Letter: A Simple Message

Letter to the Editor05:00PM / Monday, February 03, 2025Print Story | Email Story

To the Editor:

Many of us grew up learning about Nazi Germany, asked to reflect on what we would have done had we lived through its rise. Maybe we even imagined ourselves resisting, speaking out, or helping those in danger.

Today, the president is reviving Guantanamo as a concentration camp, rounding up immigrants, dismantling scientific institutions, abandoning public safety, rolling back civil rights, and systematically erasing queer people. This is not a thought experiment. However we choose to act now is the answer to the question we once asked ourselves.

History is watching.

Chad Higdon-Topaz
Williamstown, Mass.

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Williamstown Planners Eye Consultant Help on Mixed-Use Proposal

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:48AM / Thursday, February 19, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board has decided to seek more input before moving ahead with a proposal that would encourage more mixed-use development in the town's business zones.

For months, the board had acknowledged that a lot of work needed to go into putting a full-fledged zoning overlay district proposal before town meeting but was optimistic the task could be completed in time for May's annual meeting.

But last Tuesday, the town planner suggested that the board could benefit from the work of consultants which the town could hire if it receives a couple of grants from the commonwealth.

One of those grants could help fund a study to look at what sorts of business development might be possible if the town code is changed to encourage the construction of buildings that combine commercial and residential uses in its Limited Business and Planned Business zoning districts.

"[The town has] done housing needs assessments a couple of times, what about a market needs assessment?" Community Development Director Andrew Groff asked the board rhetorically at its monthly meeting. "That undergirds the whole rezoning program. And then you build the form-based [zoning] on top of that."

Groff told the board that he started thinking about the need for studies to support the mixed-use zoning initiative after conversations with officials from the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and preliminary talks with the type of consultant who might be able to help the town get the data it could use.

The planner also suggested that the creation of overlay districts could be done in phases.

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