[MassHistPres] UPCOMING: EMHCC Listening Session March 24, 2026

[Connie Hellwig]

Hello - I was very interested to hear about the subject regarding powers
and duties of Historical Commissions be discussed.  We certainly have
painful examples that would showcase the need for a review of the current
MGL and  ask for legislative authority by the state and/or the addition of
specific examples of our authority.
Historical Commissions simply do not hold any power. All we can really do
is document and complain.  We have been denied access to town owned
historic buildings, denied ability to access town property for historic
inventory purposes, (things are given away or thrown out, like historic
documents stored in the town hall basement).
The Master Plan suggests several requirements for the Historical Commission
to be involved along side Conservation, Planning and Building Permit sign
offs, but it is not a requirement, just a vision.
This town has lost nearly all of its historic property. There are only 9
remaining one room school houses in MA, and Salisbury has 2 of them.  One
is ready to collapse due to "demolition by neglect" even though the town
voted to allocate funds to save it, the town manager has refused.
Parks and Recreation have relocated Historical monuments and changed its
original base. They completely altered the town common without one word to
the Historical Commission and were about to move another monument off its
original site so that all monuments could be in one place. Defeats the
purpose if "on this site..." is moved off the site to town common. We have
a bunch of dummies running things and Preservation and Conservation efforts
are crushed and Historical Commissions are ineffective without improved and
more detailed powers and duties. I hope you are successful in your quest.
We also cannot fundraise using any online platform due to finance dept
structure and municipal grants are rare.

Connie Hellwig
Chairman. 978-270-2421
Salisbury Historical Commission

On Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 8:34 AM Randall, Lindsay via MassHistPres <
masshistpres at cs.umb.edu> wrote:

> *EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION COALITION*
>
> Listening Session
>
> Tuesday, March 24 at 10:30 AM
>
>
>
> In January 2023, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the
> Massachusetts Historical Commission, and Preservation Massachusetts
> convened the first meeting of the Eastern Massachusetts Historical
> Commission Coalition (EMHCC). This first meeting consisted of a listening
> session to better understand the challenges and opportunities that cities
> and towns in the MAPC region experience regarding historic preservation.
> Since then, the EMHCC has met an additional seven times to discuss topics
> as varied as cemetery preservation, historic district bylaws, and
> demolition delay.
>
>
>
> Three years later, we thought it was a good time to hold another
> listening session, this one focused on the powers and duties of historical
> commissions. The feedback from participants will be used to plan upcoming
> EMHCC meetings and seed future partnerships.
>
>
>
> To register: https://bit.ly/4uwRNWF
>
>
>
> The meeting will be recorded and posted here
> <https://www.mapc.org/resource-library/eastern-massachusetts-historical-commission-coalition/>
> .
>
>
>
>
> Please be advised that the Massachusetts Secretary of State considers
> e-mail to be a public record, and therefore subject to the Massachusetts
> Public Records Law, M.G.L. c. 66 § 10.
> _______________________________________________
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> https://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/pipermail/masshistpres/attachments/20260319/28bfaac5/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 24578 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/pipermail/masshistpres/attachments/20260319/28bfaac5/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 24578 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/pipermail/masshistpres/attachments/20260319/28bfaac5/attachment-0003.png>