With No Races to Decide, a Light Turnout in Williamstown Town Election

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — All four candidates on the town election ballot easily won election on Tuesday in a light day of polling at the elementary school.
 
In a town with about 5,000 registered voters, 438 ballots were cast in an election with no contested races, a turnout rate of about 8.6 percent.
 
Incumbent Select Board member Jeffrey Johnson received 408 votes for a second three-year term on the body.
 
Anna Halpin-Healy was returned to the library board of trustees for another three years with 419 votes.
 
Laila Boucher was re-elected for another three years as one of the town's two representatives on the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District (McCann Tech) board with 412 votes.
 
And newcomer Samantha Page was elected to a five-year seat on the five-person Planning Board with 406 votes, according to acting Town Clerk Tom Webb.
 
Webb, with eight votes, was the winner of a write-in vote for a five-year term on the town's Housing Authority. Fifty ballots were submitted with write-ins for the spot, which had no names on the ballot.
 
Webb said Wednesday afternoon that about 300 of the 438 votes cast came in by mail, about 68 percent of the total.
 
Last year, when there four candidates running for two seats on the Select Board, just shy of 1,000 ballots were returned.

Tags: election 2024,   town elections,   


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Images Cinema Community Rallies to Aid Departed Managing Director

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff

Janet Curran's friends started a gofundme to help her through the transition.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The community is rallying to support the longtime managing director of Images Cinema after her job was eliminated late last year.
 
As of Thursday morning, a Gofundme campaign for Janet Curran had raised more than $12,500 from 90 contributors.
 
"I feel really held and supported by the community right now," Curran said this week. "I'm really moved that people appreciate the work that I did at Images."
 
Curran did that work for about a quarter of a century, first as a volunteer in 2000, then as an intern in 2002 and finally as the managing director, a position she held since 2007.
 
"If you've been to Images Cinema in the last 25 years … you've probably been helped by her, welcomed by her, or had a conversation with her that you still think about," the creators of the Gofundme campaign wrote.
 
"Janet is one of those people who makes a place worth living in. She's kind without making a show of it, dependable in a way many people aren't, and she has given more to this community than she'd ever say herself."
 
Two days before Thanksgiving 2025, Curran learned from the Spring Street theater's board of directors and Executive Director Dan Hudson that her position was being eliminated. Her last day at the non-profit movie house was Jan. 2.
 
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