Letter: New Fire Station

Letter to the Editor02:20PM / Wednesday, January 25, 2023Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

I support our Fire Department as well as our Police Department. The proposal to spend $25 million is not unreasonable for what is being proposed.

However, the primary reason we need a new fire station is the requirement to have big fire trunks with long ladders to protect Williams College's tall buildings for which the college pays no taxes. While Williams has it's own security police department it does not have its own fire department.

It is true that they support Fire Department volunteers, which is good. Thus, the college should contribute $10 million up front toward the new fire station and voters should be asked to vote to approve $15 million toward a new fire station. How about it Williams? Pony up! Common sense!

Ken Swiatek
Williamstown, mass.

Tags: fire station,

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Williamstown Housing Trust Gets Update on Summer Street Project

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:38PM / Thursday, August 27, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity continues to make progress on a planned four-home subdivision off Summer Street despite rising costs.

NBHFH project manager Keith Davis was back before the board of the town's Affordable Housing Trust in August to give an update on the project being developed on a parcel granted to the non-profit by the trustees.

"The majority of the site work is now done," Davis said. "The road base is completely in. We won't blacktop the road until the first foundation is done. It doesn't make any sense to drive a loaded cement truck over fresh blacktop.

"The detention basin is in. All the [stormwater] structures are in. I talked to [DPW Director] Craig Clough about coming in and looking at it, so he can verify all the structures are in. Because a lot of them get buried. That's the next step, to do that and sod it."

The construction package to build the road and stormwater infrastructure cost NBHFH $330,000. The Affordable Housing Trust kicked in $120,000 toward that, and the trustees have committed another $100,000 toward the construction cost of the first home to be built in what the non-profit has named the Meadowlands Subdivision.

Davis told the board at its Aug. 19 meeting that a couple of issues have popped up that have slowed the project and added cost.

One was the removal of an additional five trees on the 1.75-acre parcel.

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