Lanesborough Town Meeting to Decide 2023 Budget, Recall Petition

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Voters will take up an annual town meeting warrant with 19 articles on Saturday, which includes a changing the name of the Board of Selectmen and a citizen's petition for recalling elected officials.

Town meeting will be held beginning at noon on Saturday, May 21, at Lanesborough Elementary School.

Article 15, if approved, would change the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board and to revise the bylaws to reflect it.

Article 19, a citizen's petition, would create legislation for the town to conduct recall elections. The article stipulates that two-thirds of the vote would be necessary to remove an incumbent in a potential recall election. 

Recalled incumbents would not be eligible for appointment to another town office for the year following the recall election. If the article is approved, voters would not be able to recall an incumbent from office within the first six months of taking office. 

One of the first articles on the warrant will be the vote on estimated $10.4 Million town budget for fiscal 2023 that includes a $6 million assessment to the Mount Greylock Regional School District. 

Town Administrator Joshua Lang said he had several goals for the budget, including retaining staff, organizational development, improving the town's technology and updating town policies.

Other significant expenses are Articles 4 and 4, which would appropriate $498,200 for ambulance enterprise operations, to be under the direction of EMS Director Jennifer Weber. The town will raise $106,000 of this appropriation via user fees. 

Article 6 would allow the ambulance enterprise to expend $15,000 of retained earnings to cover unforeseen costs from fiscal 2022. 

Also related to emergency services, Article 17 proposes the town submit a letter to the state Legislature asking to support local financial efforts for ambulance, fire and other emergency management services. 

Article 9 would appropriate $247,177 to the Baker Hill Road for police salaries and an expenses account for fiscal 2023. This funding would come from money the town will receive from the district. Additionally, Article 14, if approved, will transfer $30,000 from the district fund to fund the purchase of a new police vehicle. 

Article 7 would appropriate $66,860.00 for sewer enterprise operations. Additionally, Article 13 would use $43,000 in free cash to pay for a sewer compliance study conducted in fiscal 2022. 

Article 11 would create an other post-employment benefits liability trust fund to be managed by the town treasurer. Article 12 proposes to transfer $50,000 from free cash into this fund. 

Article eight proposes an appropriation of $31,700 to the Local Access Television Enterprise Fund, $15,000 of which will come from user fees. 

Article 10 would transfer $47,823.45 from free cash to pay Department of Public Works Director William Decelles for unused sick leave and vacation upon retirement, as agreed in his contract.

Article 16 proposes reducing the age of senior citizen eligibility from 70 years to 65 years and increasing the current amount of the exemption from $500 to $1,000. This change, if approved, would go into affect at the start of fiscal 2023. 

Article 18 will decide if a town-owned 19-acre property at North Main Street, designated for use as a community center, can be used for general municipal purposes. 

The complete town warrant is available on the town website.

Social Service Organizations Highlight Challenges, Successes at Poverty Talk

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
08:04AM / Sunday, April 05, 2026

Dr. Jennifer Michaels of the Brien Center demonstrates how to use Narcan. Easy access to the drug has cut overdose deaths in the county by nearly half. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Recent actions at the federal level are making it harder for people to climb out of poverty.

Brad Gordon, executive director of Upside413, said he felt like he was doing a disservice by not recognizing national challenges and how they draw a direct line from choices being made by the Trump administration and the challenges the United States is facing. 

"They more generally impact people's ability to work their way out of poverty, and that's really, that's really the overarching dynamic," he said. 

"Poverty is incredibly corrosive, and it impacts all the topics that we'll talk about today." 

His comments came during a conversation on poverty hosted by Berkshire Community Action Council. Eight local service agency leaders detailed how they are supporting people during the current housing and affordability crisis, and the Berkshire state delegation spoke to their own efforts.

The event held on March 27 at the Berkshire Athenaeum included a working lunch and encouraged public feedback. 

"All of this information that we're going to gather today from both you and the panelists is going to drive our next three-year strategic plan," explained Deborah Leonczyk, BCAC's executive director. 

The conversation ranged from health care and housing production to financial literacy and child care.  Participating agencies included Upside 413, The Brien Center, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, MassHire Berkshire Career Center, Berkshire Regional Transit Authority, Greylock Federal Credit Union, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Child Care of the Berkshires. 

The federal choices Gordon spoke about included allocating $140 billion for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, investing $38 billion to convert warehouses into detention centers, cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, a proposed 50 percent increase in the defense budget, and cutting federal funding for supportive housing programs. 

Gordon pointed to past comments about how the region can't build its way out of the housing crisis because of money. He withdrew that statement, explaining, "You know what? That's bullshit, actually."

"I'm going to be honest with you, that is absolute bullshit. I have just observed over the last year or so how we're spending our money and the amount of money that we're spending on the federal side, and I'm no longer saying in good conscience that we can't build our way out of this," he said. 

Upside 413 provided a "Housing Demand in Western Massachusetts" report that was done in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Donahue Institute of Economic and Public Policy Research. It states that around 23,400 units are needed to meet current housing demand in Western Mass; 1,900 in Berkshire County in 2025.