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.

 

 

 


Tags: town elections,   


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School Budget, Environment, Recreation Highlight Williamstown Town Meeting

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — This month's annual town meeting returns to a familiar venue.
 
What goes on in that building the rest of the year could be a major topic of discussion at the Tuesday, May 19, gathering.
 
After two years (2020 and '21) on Williams College's football field and four years ('22 through '25) at Mount Greylock Regional School, the town's legislative body will be back at Williamstown Elementary School for a 7 p.m. meeting to decide on municipal spending and other town business.
 
The largest segment of the municipal budget goes to the public schools, and the spending plan for PreK-12 education likely will see a floor amendment intended to add an additional $120,000 to fund a math interventionist at Williamstown Elementary School.
 
The elected seven-member School Committee that governs the Mount Greylock Regional School District has proposed a $30.9 million operating budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The local share of that budget is meted out in assessments to the member towns of Lanesborough and Williamstown, which each vote whether to approve its assessment at town meeting.
 
Williamstown's share of the operating and capital expenditures for the regional school district is $16.8 million under the budget approved by the School Committee, an increase of a little more than $2 million, or 13.65 percent, from the budget for the current fiscal/school year.
 
A group of WES parents concerned about the mathematics instruction at the Grade prekindergarten-6 school plans to bring an amendment to town meeting to add the additional $120,000 — about 0.7 percent of the proposed assessment — to fund the interventionist position.
 
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