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Volunteers pass out "I voted" stickers to voters on Tuesday morning at Williamstown Elementary School.

Mount Greylock Voters Re-Elect Greene, Miller to School Committee

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Voters in the Mount Greylock Regional School District Tuesday returned Carrie Greene and Steven Miller to the School Committee in the only contested local election on the ballot.
 
Lanesborough's and Williamstown's electorate ensured that the School Committee will have the same composition for at least another two years by choosing the two incumbents over challenger Christine Enderle in a three-way race for two seats on the seven-person committee.
 
Greene was the top vote-getter with 2,661 votes in the two-town district. Miller was second with 1,736. Enderle was third with 1,465.
 
All three Lanesborough residents on the School Committee stood for re-election on Tuesday in uncontested races. Christine Conry, Curtis Elfenbein and Ursula Maloy each were returned to the committee.
 
Greene, Miller and Enderle were running for two of the four seats designated for residents of Williamstown.
 
Miller was at Williamstown Elementary School on Tuesday evening to await the results and said that he looks forward to continuing his work to bring transparency to the School Committee's activities and increase engagement with members of the public.
 
"One of the things we've done is we now have agenda requests [for committee members] at the end of every meeting, so that makes it a lot easier to have things discussed," Miller said. "One of the things I want to keep working on is to have the meeting packets made available more in advance so that people are able to see what's going to be discussed at the meetings and decide whether they want to go or not."
 
Miller also committed to pushing for a continued role for the School Committee's subcommittees in providing a conduit for public input.
 
"One of the things I've been very happy about is in some of our subcommittees, we've been able to have a lot of interactions with people from the community," Miller said. "For example, when John Skavlem was chair of the fields committee, and I was chair of the education subcommittee, we had people speaking whenever appropriate.
 
"That's easier to do at the subcommittee level than the full committee level."
 
Williamstown saw 2,823 voters turn out for the mid-term election, which is more than the 2,500 voters who might be expected for the cycle, according to Town Clerk Nicole Beverly.
 
"It was a good day," she said as the balloting wound down on Tuesday. "A busy day, but a good day."
 
Fifty-six percent of the town's 5,009 registered voters voted either in person on Tuesday, in person at town hall during the early voting period or by mail.
 
Beverly said there were 178 in-person voters during the early voting period. She said she mailed out 1,267 mail-in ballots and had received, as of midday Monday, 1,185, a 94 percent return rate.

Tags: election 2022,   

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Williamstown Fire District Expects Slightly Lower Tax Rate

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A rise in operating expenses for the Williamstown Fire Department will be offset by lower debt service payments on the new fire station, resulting in a slightly smaller tax bill from the district, officials noted last week.
 
One week after the Prudential Committee, which oversees the district, reviewed the fiscal articles it will send to May's annual district meeting, the fire chief explained that while operational funding is up by by nearly $125,000 from the current fiscal year to FY27, a drop in principal and interest payments will make up the difference.
 
Currently, the tax rate for the district — a separate taxing entity apart from town government — is projected to be $1.15 per $1,000 of valuation in the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The current rate is $1.24.
 
In FY26, district taxpayers paid $1.9 million toward principal and interest for the Main Street fire station. The draft warrant for the May 26 annual district meeting calls for $1.7 million to be raised for that capital expense, a drop of just more than $198,000.
 
"The impact of the new debt and, indeed, the entire budget is offset by certain revenue items, particularly the $5.5 million in gifts from Williams College and the Clark [Art Institute]," Chief Jeffrey Dias wrote in an email discussing the proposed budget.
 
The $500,000 pledge from the Clark and the $5 million donated by Williams College are being utilized at the start of the payback period for the bonds that fund the station's construction — when those payments are higher.
 
Melissa Cragg, chair of the Fire District's Finance Committee, explained that the use of those gifts early in the process will not necessarily mean a sticker shock down the road.
 
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