Letter: Williamstown Planning Board Proposals

Letter to the Editor02:30PM / Monday, June 13, 2022Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

An elected planning board member tells us that voting on the zoning proposals at town meeting will let the Planning Board know how we "feel." Any zoning changes passed at town meeting will be "forever," and virtually irreversible. Cite the research that indicates what effect these changes will have.

Perhaps the Planning Board should have spent more time reaching out to all the town's citizenry long before any town meeting. These articles were approved by the Planning Board long before this unnecessarily delayed town meeting will be held. Better yet, place the items for a vote at the town election, even if as non-binding questions if legally necessary. Why are major decisions being made by a small number of citizens at the broken town meeting?

How do all and any articles affect property evaluations and property taxes, but only for some landowners if some but not articles are passed?

Why is a town master plan being conducted if it is totally meaningless?

Perhaps all items should be voted down, as a group, rather than tabled so the Planning Board can start from scratch and ready their proposals for the 2024 town meeting. All town households should be mailed paper copies of the new proposals well in advance of the 2024 town meeting.

Finally, who serves to benefit the most from passing any or all of these failed proposals???

Ken Swiatek
Williamstown, Mass.

Tags: zoning,

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North County Education Study Preparing to Survey Communities

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
11:30AM / Wednesday, September 02, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The North Berkshire Educational Sustainability Study is looking for input from residents about what is working — and what is not — in the four districts participating in the study.

At its August meeting, the Steering Committee reviewed questions in an online survey that consultants from Berkshire Educational Resources K12 hope to make live before the end of the month.

The survey, which will take about eight to 10 minutes to complete, includes multiple choice questions about residents' experiences with and impressions of the region's public schools with the opportunity to give open-ended responses.

Data collected will help BERK12, the consultant, drive a yearlong conversation with stakeholders and develop recommendations to be included in a final report that will be issued in June.

BERK12's Brendan Sheran, who took the lead on developing the survey, pointed to one example of how survey results can inform the conversations that will feed into that report.

"To what extent do you agree or disagree with statements about how the schools prepare students for the next step," Sheran said, explaining that those preparations include academic and social readiness. "If we find people are strongly agreeing the schools are strongly preparing students for the next step, we can ask in focus groups about what the school is doing that does this."

Sheran and BERK12's project director, Jake Eberwein, also talked about how the consultant used a similar survey in a sustainability study for the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont school districts and the eight Franklin County towns they cover.

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