Open Forum On Environmental Aspects of Williamstown Fire Station Project

10:33AM / Monday, November 07, 2022Print Story | Email Story

Fire Station ProjectTo Be Held Nov. 9

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. An open forum on the environmental aspects of the proposed new Williamstown Fire Station will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 6:00 p.m. at the Williamstown Youth Center on School Street in Williamstown.

All residents are invited to attend this interactive event, which is co-sponsored by the Williamstown Fire District's Building Committee and the town's CO2 Lowering (COOL) Committee.

The station proposal is the first public capital project since Williamstown passed a resolution at its June 2021 Town Meeting to pursue a net-zero greenhouse gas remissions goal.

The station is designed to meet that goal. The Nov. 9 forum will discuss details of the green design and of proposed stormwater management at the site, which is on Main Street next to the Aubuchon store, and will seek input from participants on both. Present for the discussion will be members of the COOL and Building Committees, Chris Wante (associate principal of the architecture and design firm EDM), Chris Schaffer (principal of The Green Engineer), and

Charlie LaBatt (senior engineer of Guntlow & Associates).

The session will be recorded by WilliNet for later broadcast on tv channel 1303 and streaming on ROKU, AppleTV, and Amazon FireTV.

More information on the project is available at www.williamstownfiredept.org/newbuildinginfo

To proceed, funding for the new station will need to be affirmed by a two-thirds majority of the Williamstown registered voters in attendance at a district special meeting that is expected to be called sometime early in the coming calendar year.

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Williamstown Select Board Plans Off-Camera Evaluation of Town Manager

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:24AM / Friday, October 09, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board plans to take extraordinary measures to avoid having its discussion of the town manager's performance recorded by the town's Public, Educational and Government cameras.

At its Sept. 28 meeting, the board decided to hold a special meeting in a room not covered by WilliNet cameras to complete its annual evaluation process of Town Manager Robert Menicocci.

Chair Peter Beck said that while the evaluation is "absolutely" to be conducted in an open meeting, the board could follow a process similar to the off site, unrecorded meetings that past Select Boards have characterized as "retreats," a term not contemplated by or included in the commonwealth's Open Meeting Law.

The current board met on June 29 for what it characterized as a "planning session" where no formal votes were taken. That meeting was held outside of Town Hall, at the new fire station on Main Street, in a room equipped with audio and video recording equipment that the Select Board chose not to use.

At the Sept. 28 meeting, one board member indicated that an unrecorded meeting was preferable to discuss the annual evaluation of the one town employee supervised by the board.

"I'd like to do it without all the Willinet stuff," Stephanie Boyd said in a discussion toward the end of a two-hour meeting. "I think it's more conducive to conversation."

With the board expected to meet just once in October — its "regular" meeting date coincides with Indigenous Peoples Day on Oct. 12 — Beck suggested that the panel could find a date for a special meeting, suggesting the third Monday of the month, Oct. 19.

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