Letter: Bilal for Williamstown Select Board

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To the Editor:

I am writing to urge Williamstown voters to elect Bilal Ansari to the Williamstown Select Board on Tuesday, May 10. Dr. Ansari has dedicated himself to a life of service, to helping people resolve difficult situations. He listens intently and responds carefully with compassion. He appeals to our best nature. These are essential skills needed at this moment in our town.

Dr. Ansari does not believe that he alone has the solutions to all of the challenges facing our town. Instead, he wants to hear from those comfortable speaking up and also those who, until now, have not felt comfortable nor heard at all. He believes it will take a village to share concerns and work together to make Williamstown a better place for everyone to live and work and grow. But making that happen takes a special type of skilled leadership.

Bilal Ansari is the candidate blessed with that skilled leadership and a stake in our town's quality of life. He has deep roots in this town: his ancestors lived and worked here. He is committed to an approach based in kindness and inclusion. He is the candidate who can and will help us reach a new, inclusive and more equitable chapter in our town's history.

I ask for your vote on May 10 for Bilal Ansari for the Williamstown Select Board. Thank you.

 

Hugh L Guilderson, Ph.D.
Williamstown, Mass.

 

 

 


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Mount Greylock School Committee OKs Budget Without Adding Elementary School Position

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee approved a fiscal year 2027 spending plan  on Thursday that officials characterize as a "level services" budget.
 
The elected body approved the same budget it reviewed two days earlier after deciding not to add an additional full-time teaching position at Williamstown Elementary School as advocated by a half-dozen WES parents who addressed the committee in the annual budget public hearing.
 
That additional position, a math interventionist sought by the WES School Council, would have added about $120,000 (for salary and benefits) to the assessment to Williamstown and raised that assessment to 14.42 percent over the amount raised for the district through Williamstown property taxes in the current fiscal year.
 
Before taking a vote to advance the budget as drafted, School Committee member Jose Constantine moved that the bottom line be increased by the $120,000 necessary for the full-time math interventionist. His motion was defeated, 4-2, with Curtis Elfenbein joining Constantine in the minority and Steven Miller, who joined the meeting late, not voting.
 
The final, original, budget then was passed on a vote of 6-0, setting the stage for the district's presentation to the Williamstown Finance Committee on Wednesday and to the Lanesborough Fin Comm and Select Board on April 6.
 
Ultimately, the budget will show up on the annual town meeting warrants in Lanesborough and Williamstown, where voters later this spring will have an up-or-down vote. The budget approved on Thursday would raise the assessment to Williamstown by 13.61 percent, year-to-year, and in Lanesborough by 10.99 percent.
 
Williamstown would be on the hook for $16.8 million (up about $2 million from FY26). Lanesborough's assessment would be $7.6 million (up by $751,000).
 
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