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Only 180 voters cast ballots in the Prudential Committee election on Tuesday, held in the Williamstown Elementary School cafeteria.

Williamstown Fire District Voters Choose Moresi, Reynolds

By Rebecca DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN — Voters on Tuesday chose David Moresi for an 18-month term on the Prudential Committee and Richard Reynolds for a 30-month term.

Only 180 ballots were cast out of about 4,800 registered voters in town, Town Clerk Mary Kennedy said, or barely 4 percent.

Moresi received 137 votes to the 39 received by his opponent, Gerald Smith. Reynolds notched 114 votes to the 64 votes of his opponent, Bruce MacDonald.

Eventually, the two new seats on the expanding committee will be three-year terms, like the current three spots on the committee, which oversees the Williamstown Fire Department

Moresi and Reynolds join incumbents John Notsley, Ed McGowan and Ed Briggs on the Prudential Committee. One of the big near-term challenges for the town's Fire Department is a pending project to build a new station on a Main Street parcel district voters agreed to purchase in 2017.

Moresi is the principal of Moresi & Associates, a North Adams-based real estate development firm; among its highest profile projects are 296 Main St. in Williamstown, a site once eyed by the town as a potential public safety building location. Reynolds, is a program manager at Hewlett Packard with a track record as a volunteer firefighter as an undergraduate at Rutgers University.


Tags: election 2019,   prudential committee,   


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Williamstown Charter Review Panel OKs Fix to Address 'Separation of Powers' Concern

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Charter Review Committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to endorse an amended version of the compliance provision it drafted to be added to the Town Charter.
 
The committee accepted language designed to meet concerns raised by the Planning Board about separation of powers under the charter.
 
The committee's original compliance language — Article 32 on the annual town meeting warrant — would have made the Select Board responsible for determining a remedy if any other town board or committee violated the charter.
 
The Planning Board objected to that notion, pointing out that it would give one elected body in town some authority over another.
 
On Wednesday, Charter Review Committee co-Chairs Andrew Hogeland and Jeffrey Johnson, both members of the Select Board, brought their colleagues amended language that, in essence, gives authority to enforce charter compliance by a board to its appointing authority.
 
For example, the Select Board would have authority to determine a remedy if, say, the Community Preservation Committee somehow violated the charter. And the voters, who elect the Planning Board, would have ultimate say if that body violates the charter.
 
In reality, the charter says very little about what town boards and committees — other than the Select Board — can or cannot do, and the powers of bodies like the Planning Board are regulated by state law.
 
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