Lanesborough Officials OK Residential Survey on School Project
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen are looking to survey voters regarding the priorities of taxes and education.
The Selectmen voted 2-1 in favor of having Town Manager Paul Sieloff complete work on a short, three-statement survey regarding the upcoming building project at Mount Greylock Regional School.
The survey is expected to be reviewed by a consultant at Siena College, in Albany, N.Y., to eliminate bias in the wording before being sent to registered voters. The goal of the survey is to help direct the Board of Selectmen regarding both the building project and the future educational outlook.
"We're trying to come up with a survey that simple asks people what are your priorities," Sieloff said. "The concern is that the project is too expensive, we think but we don't know. We've heard both sides of it."
The manager said he's heard from many residents on both sides of the issue — some who say they are willing to pay more in favor of the educational system and those who are concerned with the cost of education.
A draft version asks residents to choose one of the following three statements:
1) I urge the Selectmen to support the Mount Greylock project even though this project will have a noticeable effect on town property taxes because supporting education is important and also because a highly rated high school is good for the town and supports property values.
2) I urge the Selectmen to try to keep taxes as low as reasonably possible even if that means not supporting the Mount Greylock Renovation project and perhaps even having Lanesborough students go to another high school — even if the school may not be as highly rated as Mount Greylock.
3) I support none of the above choices or I support another option that is not described above. Or, I have no strong opinion on this issue.
The Selectmen say the responses will give them a better understanding of what townspeople want.
"We have one of the biggest projects in the history of the town and the Selectmen are trying to hear from the residents. Is there support for this?" Sieloff said.
School officials, however, say the process is significantly flawed. Mount Greylock School Committee member Richard Cohen said the process of mailing will get responses from a certain demographic and that the questions — and an introductory letter included in the early draft — are leading.
"It seems to be very unfair. It seems to have a introduction that was written by one side," Cohen said. "It is really impossible to have a fair survey when one side presents its opinions."
Cohen says everybody would want to reduce taxes but there is no explanation or plan for what that would mean. The question hints at joining another school district but Cohen says that might not even be allowed by the state and studies show that joining in lower-rated school districts would significantly reduce property values — which in turn raises the tax rates.
The survey doesn't provide enough information for voters to make informed decisions, he said. "If you just focus on the tax rate a new building project would involve, you are not looking at the overall picture."
The Selectmen, however, say this is just their latest attempt to find the pulse of the town. In the past they have looked into taking votes on school projects by secret ballot among efforts to reach voters outside of the public town meeting.
"We've been blocked at every angle to get questions out to residents in a fair way and not be subjected to peer pressure," Goerlach said.
Resident Donald Dermyer says since a survey is going to be done, the town might as well expand it to include a number of other issues.
He suggested the town change the survey to be one of a series of statements in which voters can choose their level of agreement. The questions, he said, could ask voters to consider looking at sending students to Hoosac Valley instead of Mount Greylock, keeping the sixth and seventh graders at the elementary school, and even more changes to the regional agreement, which was just amended by town meeting.
"That would give us, I think, a better way to gauge our priorities," Dermyer said.
Dermyer's focus was more on the recently amended regional agreement. Voters recently changed the way capital expenses were apportioned from being set at the time of bonding to being adjusted annually based on five-year averages. Dermyer says the survey could look into including such things as whether or not tax-exempt properties are included in each town's equalization value or how school choice students are apportioned to the towns — both examples of items that were discussed and ultimately rejected by the Mount Greylock School Committee.
"Once we get the survey results back, we may want to have a special town meeting to talk about the results and put together some warrant articles about changes to the agreement," Dermyer said.
Amending that agreement takes more than Lanesborough's vote. The agreement is between the two towns and is crafted by the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee. Both towns would have to agree to any other changes to that agreement.
Others said the survey could lead to questions on school affiliations. Robert Barton, a former selectman and School Committee member, headed a prior effort to look toward joining forces with other towns — though that effort was focused on the Superintendency Union 71, which is a shared services agreement among all three schools for administrative services.
"The survey hopefully will do more than assess interest in another school district," Barton said. "I think there are lots of reasons to stay with Greylock, but I am concerned with the financial burden."
Cohen reiterated that the survey's affiliation question doesn't have enough fact-based information behind it. He called on those who support joining other districts to do the research and present a feasible proposal and allow the voters to look at the pros and cons rather than just posing a question that may not even be feasible to implement.
"It is a very complicated process for breaking up a regional district. There are 10 steps and it is very unlikely the state will allow us to break up the district," Cohen said.
Mount Greylock Building Committee Chairman Mark Schiek urged the Selectmen not to include those additional topics in the survey.
While the building project, the regional agreement, and the use of the Elementary School building may be linked in some ways, trying to put them all on one survey "muddies the water," he said. He urged the Selectmen to keep focused on the building project in whatever it decides.
Schiek questioned why the town wouldn't just have a town meeting to discuss the issues and then cast a vote. Cohen echoed that point, saying town meeting is a public process that has already been established for communities to make decisions.
Ericson supported a public discussion as well as doing a more encompassing survey like Dermyer suggested. Ericson ultimately voted against sending the survey with just the one three statements as drafted to residents.
"I'd rather go with either a more generous survey or a special town meeting," Ericson said.
Tags: MGRHS, MGRHS school project, survey,
