National Grid Pole Plan Sparks Discussion at Williamstown Select Board
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A Torrey Woods Road family is asking National Grid to rework its plan to place five utility poles, one of which is slated for the town right-of-way in front of their 18th-century home.
Kristy Lyn Edmunds and Roslyn Kim Warby were in front of the Select Board on Monday to challenge the utility's plan, which would put three new poles on the north side of Torrey Woods Road and two on the south side of the road to extend service about 530 feet to serve a new residence planned for 88 Torrey Woods Road.
Edmunds and Warby questioned why one of the poles had to be placed in their front yard, only to have the planned line immediately cross the road to the south side for two poles and come back across to the north side, where the new home is planned.
National Grid's Michael Tatro told the board that he and an arborist working for the utility met with Warby at the site and tried to find another solution.
"We're trying to minimize the number of trees cut [to make room for the poles] and keep it to the dead ones that have to be cut anyway," Tatro said via Zoom. "But it is a tough location."
Edmunds told the Select Board that it was being asked to make a decision with too little information.
"What we don't have is an alternative strategy that might work with a report from the arborist on how many trees across the way would have to be taken down," Edmunds said.
"It seems like there are alternative strategies … It just might be more labor intensive or, perhaps, costly."
Edmunds repeatedly mentioned that the couple's home dates to 1761 and that the historic dwelling sits close to the road — and would be close to any pole erected at the site.
In answer to a question from a resident who spoke at the public hearing, Tatro said at one point that locating all the poles on the south side of Torrey Woods Road would necessitate taking down "another 20 trees."
"Off the top of my head, this is the best option we could come up with," Tatro said. "We tried to work with the owner to pick a spot in the bushes in front of the house [at 150 Torrey Woods Road] to make it the least obstructive we could.
"Putting it on the other side of the road would add environmental cost and, probably, another $20,000 for this customer."
Likewise, Tatro said, burying the lines in the right-of-way, while possible, would add cost and would not save any trees, since the trenching to run the line would tear up trees' roots.
Susan Hoellrich, also speaking from the floor of the public hearing, offered another alternative: burying the lines on the Edmunds/Warby property, through their back yard to their new neighbors' lot.
Tatro said that was a possibility, but it would involve the creation of easements on the land at 150 Torrey Woods.
The Select Board encouraged all three parties — National Grid, Edmunds/Warby and the owners of 88 Torrey Woods (listed as Cambridge's Anddie Chan-Patera and Anthony Patera on the town's property database) to work out an agreement that works for them.
Peter Beck noted that any alternatives that included the cutting of more trees on the south side of Torrey Woods Road should also include the owner of the wooded parcel across from the Edmunds/Warby house. As a matter of course, owners James and Jane Heekin, along with other abutters, were notified of Monday's public hearing but the diagram submitted to the Select Board in support of National Grid's application may now be out of date.
The public hearing on the pole location was continued to the Select Board's Aug. 11 meeting.
Two other items discussed on Monday night likely will show up on that Aug. 11 agenda.
The Select Board is hoping to schedule its annual tax classification hearing for its only planned August meeting. On Monday, it heard a proposal from Beck to modify language in the town's means-tested senior property tax exemption for the coming tax year.
Town meeting in 2024 OK'd a home rule petition to establish a local program that mirrors the commonwealth's Senior Circuit Breaker Tax Credit.
In simple terms, the local program redistributes a small portion of the town's property tax levy away from seniors who meet the Massachusetts income and asset guidelines under the circuit-breaker program. The town still raises the same amount of money through property taxes, but a little more is taken from homeowners who are in a better position to pay.
For the most recent fiscal year, the Select Board capped the total dollars that could be redistributed at $100,000 (0.5 percent of the $20 million levy).
Last year, Stephanie Boyd pointed out a potential glitch that other municipalities had seen in implementing similar local options tied to the Circuit Breaker program: a local match for the resident in Year 1 could diminish the tax break the resident receives from the commonwealth in Year 2, creating a "seesaw" effect that makes the resident's taxes more complicated from year to year while increasing the municipality's share of the tax break every other year.
Beck said he wanted to modify the program so, "We weren't putting the town and the applicant at a disadvantage, where we're giving them a dollar [in tax relief] that then gets taken away [from their state tax credit] the next year."
The solution he proposed is that the town exemption and a property owner's previous year's credit could not exceed the maximum amount of tax relief for which a resident is eligible under the state program (the difference between a homeowner's property tax bill and 10 percent of their total annual income).
His colleagues were generally supportive of the modification, but they made no decisions on Monday. Instead, they agreed to consider the proposal and bring it back at the August meeting.
The board did take some action on proposals from the board's diversity advisory committee, which is seeking modifications to its charge.
The most noticeable change is in the name of the committee, which now will be called the Race, Equity, Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee and go by the acronym READI. The panel's former name, the Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Equity Advisory Committee had led to it being known as the DIRE Committee.
"We want to make it more holistic and make the name more positive," said Select Board member Shana Dixon, who also serves on the READI Committee. "We understand at that point [2020], it was a dire necessity to have it in town. Now we want to make it something more positive."
The Select Board also approved the now READI Committee's requests to reduce its membership from seven to five in order to make it easier to have quorums at meetings and to reduce its meeting schedule from twice a month to once a month — with the option to meet more frequently if the committee desires.
Select Board members had questions about the READI Committee's recommendations for its charge, including a concern that READI, which is a creation of the Select Board, stick to matters under the board's purview. Boyd mentioned specifically an item in the proposed charge that would have READI look at, "Inclusion and belonging in schools." Boyd noted that the town has no direct control over the operation of the regional school district, a distinct municipal entity.
Monday's conversation included the suggestion that, perhaps, READI would be better served as an independent entity — whether inside or outside town government — instead of as a strictly "advisory" body created by the Select Board.
It was suggested at one point that READI's existence could be codified in the town code through an act of town meeting or the current READI membership could go in an entirely different direction, creating an independent body outside of town government, similar to the COOL Committee, an environmental task force that has partnered with the town but which has no direct town oversight.
Dixon said Monday she would take those questions back to the READI Committee for consideration at its meeting on Aug. 4.
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