Page 30 - BusinessWest May 12, 2025

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Celebrating
50 Years of Fun
Kamp for Kids, a summer day camp for children and
young adults with and without disabilities, recently
held a successful Golf FUN-raiser event at Max’s
Swing Lounge in Springfield, raising $30,000 to
support the future of the camp, which is a program
of Behavioral Health Network (BHN), and celebrating
50 years of inclusive camp experiences for children
of all abilities. Pictured at top right, from left: BHN
Chief Operating Officer Jessica Deflumer, Senior Vice
President Tony Boswell, and Senior Vice President
Jennifer Doutre. Bottom left, from left: BHN Director
of Facilities DeJuan Brown, state Rep. Carlos
Gonzalez, and Springfield City Councilor Malo Brown.
Bottom right: camper Zah-Mecca takes a swing.
Southwick >>Continued from page 11
Work and Play
Parker told BusinessWest that she wasn’t exactly
searching for a new career opportunity when a friend
recommended that she take a hard look at Southwick,
which was advertising for a successor to long-time
chief administrative officer Karl Steinhart.
“I was like, ‘no, I’m happy here,’” she recalled, add-
ing that her friend was persistent and again encour-
aged her to apply, noting that the town was bigger
than Hardwick and presented more opportunities to
grow professionally. She listened, did apply, and even-
tually triumphed in a lengthy search.
“It’s been an amazing 10 months,” she said, hinting
that it’s not exactly easy to succeed someone who had
been in the job for 35 years.
But the transition has gone smoothly, she said,
adding that she was working on the warrant for her
first town meeting, set for May 20, when she spoke
with BusinessWest.
Among the priorities she’s established is a revision
of zoning bylaws, said Parker, noting that the current
bylaws haven’t been overhauled “ever.”
And this reality has contributed in many ways to
the hodge podge that exists on College Highway today,
said Parker, noting that the street is a mix of commer-
cial, residential, municipal, and more.
“On College Highway ... there’s a house, a busi-
ness, a house, a house, a business, a business, a
house — there’s no cohesion,” she said. “Having stra-
tegic zones will really help the town grow the way it
needs to grow, the way the residents want to see it
grow.”
Elaborating, she said planning officials can look
at current zoning codes and see essentially whatever
they want to see whether it comes to including a pro-
posed use or excluding one, and something far more
definitive is needed moving forward.
And town residents will have a large say in how
the bylaws are overhauled.
“We’ll have a lot of public meetings to let residents
let us know what they want to see for their town,” said
Parker. “You live in a town because this is where you
want to be, and you should make the decisions on
how your town should modernize or move forward
or really grow; it needs to be the residents who make
those decisions, so I’m looking forward to having
those meetings so we can gauge what the community
wants for a business zone, where they want to see
industrial zones, and where they want to see strictly
residential zones.”
Meanwhile, another issue confronting this com-
munity, like all others in the region, is housing, said
Parker, adding that while few developments in the
‘affordable’ category are in the pipeline, there is a 200-
unit condo project slated for Depot Street that has
received Planning Board approval.
As for the cannabis dispensaries, Pioneer Valley
Trading and Haven will be opening in storefronts just
a few blocks from each other on College Highway.
“They can’t be within 500 feet each other, but I
think they’re maybe 501 feet from each other,” joked
Parker, adding that these additions will bring even
more variety, and vibrancy to the town’s main busi-
ness throughfare.
And they provide even more to do and see in a
community where there is already plenty in both cat-
egories. BW
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MAY 12, 2025
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