Letter: Unethical Fire District Maneuver

To the Editor:

The Williamstown Fire District recently released a "Comparison of Size of Proposed Williamstown Fire Station to Other Fire Stations" chart on their official website. The purpose of this data was to educate residents about the sizes of fire stations recently built in the region compared to what Williamstown is proposing to gain support.

During the Jan. 25, 2023, Fire District Prudential Committee meeting (recorded by willinet.org) I asked the District if they knew the information on their data chart was incorrect. For example, under the section "Station Size," the communities of Holden (36,450 square feet), Sharon (42,460 square feet), Medfield (41,022 square feet), and Plainville (43,644 square feet) are combined police/fire buildings, (in the case of Plainville, a police/fire/town hall complex), not a stand-alone fire station as suggested by the District.

Scott McGowan
Williamstown, Mass. 

Williams Grads Reminded of Community that Got Them to Graduation

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:14PM / Sunday, June 02, 2024

The graduates heard from two speakers — Phi Betta Kappa speaker Milo Chang and class speaker Jahnavi Nayar Kirtane. The keynote speaker, Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was unable to attend and recorded his speech for playback. See more photos here.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College said goodbye Sunday to its graduating seniors.

 

And a representative of the class of 2024 took the time to say goodbye to everyone in the community who made students' journey possible.

 

Milo Chang, the Phi Beta Kappa speaker for the class and one of two students to speak at Sunday's 235th commencement exercises, explained that the term "Williams community" applies to more than those who get to list the school on their resumes.

 

"It includes everyone who has shaped our experiences here, from loved ones back home to the dedicated staff members who make campus their second home," Chang told his classmates. "During my time at Williams, we've seen this community step up in remarkable ways to support us."

 

Chang talked about the faculty and staff who gave their time to operate the COVID-19 testing centers and who greeted students before they could take their first classroom tests in the fall of 2020, and the dining services personnel who kept the students fed and somehow understood their orders through the masks everyone was wearing when this class arrived on campus.

 

And he shared a personal story that brought the message home.

 

"We often underestimate the power of community until we experience a taste of its absence," Chang said. "I remember staying on campus after our first Thanksgiving at Williams, after most students went home to finish the semester remotely. I remember the long hours sitting in empty common rooms. I remember the days you could walk through campus without seeing another student.