Local newspapers are vanishing. How should we remember them?

A sign that reads “Somewhere Worth Seeing” welcomes travelers to Ware, a faded mill town surrounded by the hills and steeples of western Massachusetts. But these days, hardly any news outlets find Ware worth a visit, even as its leaders wrangle over issues vital to its future.

Inside the brick, fortress-like Town Hall on a humid summer evening, Town Manager Stuart Beckley informed the five members of the Selectboard, Ware’s council, of an important proposal. A company was offering to buy Ware’s water and sewer services, which need tens of millions of dollars in upgrades. That’s a consequential choice for a town of 10,000 with an annual budget of $36 million. A sale would provide an infusion of $9.7 million. But private utilities often increase rates, raising the prospect that Ware’s many poor and elderly residents might face onerous bills down the road.

The Selectboard didn’t reach a consensus that night. Instead, one of the members berated Beckley for moving ahead with privatizing even though the position of town planner had been vacant since March. “We’ve been through four of them ... in less than six years,” Keith Kruckas said. “So we’re not going to blame it on COVID. We’re not going to blame it on other towns paying more money. We’re going to blame it on poor management.”