Opioid Abuse on Williamstown Selectmen's Radar

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Chairwoman Jane Patton thinks tackling the opioid abuse problem in the region should be a top priority of the Selectmen.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Monday began a conversation about its priorities for fiscal year 2016.
 
Chief on the chairowman's list of issues to address: the problem of opioid addiction.
 
"There is a real strong sense that this is going on in other places — North Adams, Bennington — but it can't possibly be happening in Williamstown," Selectwoman Jane Patton said. "The number of people I know who have one or two degrees of separation from someone who is struggling with this is ... it's just mind-boggling to me that this is not a topic of conversation at every dinner table, every coffee shop, every meeting.
 
"This terrifies me. It absolutely terrifies me at every level. The way it impacts the entire community — it's just troublesome."
 
Patton said both prevention and treatment should be topics on the board's radar over the next 12 months.
 
On Monday night, the board settled on a Wednesday, July 8, morning strategy session to create a list of issues it would like to tackle in the year ahead.
 
Selectmen Andrew Hogeland suggested the creation of the lists as a way of helping the board be more proactive.
 
Among the issues he suggested the board either monitor or take the lead on: the implementation of the recommendations to come from the town's ad hoc Economic Development Committee, an analysis of the feasibility of making broadband service available to town residents and creating Open Meeting Law training for members of town boards and committees.
 
"The goal would be to focus on projects ... where we can control the result or significantly influence the result," Hogeland said.
 
The board briefly discussed whether it should hold off on the strategy session until the arrival of the new town manager. But the Selectmen decided that they wanted to get their priorities organized to present to Jason Hoch and then see what ideas he has about implementation.
 
In addition to Patton's suggestion of programs to address drug abuse, Selectwoman Anne O'Connor said the board should include a focus on green initiatives, including, perhaps seeing if the town could qualify for a Green Communities Grant like the one it received in 2013.
 
Along those lines, O'Connor and Hogeland reported back from a conversation they had with the attorney for Northeast Energy Solutions (NEES), a coalition working to stop Kinder Morgan's proposed gas pipeline and headed by locally known environmentalist Eleanor Tillinghast.
 
NEES representative Tad Ames asked the board at its last meeting to add Williamstown to the coalition. But the board decided to seek more information about the group's goals before committing the town.
 
Hogeland said he did not come away from the subsequent meeting with a clear understanding of NEES' positons.
 
"i think we're leaning toward monitoring ... to see when they publish their briefs what they say," Hogeland said, referring to NEES upcoming testimony before the commonwealth's Department of Public Utilities.
 
O'Connor was less willing to take a wait and see approach but did not press the point.
 
"To tell the truth, I'm happy to say I think it would be cool to join [NEES] right now," O'Connor said. "But I don't think that's going to fly, and I think that's OK."
 
In other business on Monday, the BOS discussed a recent letter from Lanesborough Town Administrator Paul Sieloff.
 
"The [Lanesborough] Board of Selectmen has asked that I contact neighboring towns about the possibility of establishing a multi-town working group with the Towns of Williamstown, Hancock and New Ashford," Sieloff wrote. "This group would meet to discuss a possible school district region for Mount Greylock High School [sic] and potential issues related to such a proposal.
 
"Please contact my office if your Town is interested in participating in such a working group."
 
The Williamstown Selectmen were not sure how to interpret the three-sentence letter. It was unclear whether the Lanesborough board was suggested an expanded Grade 7-12 district to include Hancock and New Ashford — which currently have tuition agreements with Mount Greylock Regional School — or a K-12 district, expanding the current regional school district to include Williamstown Elementary, Lanesborough Elementary and Hancock Elementary.
 
Currently, Mount Greylock, Williamstown and Lanesborough each has its own district, and the three share the cost of central administration. The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee has studied a K-12 regional expansion that would include only Williamstown and Lanesborough, but the School Committee put that discussion on hold in order to focus on its school building project with the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
 
Interim Town Manager Peter Fohlin advised the Selectmen that the Lanesborough proposal likely was intended to address the fact that Hancock and New Ashford would not share in the capital cost of a building project unless they were full-fledged members of an expanded regional school district.
 
Although such an expansion has been discussed by the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee, it has never voted to engage the two sending towns in a discussion about joining the district.
 
"I'd be reluctant to get involved in this without input from the School Committee," Selectman Ronald Turbin said. "The last thing we want to do is work against the School Committee."
 
No one on the board made a motion to respond to Sieloff's letter.
 
The board appointed Joan Rubel and Alison Roe O'Grady to the Affordable Housing Committee, and reappointed all 11 members of the Economic Development Committee, whose terms were set to expire at the end of the month.

Tags: appointments,   drug abuse,   economic development,   gas pipeline,   opiods,   

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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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