, Pololosays, pointing to 2016 GOPPresidential primary, “favors

outlier candidates, because ifyou have multiple candidateswho draw from a similar baseof support, or a partisan base,or demographic base or a pol-icy base, they will split thatvote, and that can hand theelection to somebody who’smore of an extreme or differ-ent.

Ranked-choice voting dis-courages negative campaign-ing and — in a way that em-phasizes cooperation ratherthan competition — can evenencourage coalition buildingamong candidates to encour-age voters to rank a fellowcandidate second, so they bothconsolidate their bases of sup-port.

“As a candidate, you neednot only have core base of sup-port, but a broad reach,” shesays.

In Maine, where votersused ranked-choice voting forthe first time in the 2018 pri-mary, after a widely supported2016 referendum and a 2018“people’s veto” of an at-tempted legislative delay ofimplementation, University ofMaine political science Associ-ate Professor James Melchersaid, “It doesn’t stop all nega-tive campaigning, but it makesall candidates try to appeal toother candidates, so you getalliances. “It has the potentialto really engage voters more.

If you have an eight-way race,you could easily win with 25 or30 percent of the vote, butother people could hate thatperson.”

Ranked-choice voting,which can require multiplesuccessive tallies before awinner is declared, requires a

public education campaign,such as the Maine Secretaryof State’s Office video linked tob e l o w.

On the Web:votechoicema.orgyoutube.com/watch?v=xcGGH7E_vNkyoutube.com/watch?v=fc539ra0RRE

FROM A1

Vo te rs

1960s, Rogers said, theStreeter family bought thebuilding and had it relocatedto Bernardston to house thebarbershop, which at thetime shared space withStreeter ’s Store, in the build-ing that is now Hillside Pizza.

Rogers, now 88, has beenworking at Streeter’s Bar-bershop since 2001. He wasborn in Greenfield and grewup in Colrain, then moved toWilmington, Vt., when hewas 28. He held several dif-ferent jobs over the years,but always kept haircuttingas a “trade to fall back on.”For a few years in the early’60s, he operated what hesays was the first mobilebarbershop in the country —a pickup truck rigged to atrailer that housed a wholebarbershop. Rogers broughthis mobile business to sev-eral towns around Wilming-ton, Vt.

In 1991, Rogers and hiswife moved from Vermont to

Mississippi, where theythought they would retire.

“We didn’t do anything fora couple of months, andpretty quick we were chomp-ing at the bit,” he said. “Wewere both in our 60s. That’stoo young to just stop.”

Rogers bought a barber-shop and hired a young bar-ber to work with him.

“I got him going so hewould have a little more con-fidence,” Rogers said. ” Iwould just work a few days aweek. He’d call me up andtell me he was really busy. Isaid, ‘Can you handle it?’ Hesaid, ‘Yeah, I’m handling it.’… So I sold it to him and

came up here.”Now, the customers at

Streeter ’s Barbershop aremostly regulars who areloyal to either Rogers or JimFarnam, the other barber atthe shop. Farnam, who is 89,declined to be interviewedfor this story.

“The haircuts havechanged,” Rogers said.“Most of the places thatteach the barbers are teach-ing them more towardshairstyling and that type ofthing. That’s an entirely dif-ferent thing. It used to be asort of passage, that the manwould take his kid with himto the barbershop, and he’dget into it that way and getinto the habit of going to thebarber. … At a certain pointmost guys stopped using thestraight razor. They said theinsurance wouldn’t be cov-ered, but it was just a cop-out as far as I could see.They just didn’t want tobother doing it.”

Asked why he continuesto cut hair, Rogers says heenjoys the work and havingsome money coming in isn’ta bad thing, either.

FROM A1

Styl e

Eight y-eight-year -oldb a rb e rJohn Rogersgets ready tocut 9-year-oldO ri o nCrock well’shair atStreeter ’sB a rb e rShop inBernards ton.

RECORDER STAFF/PAUL FRANZ

Crash with injuries closespart of Route 2 in Shelburne

By MAX MARCUSRecorder Staff

SHELBURNE — At leasttwo people are being treatedfor “serious injuries” from a

head-on collision on Route 2near Gould’s Maple Sugar-house, state police said.

The collision happenedaround 10:45 a.m. Sunday,state and Shelburne policesaid.

Traffic on Route 2 was di-verted through Colrain via

Route 112 and Colrain-Shel-burne Road. The portion ofRoute 2 wasn’t expected to bereopened until late afternoonSunday, state police said.

No other information wasavailable. Police are continu-ing the investigation of thecrash.

Police investigate

RECORDER STAFF/PAUL FRANZBarber John Rogers’haircutting tools.

High temps have residentsflocking to the Green River

By MAX MARCUSRecorder Staff

GREENFIELD — Wi t htemperatures reaching 99 de-grees Fahrenheit in mid-after-noon, Sunday was the busiestday of the year so far for theGreen River swimming area,said lifeguard Ryan Blanker.

The playground and bas-ketball court both got heavytraffic, but swimming in theriver was clearly the most pop-ular thing to do at the park.Both banks of the river werecrowded with groups of peopleand their lawn chairs, beachtowels, picnic setups, boomboxes and so on. Blanker saidusually the crowd is not largeenough to fill both sides of ther i v e r.

“I thought it was going tobe busier,” said Bernardstonresident Paul Bocko, who wasat the river with friends onS u n d a y.

Blanker said the largecrowd was probably partly dueto the city’s fencing off of thearea around the EuniceWilliams covered bridge andpumping station. In recentyears, that area has been apopular swimming spot, de-spite signs around the bridgeto discourage swimming near

the dam, which is just upriverof the bridge. After receivingcomplaints from residents lastsummer about litter and van-dalism around the bridge, thecity added a new fence in May,hoping it would further dis-courage swimmers.

On Sunday, there were carsparked on either end of EuniceWilliams Road, but few swim-mers around the bridge.

But farther north on GreenRiver Road, into the hills ofLeyden and Colrain, therewere long lines of parked carsand people in bathing suitswho did not look lost.

Bernardston residentStephanie Ciccarello said thisyear ’s closure of the pool atthe Northfield Golf Club mayhave also increased traffic to

Greenfield’s swimming area.“We were thinking of get-

ting a pass for the season (toGreen River) because theNorthfield pool was closed,”she said.

The Northfield Golf Club’spool, which was built in 1957,was filled in and turned into apicnic area in May. The Snowfamily of Leyden, whichbought the club in 2014, de-cided to close the pool afterfailing for four years to operatethe pool without losing money.

Temperatures are fore-casted to stay in the 90sthrough Thursday. AlthoughSunday was the busiest dayyet for the Green River swim-ming area, lifeguards said thatJuly 4, this Wednesday, willlikely be even busier.

RECORDER STAFF PHOTOS/DAN LITTLEAbove and below, beachgoers enjoy the Green River Swimming and Recreation Area onSunday as temperatures reach over 90 degrees in Greenfield.

MINI ADS

NEED AN AD IN A HURRY?Mini ads are what you need.

If you place your ad by 3:00 pm, it will appear in the following day’s edition. Reach over 30,000 readers tomorrow.

Call 772-0261

Restaurant

1232 Mohawk TrailShelburne Falls • (413) 625-632323

0315

Beat the Heat!Iced Espresso DrinksHard & Soft Serve Ice CreamDeli Salads & SandwichesHager’s Farm Mkt.

2309

91

THE TEXTILE CO.will be

CLOSEDMon, Tues, Wed - July 2, 3 & 4

re-opening Thurs. July 5Have a safe and happy holiday

• Baquacil• Chlorine• Salt• Pool & Spa Supplies• Certified Pool Operators

Jarvis Pools & Spas72 Unity St., Turners Falls • 413-863-9541

GET THE DUCK OUT AND SWIM THIS 4TH OF JULY WITH JARVIS POOLS & SPAS

230203

2309

79

BONFIREMontague Center Ball field

Tuesday, July 3rd.Rain date: July 4th

7 pmFood and Music