Swanton named chair

The Historical Commission elected town center resident Ken Swanton to chair the commission. Swanton was appointed as an alternate to the Historical Commission in June 2010, just after moving from Bolton. He was nominated by the Planning Board last August to fill the Planning Board seat on the commission.

Swanton said that his commitment to community volunteering included 30 years serving on Bolton’s Conservation Commission, Planning Board, School Committee, and Master Plan Committee, and the Bolton Conservation Trust. He served as chairman on all but the Conservation Commission, his first committee membership.

Coots: Attend MBC meetings

Commissioner and Municipal Building Committee member Doug Coots encouraged the other commissioners to attend the Municipal Building Committee meetings to familiarize themselves with the Town Hall and Hildreth House renovation proposals. Although the Historical Commission is charged only with reviewing the appropriateness of exterior changes to historic buildings in the town’s two historic districts, Coots said it is difficult “to be good critics of the outside without understanding the inside.”

“A mill looks like a mill because of what goes on inside it,” he said.

Coots suggested that listening to how the architects talked about the Town Hall and the Hildreth House could give the commission a better understanding of what drove design decisions.

—Sydney Blackwell