Letter: Bilal for Williamstown Select Board

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.

Williamstown Recognizes Local Farmer, Library Director at Town Meeting

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
09:35AM / Thursday, May 21, 2026

Win Chenail has had a farm stand at his Luce Road dairy farm since 1965. The Chenails have been farming in Williamstown since 1916. Right, Select Board Chair Stephanie Boyd thanks board members whose terms were up this year. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — For more than 60 years, Winthrop F. Chenail has been selling his bountiful crops to residents of Williamstown and beyond. 

 

"The family dairy farm at the top of Luce Road has been an anchor farm in our community since 1916," said Elisabeth Goodman. "His farm stand has been operating since 1965 and that's where we get our sweet corn, homegrown tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, summer squash flowers, and pumpkins that he and his grandson Nick Chenail grow as a side business to the family dairy farm."

 

Win Chenail's integrity, excellence, and dedication of service to the citizens of Williamstown was recognized at the annual town meeting on Tuesday with the 11th annual Scarborough Solomon Flint Community Service Award.

 

"At age 90, Win has not slowed down much," Goodman said. "I never did get to speak to him on the phone when notifying him about this award, as his wife told me he was busy in the greenhouse repotting 2,000 tomato plants."

 

Five generations have worked the Mount Williams Dairy Farm that Chenail's grandparents purchased, and Chenail's also been a caretaker of 130 acres of town land at the Spruces and Burbank properties. 

 

"The Chenail family has been managing the land since the 1950s keeping the fields green, lush, and productive with sustainable management practices," she said. "They fertilize it with manure from the dairy farm and lime as needed. With such careful, long-term stewardship of the soil, the land has continued to be fertile and productive for half a century under his fare."

 

Chenail thanked his family and fellow farmers for contributing to the welfare of the community and said it had been a privilege to keep the town-owned fields in farming.