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A new single-family home is under construction on Maple Avenue on a parcel acquired by Williamstown's Affordable Housing Trust. The trustees are seeking proposals from landowners interested in selling their land for the purpose of subsidized housing.

Williamstown Seeking Volunteers, Property, Greenhouse Gas Lowering Ideas

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town is looking for your time, your ideas and, if you can spare it, your land.
 
Monday's Select Board meeting featured appeals to community members on several different fronts.
 
The board asked residents to consider service on town boards and committees. A representative from the grassroots Carbon Dioxide Lowering (COOL) Committee invited community members to share thoughts on Wednesday about how the town can meet its net zero greenhouse gas emission goal. And the Select Board's representative on the Affordable Housing Trust publicized that body' effort to acquire a home or buildable lot in town.
 
"The request for proposals for the town to buy land for affordable housing purposes has gone out," Andy Hogeland said. "If anybody out there knows of any vacant land or even buildings that might be suitable for affordable housing and someone would be willing to sell them to us, the Trust would be delighted to hear from you."
 
It is the second time since the trust was created in 2012 that the trustees have solicited offers to sell land. In 2015, it bought parcels on Summer Street and the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street. The latter has one new owner-occupied home and a second single-family home under construction by Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity.
 
The COOL Committee, following on the heels of a successful effort to get annual town meeting support for a net zero resolution in 2021, is holding an online forum on Wednesday evening from 7 to 8:30 to solicit input about how to attain that goal.
 
"Wednesday night, we're holding a community meeting to talk about the town's net zero initiative, a plan to reduce our carbon emissions," Wendy Penner told the Select Board. "This is a partnership of the COOL Committee, the town of Williamstown and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. We'd love to have as many people as possible, especially our elected officials.
 
"If you go to coolwilliamstown.org, there's a place where you can register on Zoom. That way you can have the link and have it in your calendar. You can do it in advance or right at the time of the meeting."
 
Monday's Select Board meeting was to have been the first after the annual town meeting. But town meeting on May 17 voted to adjourn to June 14 at a larger venue, the gymnasium at Mount Greylock Regional School, out of concern for potential spread of the novel coronavirus.
 
On Monday, Janice Loux, who petitioned Berkshire Superior Court to stop the May 17 meeting, withdrew her complaint after a judge allowed the meeting but mandated attendees wear face coverings. Loux has requested the Board of Health, which chose not to issue a mask mandate prior to May 17, consider doing so for the June meeting.
 
While the town meeting business waits until June, the town election results saw newly-elected Select Board member Randall Fippinger on Monday attend his first meeting in that post.
 
The board's annual reorganization vote saw Hugh Daley take over as chair from Hogeland, Jeffrey Johnson elevated to vice chair and Jane Patton installed as secretary.
 
Fippinger, who served as a community representative on the town's Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee prior to his election to the Select Board, stays on the DIRE Committee, now filling the Select Board's ex officio spot on the diversity panel. Hogeland will continue as the Select Board's rep to the Affordable Housing Trust, and Patton will remain in the Select Board's seat on the Community Preservation Committee.
 
Hogeland used his last meeting as chair of the board to put out an plea for residents to serve on other boards and committees that are appointed either by the Select Board or the town manager.
 
"I think we've all been eager to increase participation in different forms of town government," Hogeland said.
 
He noted that most of the volunteer positions have terms that expire on June 30, and proposed that the Select Board promote the availability of offices again at its June 13 meeting and at the resumed town meeting the next night. He suggested a deadline of June 21 for interested residents to submit paperwork so that the board will have time to learn about applicants before its June 27 meeting.
 
Hogeland pointed out that while incumbents typically are reappointed, newcomers also are considered when terms expire. And he specifically asked incumbents whose terms are running out to make their intentions known so extra effort can be made to recruit committee members if vacancies are expected.
 
Committees and boards that have members' terms expiring this June 30 include the Affordable Housing Trust, Agricultural Commission, DIRE Committee, Municipal Scholarship Committee, Planning Board (associate member; the main five-member board is elected), 1753 House Committee, Board of Health, Conservation Commission, Council on Aging, Historical Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals (alternate). In addition, the town offices of fence viewer and alternate representative to the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission have occupants whose terms are expiring this summer.
 
In other business on Monday, the Select Board agreed to write the town's representatives on Beacon Hill to express concern about a reform to the Cannabis Control Commission's enabling legislation that is making its way through the Legislature. Specifically, a provision of the bill could impact the Host Community Agreements between municipalities and pot businesses.
 
Williamstown, which has an HCA in place with its one cannabis retailer, is asking that any reform legislation that passes allow such agreements to stay in place through its existing expiration date.

Tags: town boards,   volunteers,   

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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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