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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Town Meeting Floor Fight Brewing on Williamstown Elementary School Budget

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In January, the Williamstown Select Board decided to move town meeting back to the Williamstown Elementary School gymnasium.
 
On Wednesday, it became clear that the elementary school budget could be one of the biggest issues before the meeting.
 
Residents concerned that WES is underfunded and "slipping" said Wednesday that they will seek to amend the Mount Greylock Regional School District budget on the floor of town meeting to increase the district's assessment to the town.
 
"We are going to go to town meeting and propose, actually, an addendum to increase the budget and hopefully pass that to support not just a level service but to actually include some school improvement," Jenna Hasenkampf said Wednesday at a meeting of the town's Finance Committee.
 
"We also think we are long overdue to invest in your schools. We've shown, as a town, that we can spend that money when it comes to services like the Fire Department that we view as essential. We think our public schools are just as essential, if not more.
 
"I think that more students pass through those halls than we see a fire per year here."
 
Hasenkampf, a member of the School Council at WES, spoke from the floor at the Fin Comm meeting on the night the panel was reviewing the budget requests from both the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District (McCann Tech) and the Mount Greylock district, which operates elementary schools in Lanesborough and Williamstown and the Mount Greylock Regional School, a middle-high school serving Grades 7 through 12.
 
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