Around Westhampton

By Owen Boss
Staff Writer

Road race, music on tap for Fall Festival

Preparations for this year’s Fall Festival are ramping up and officials are glad to announce that residents have a lot to look forward to.

The festival, which will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 18, will be held in a field near the center of town behind the site of the future library. Kicking off the event is a repeat of the Westhampton Hills 5K race, which will begin at Town Hall. Throughout the afternoon, coordinators have planned to have a variety of snack foods and lunch before a community supper, scheduled for 4:30 p.m., and a bonfire sing-along in the evening.

Tours of the history museum, a guided walk around the historic town center, musical performances, games, crafts, a pumpkin-weighing contest, cow pie bingo and demonstrations from a blacksmith and woodsman are among the day’s scheduled events.

The Fall Festival is sponsored by the Friends of the Westhampton Memorial Library as part of its annual capital campaign. In the instance of rain, officials say they will hold as many events as possible using the Town Hall and nearby church as indoor venues.

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New library starts to rise

Construction on the town’s new library in the center of town is gaining steam and those in charge of the project say residents should expect to see a frame of the building by Thanksgiving.

Phil Dowling, chairman of the Westhampton Library Building Committee, said construction workers began setting the footing for the $2 million project on Tuesday in the hopes of laying the foundation sometime next week.

“By Thanksgiving there will be a frame of the structure there and hopefully we can have it weather-tight so that we can work on the inside of it all winter,” Dowling said. “Our expected completion date is around April or May next year.”

Although work on the project began in early August, Dowling said so far most of the effort has been focused on making preparations for the construction that will take place over the next two months.

“The next 60 days will bring with it a lot of changes,” Dowling said. “It’s just beginning, we’ve gone through the design phase and everything else but people don’t get to see anything until they start seeing something coming up out of the ground — and to have that starting to happen is very exciting.”

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Town positions open

Town Administrator Margie Parsons is calling on local residents to step up and fill several available positions in town government.

While a professional background in the given field is desired, Parsons said the most important thing to her is filling the open positions with committed residents.

“We need volunteers in a number of town positions,” Parsons said. “We are just looking for people who are interested enough to serve.”

The Zoning Board of Appeals, Recreation Committee, Board of Health and Open Space Committee are among those with vacancies.

Parsons says residents interested in signing up for the positions should contact a member of the town’s Select Board.