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A crew works on the third wall on the new Habitat for Humanity home on Cole Avenue and Maple Street in Williamstown on Friday morning.
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Volunteers Needed for Williamstown Habitat House

By Rebecca DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Around a dozen volunteers were continuing the process of raising walls Friday morning on the first of two new houses being built by Habitat for Humanity in Williamstown — the organization's first home in five years.

But more volunteers are always needed.

The home under construction is at the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street. Habitat officials hope the first home, on the Cole Avenue side of the lot, will be framed out before the winter weather sets in.

Volunteers on Friday were working on the third wall, and work was scheduled to be done soon on cutting the curb on Cole Avenue to allow for the driveway to be situated.

Ground was broken on the house in July. Meghan Gleason, Neil DeCarolis and their four boys — Cameron, Caleb, Christian and Connor — hope to move in next summer.



Crews are typically out on site on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon.

When this first house is complete, work will begin on the second on the other side of the lot.

Potential volunteers can show up on the site or call the Habitat office at 413-664-4440.

 


Tags: habitat for humanity,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Takes Another Look at FY27 Budget

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock School Committee on Tuesday decided to bring a fiscal year 2027 budget to Thursday's public hearing that maintains level services while seeking double-digit percentage increases in the assessments to each of the district's member towns.
 
The committee knew those increases were coming from a draft budget it saw at its March 3 meeting, but the numbers changed over the last couple of weeks — driving up the anticipated assessment to Williamstown and leading to a slight reduction for the budget hit to Lanesborough.
 
The draft budget in front of the committee on Tuesday includes a 13.61 percent increase in the district's assessment to Williamstown and a 10.99 percent hike for Lanesborough.
 
In real dollars, those assessment increases translate to $2,018,000 and $751,000, respectively versus the FY26 assessment to pay for the current school year.
 
Williamstown's assessment is up 0.9 percent from March 3 to March 14 while Lanesborough's is down 0.8 percent, in part because, per the regional agreement, each town pays the operating cost of its elementary school (and splits the cost of the middle-high school based on enrollment). Some of the increased cost in the last two weeks impacts Williamstown Elementary more than Lanesborough Elementary.
 
Tuesday's draft is likely to be relatively unchanged when the School Committee holds its annual public hearing on the budget on Thursday, the same night the committee likely will vote on the final FY27 budget — and resulting assessments — it will send to each member town's annual town meeting in the spring.
 
Superintendent Joseph Bergeron told the committee that the administration and the elected body's Finance subcommittee had been making modest progress on mitigating the assessment increases to both member towns before the district received two gut punches.
 
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