They couldn't all make it to Bill Boland's funeral on Friday, but the people whom he helped during his nearly 30 years as head of the Housing Authority wanted to make they paid their respects.

They stood and sat along Ashland Street or under the shade of the porch at the high-rise apartments to watch the hearse bearing his casket pass on its way to Southview Cemetery at noontime.

The high-rise apartments were only a few years old when Boland was named director of the authority, a post he held until retiring in 2003. Boland, who died last Friday at age 72, has been eulogized at the City Council and the Northern Berkshire United Way breakfast for his many good deeds and efforts on behalf of the city's poor, disabled and elderly.

Mayor Richard Alcombright told us earlier this week that he'd come to know Boland when he served on the City Council with Alcombright's late father, Daniel. When the new mayor was seeking advice on appointing people to the Housing Authority board a couple months ago, he went to Boland for advice.

"He told me not to worry about finding people who understood housing," said Alcombright, in a story he'd repeat again. "He told me to get people who understood the need for housing."

Boland certainly understood the need for housing. Not only that, he appears to have understood housing, too. Since his retirement, the Housing Authority's had three directors - and he returned at least once in an interim. 

Valmore Harpin of C Street blew up at Tuesday night's City Council, frustrated he said because the city has failed to answer his questions about the status of the truncated street he lives on. Council President Ronald Boucher had to gavel him to order when he shouted past his allotted two minutes.

Boucher's been counseling him to be patient, but Harpin said he's been waiting a year — year in which the tension between he and his neighbors over the street has erupted into competing criminal court filings and, says Harpin, repeated harassment.

The trouble apparently started over a paving project and the size of the road, which is little more than a driveway for the only two houses on the street. Unlike its A,B,D and E sisters, C Street stop short even though a map of the lots laid out along the alphabetized lanes indicates the right of way goes all the way to city-owned land where Drury High School is located.

His neighbor's building up the landscape where the road ends with railroad ties; that will block the right of way for the city and anyone else, says Harpin.

Harpin says the city has plowed and maintained the narrow road during the 15 years he has lived there. But he wants the right of way clarified and street brought up to regulation width. A survey was done to figure out where the city's land ends and the two homeowners' property begins. The lines cut off a chunk of Harpin's front yard and driveway but he says that's OK. Widening the road will alleviate problems with his neighbors parking on the street and widen a neutral zone between them.

"I just want it to end," he said.

We've got a call in to the city's Administrative Officer Jay Green, who we're sure can shed more light on this story.

The Community Day of Service earlier this month included the work of some 250 to 300 volunteers, 9,000 pounds of trash being hauled to the transfer station and 25 pairs of mittens knitted and donated to charity. We call that a rousing success.

Those were the numbers given Tuesday night by organizers Glenn Maloney, Rod Bunt and Spencer Moser to the City Council and the viewing audience.

Maloney and Bunt said there was a huge increase in volunteers, some from out of town; Moser that a large number of organizations and groups were able to showcase their community committment, as well as students fulfilling their community service learning projects.

"We've been calling it the cleanup in past years and the volunteers have kind of dropped off," said Bunt, of the Mayor's Office of Tourism. "I don't have specific numbers and this is pretty anecdotal, but we had a whole lot more of the public that wanted to get involved and make it a successfull day."

The cleanup day may have started as a community event but MCLA has pretty much taken it over during the past decade and kept it going. This year, there was a renewed effort to join residents together with the college's efforts and expand it beyond picking up trash. The Develop North Adams group was instrumental in spearheading the collaboration. Volunteers - including city councilors - painted, cut brush, read to children, installed playground equipment, knitted and did other things.

MCLA's Moser said he would "challenge any of my colleagues in the commonwealth who have similar jobs to see if they have a relationship" that puts students to work solving real problems with the community. He's heard of the obstacles they've had to deal with. "I don't have a lot of challenges here. We work together real nicely."

Another community day is being considered for the fall but Moser said the main focus will continue to be on the spring event.

Mayor Richard Alcombright had a more prominent role this year as the "lemonade truck driver." Bunt said that last year, they "snuck him up to the landfill and let him do some work." Snuck him up? Who were they hiding him from. Hmmm ....

Benches, benches, benches. Perhaps no other word has caused so much agitation and pontificating in North Adams over the past two decades.

It's a been a perfunctory question of City Council candidates (Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of benches?) and perennial topic at election time. And yet, no benches.

There were seats — rather ugly slatted things really — that were installed as part of (shudder) urban renewal. They were yanked from Main Street sometime in the not-too-distant past over concerns they were magnets for loitering teens and drug deals. While former Mayor John Barrett III occassionally opined that there was no law against benches, he wasn't a fan — so no benches.

Until now. The new Develop North Adams group ordered 10 benches on May 8; they're expected to arrive in the next week or so with the first to be installed at Veterans Memorial Park in time for Memorial Day.

"I'm excited about the benches," said former City Councilor Vincent Melito on Thursday. "I think a lot of people have wanted to have benches here. It's symbolic of a new age for the community. This is a new administration with whole new ideas."

Melito's been a longtime advocate for benches in the downtown, and even started a fund nearly 15 years ago to buy new ones. "I started the North Adams Bench Fund, it's in one of the banks, mostly small donations from around the Berkshires."

The relationship between Barrett and Melito was, at best, testy, and the funds were never used for a North Adams bench. One large donation was returned but some of the rest was spent on a bench that's at Plunkett School in Adams, in recognition of the many Adams donors. "Where was overwhelming support for the idea," said Melito.

The new mayor, Richard Alcombright, has been a proponent of benches, saying at a forum in February they would "bring a perception of the downtown as a vibrant, warm and receptive area."

The former councilor is reviving the North Adams Bench Fund, which now has about $500, to join in the new greenspace initiative being launched by Develop North Adams. The initial amount will be in honor of the North Berkshire residents who donated, the rest in recognition of a local family.  Develop North Adams has been taking donations for the benches, which cost about $1,000.

"It's really exciting and people will apprecitate having a place to sit," said Melito, reporting how store owner had told him of an elderly woman they'd taken inside to wait for a taxi because there was nowhere to sit on Main Street. "North Adams is one of the few cities that doesn't have any benches."

Wondering what that little building on the Porter Street side of the armory is? It's the entrance to an elevator.

The handicapped access is just one of the many renovations being undertaken to transform the former military building into a facility suitable for community use.

The city took over the state structure in 2007 and began fixing it up — little by little — with the help of grants and state and federal funding.

Michael Nuvallie, of the city's Office of Community Development, said last week that this is just the latest in a number of project phases that began with the redoing the roof.

The construction of the vestibule and elevator will cost an estimated $324,000 and the work is being done by Burke Construction of Adams. Some $375,000 was targeted for the project by U.S. Rep. John W. Olver in the 2010 omnibus appropriations bill to bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

So far, the building's been stabilized, new concrete stairs and walkways have been poured and other exterior upgrades have been made. 

"We picked four spots for an elevator; the best one for the dollar is Porter Street," said Nuvallie. "It  makes sense for traffic and we can put handicapped parking there, too."

This phase should be completed by early fall. The next will be work on the bathrooms and concession stand and new heating systems, for which the city has applied for Community Development Block Grants. Nuvallie said he expects the grants to be awarded on or about the latter part of July.

"I think the important thing to key in on is the transformation from a national mility barracks to a true public building is going to take time to do it right," he said. "We definitely need to do the office spaces on the second and third floor, get rid of all the old fencing and make it friendlier and prettier ... make it right for community use."

The building still won't be open to the public; it's being limited to use by the North Adams Basketball League, which has been utilizing the gym there for years. The gym also had been used by the Drury High School basketball team decades ago.

"The goal is to turn it into a community youth center," said Nuvallie. "The basketball league is perfect for that. We hope we can keep working without interrupting their season."