116 Business View Magazine - June 2016
der of it through the tax rate. The fire station and the
public works facility are likely to be entirely taxpayer-
funded. By taxpayer funded, I mean bonded. All of
these will be bonded – the local share – with the debt
service paid for through the tax rate.
“In addition to those things, we’re doing our annual six
to eight hundred thousand dollars a year of road im-
provements. One of our downtown parking lots is un-
der construction, right now. We’re doing a major proj-
ect in downtown to put utility lines underground. That’s
a $1.5 MassWorks Infrastructure Program grant. The
other thing that we’re doing, which I think is really in-
teresting, is that we have contracts for a solar farm on
our so-called ‘old’ landfill and our so-called ‘new ‘land-
fill – neither of which is a landfill, anymore. We’re not
using them as landfills, but those are very significant
projects that we hope to bring about late this year or
mid-next year. So, we’re always looking to improve the
community in a way that’s acceptable to the communi-
ty and that supports our master development plans.”
In downtown, Amherst’s first mixed-use development
building was just completed this past winter. “It’s
