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Traffic flows unimpeded in both directions Monday morning on a Main Street bridge in Williamstown. The halt in construction of the new bridge is to allow utilities to move their equipment.

No Unplanned Interruption in Williamstown Bridge Project

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Despite appearances, work on a Main Street bridge replacement has not been suspended or fallen behind schedule, a town official confirmed on Monday.
 
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation is replacing the span that carries Main Street (Route 2) traffic over the Green River on the east side of town.
 
At the outset, MassDOT said the replacement project would go into 2026.
 
With active construction at the site slowed in recent weeks, some have speculated that the project has been paused.
 
On Monday, Town Manager Robert Menicocci explained why there is no road work at the moment.
 
"Right now the project is in the phase where each utility has 90 days to complete their work related to relocating utilities, and then work on the other lane will resume," Menicocci wrote in an email to iBerkshires.com.
 
Menicocci said there are four different utilities moving their infrastructure at the site.
 
This weekend, a social media post hypothesized that Northern Construction, the general contractor on the bridge project, had "taken out" its building materials from the site.
 
The post may have been referring to the fact that material was moved from one section of a lot owned by the Williamstown Fire District to another part of the district's parcel.
 
At the outset of the bridge project, the district entered into an agreement with Northern to use part of its parcel on the north side of Main Street, just east of the bridge to store materials.
 
This summer, with work planned to get underway prepping the site for a new fire station, the district asked Northern to relocate its material to a back corner of the same property, an area that happens to be less visible from the road.

Tags: bridge work,   

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Williamstown Fire District Inks 3-Year Deal with New Chief

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff

Jeffrey Dias of the Onset Fire Department has signed a contract to become Williamstown's fire chief. 
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town's next fire chief says he was "ecstatic" when he heard that he would be offered the post.
 
On Tuesday afternoon, the Prudential Committee ratified a contract to make Jeffrey Dias the successor to Chief Craig Pedercini, who retired from the post on Monday.
 
"It's very sad to leave someplace you've been the better part of three decades," said Dias, currently the deputy chief and a long-time firefighter in the South Shore community of Onset. "But I'm very excited. A lot of big things are going to happen in the future."
 
The five-member Prudential Committee, which oversees the district, selected Dias on March 12 from among three candidates it interviewed earlier in the month.
 
Last week, the committee held an executive session — a rarity for the body — to discuss the negotiation of the contract. And on Tuesday, at a special meeting, the board voted to approve the deal.
 
Dias agreed to a three-year deal with a $125,000 base salary and 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments in years two and three.
 
"We are very excited to have Chief Dias lead the department forward as we look forward to the completion of our new station and the future of the Williamstown Fire Department," Prudential Committee Chair David Moresi said on Thursday.
 
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