Letter: Replace Williamstown Town Meeting With Ballots

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To the Editor:

If you have a car that will cost $15,000 to repair and then it will only be trustworthy for short trips. Do you fix it? Very few would do that. Instead you replace it.

If you have a quaint, but broken form of town governance, why spend taxpayers' money to keep a quaint, but outdated broken failed system?

The Williamstown Town Meeting should be fully replaced by the Australian ballot. Why does it need total replacement?

First, the town's population is older than it used to be. Why torture old geezers like me any more than necessary to sit through long meetings of limited value?

Second, the iBerkshires.com article on town meeting notes that typical town meeting attendance rarely exceeds 500. Five hundred are regularly making decisions, spending taxpayer money and affecting the way of life for a population close to 8,000?

Third, over the years town meeting has devolved into a system of ramming through the wants, needs, and desires of a few.

My guess is that roughly 1,500-2,000 citizens vote regularly in town elections. That's three or four times the number typically attending a town meeting. Even more will vote after the town meeting is eliminated. There is usually a 12-hour window to vote, which makes voting at the polls accessible to more citizens, too.


I vote regularly at elections, but this former selectman will never attend any kind of meeting unless my life depends on it.

How do we make the Australian ballot work? Permit mail-in ballots. If the ballot is too long, it may indicate the need to be more succinct. Ensure that there are inclusive handicapped, wheelchair, and sitting voting booths at the polling site.

Also, institute, a process whereby the town emails those who opt-in all the agendas of all town board meetings 48 hours before each meeting. Also offer an opt-in for all approved board minutes to be emailed out. Replying to a specific meeting link will send an email to the board chair for inclusion in that meeting's discussion.

Make agendas and minutes accessible to others without computer or cable access, too, in places like the library, landfill, and other sacred gathering places.

Currently, the town meets its legal 48-hour advance meeting notice posting requirement by posting agendas in those little window boxes outside the town hall entrance. This is archaic, and it should be changed and improved.

After a board finalizes items intended for voting at the election, the town moderator will interview the board chair for a full explanation of the ballot(s) item(s) three weeks before the election. This will be emailed out, uploaded to YouTube, and made available for those who do not have computer or cable access in the designated places.

This is the case for eliminating the town meeting. Discussion?

Ken Swiatek
Williamstown, Mass. 

 

 

 


Tags: town meeting,   

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Crust Serving Up Pizza Pies in Two Locations

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff

Crust owner Jim Cervone and manager Lexi Politis make pizza's at the Williamstown location. 
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Crust has been serving up classic and specialty pizzas since its opening in 2020 in Pittsfield, and for over a year now in Williamstown.
 
Owner Jim Cervone said his inspiration was his love for cooking and pizza.
 
"I love pizza, and I'm Italian, and I grew up with cooking. I remember my grandmother cooking. Some of the recipes we have here are from my grandmother, specifically the meatballs," he said. "So I've always grown up with food. I'm a good, amateur chef. Always liked cooking. Whenever I travel, I always look for pizza, because that's one of my things. ...
 
"I wasn't really crazy about the offerings, not just around here, just in general. And so the inspiration was, how can I make a really good pizza at an affordable price?" 
 
Cervone said his most popular pizzas are chicken bacon ranch and buffalo chicken, flavors requested by customers and not something he was planning to add to the menu at first since chicken pizza isn't usually found in an Italian restaurant.
 
"I personally think the Grandma's Pizza, which has got a sliced mozzarella cheese underneath, and the organic red sauce on top with meatballs, is one of my favorites," he said. "They're homemade meatballs. It's my grandmother's recipe — that's a popular one."
 
Also on the menu are red and white mushroom pizzas, a "green" version with housemade pesto, peppers and mushrooms, and the option to build your own pie with a wide variety of crusts, sauces, cheeses, toppings and finishes. 
 
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