Letter: Project 2025 is bigger than Dobbs

To the Editor:

Please join Greylock Together and Indivisible chapters all across the country (13 in Massachusetts alone) on Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Field Park in Williamstown on the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Bring signs, hear speakers, leave with actions to take.

The Dobbs decision two years ago was the tip of the iceberg. Since then, 14 states have banned abortion entirely and many more have restricted access. MAGA Republicans have made clear this is only the beginning. Trump and his enablers winning in 2025 means those things can go national. As outlined in Project 2025, produced by The Heritage Foundation and a coalition of 100 right-wing organizations, they plan for a "post-constitutional" federal government. This plan threatens the very roots of democracy and the rights and freedoms upon which it is based. You can read it here: project2025.org.

The plan includes:

• Placing the entire federal government under direct presidential oversight, essentially abolishing the independence of key agencies like the Justice Department, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission and others.

• Reclassifying thousands of federal workers as "at will" so that those who don't follow extremist policies can be fired and replaced with those who do.

• Restricting reproductive freedom, including abortion access, contraception and surrogacy by restructuring Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and invoking the Comstock Act to track and limit "mail order" abortions.

• Eliminating agencies crucial for energy transition, abolishing the environmental justice department of the EPA, shutting down any offices or departments connected to the Paris Climate Agreement, reopening the Arctic for drilling and boosting fossil fuel use.

Wendy J Penner
Pam Wax
Williamstown, Mass. 

The writers are members of Greylock Together and the organizers of the event scheduled for Sunday.

Lanesborough Officials Review Schools' Budgets

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:49AM / Thursday, April 09, 2026

Mount Greylock Superintendent Joseph Bergeron, left, addresses the Lanesborough Select Board and Finance Committee as School Committee member Curtis Elfenbein looks at the projection of a slide in the district's budget presentation.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Town officials Monday appeared generally receptive to the fiscal year 2027 spending plans for the two public school districts that serve the town.

 

Superintendents from the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District (McCann Technical School) and Mount Greylock Regional School District presented their respective FY27 budgets to a joint meeting of the town's Finance Committee and Select Board.

 

Both districts are sending significantly higher assessments for approval at Lanesborough's annual town meeting in June.

 

McCann Tech, which constituted a $317,109 expenditure for the town in the current fiscal year, is seeking $463,978 for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 even though the school's operating budget is up just 3.2 percent year to year.

 

The 46 percent increase in Lanesborough's share of McCann Tech's budget is is due to two factors: a rise in enrollment of town residents at the vocational school from 20 in 2025 to 29 in this school year and a capital assessment for the first round of payments — for interest only — for a roof and window replacement project on the North Adams campus.

 

The Mount Greylock assessment, a much larger component of Lanesborough's property tax bill, is up 10.99 percent from FY26 to FY27, from $6.8 million to $7.6 million.

 

Mount Greylock Superintendent Joseph Bergeron gave a budget presentation similar to one he has delivered twice to the district's School Committee and again last month to the Williamstown Finance Committee, explaining that while the FY27 budget maintains level services to students with a net reduction of three positions, a series of factors are driving much larger assessments to Mount Greylock's two member towns.