Letter: Why Rush Williamstown's Proposed Zoning Changes?

Letter to the Editor01:00PM / Tuesday, February 22, 2022Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

I am writing to express my concern about the rushed way that the Williamstown Planning Board is proposing to rewrite the town's zoning code.

There are two possible outcomes to the proposed changes, which are so numerous I doubt even the members of the Board can enumerate them all.

The first is that they won't accomplish much. In that case, there is obviously no need to rush them through.

The second is that they lead to the creation of many more housing units. These units are likely — indeed, practically guaranteed — to be expensive. Developers like to maximize their profits and, remarkably enough, there are no provisions in the proposed changes to mandate or incentivize the construction of lower-cost units.

A significant number of new housing units in town, even if most are purchased by second-home buyers, would have myriad potential impacts. They could reduce the amount of farmland and open space in Williamstown. By increasing the number of septic systems, they may harm water quality. They would likely lead to increased traffic. Almost certainly, they would increase the demand for town services. This last effect would require a commensurate increase in the town's budget.

Unfortunately, the Planning Board seems to have done little to no research into any of these potential impacts. This is another — and crucial — reason the changes should not be rushed. Meanwhile, there was minimal public input into the proposed changes — yet another reason to allow more time.

I believe the residents of Williamstown deserve a lot more information before the community is asked to vote on the proposal the Planning Board has put forward.

Sincerely,

Betsy Kolbert
Williamstown, Mass.

Tags: zoning,

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Mount Greylock School Committee OKs Updated Policy on Seclusion, Restraint

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:57AM / Tuesday, August 25, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock School Committee recently approved an updated policy on time-outs, seclusion and the physical restraint of students.

The policy is based on updated state regulations that came down last winter. Superintendent Joseph Bergeron told the panel at its August meeting that his office waited on recommendations from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees that were released in May and ran the proposed changes past the district's legal counsel.

That timing — and an expectation from the commonwealth that districts have the updated policy in place for the start of the 2026-27 academic year — led to an expedited process for the School Committee, which did not do a first read with a vote at a subsequent meeting as is its practice.

"Policy JKAA speaks to the ways the school district and our procedures shall abide by the updated state regulations," Bergeron said. "We're not going to have a lot of leeway.

"Nothing about the way we interact with our students on a day-to-day basis is being shifted by this."

For example, the commonwealth does not allow schools to use "seclusion," or, "the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area, with or without adult supervision," except some extreme cases, like when, "when student behavior poses an imminent threat of assault, or imminent serious physical harm to self or others, but only if safeguards are accounted for," the updated policy reads.

"From the state's perspective and my perspective, the idea of locking a child in a room without adult supervision is something we've never done," Bergeron said. "And it's something the state wants to make explicitly that nobody ever does."

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