Clark Art, Images Host Screening of 'The Hitch-Hiker'

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Thursday, Nov. 6, at 6 pm, the Clark Art Institute, in collaboration with Images Cinema, continues its Noir Film Series with a screening of "The Hitch-Hiker" (1953). 
 
This program takes place in the Clark's Manton Research Center auditorium.
 
Two men on a fishing trip pick up a mass-murdering hitcher and are forced at gunpoint to drive him through Mexico until the fatal moment when he no longer needs them. Director Ida Lupino never relaxes the film's tension for a moment, yet her emotional sensitivity is also upfront: charting the changes in the menaced men's relationship as they bicker about how to deal with their captor, stressing that only through friendship can they survive. (Run time: 1 hour, 11 minutes)
 
Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524.
 
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Mount Greylock School Committee Hears Budget Requests, Pressures

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Thursday heard the final rounds of fiscal year 2027 budget requests and heard why those — or any — discretionary increases in spending will be difficult in the year that begins July 1.
 
Williamstown Elementary Principal Benjamin Torres and middle-high school Principal Jake Schutz each presented the spending priorities formulated by their respective school councils. The requests followed a presentation by Lanesborough Elementary Principal Nolan Pratt at the January meeting.
 
Superintendent Joseph Bergeron then told the School Committee that state and federal aid to the district is going to be slightly lower than FY26 and reminded the panel that the district spent the last two years spending down its reserve accounts, as requested by the member towns, to the point where those reserves — School Choice, tuition and excess and deficiency — cannot be applied to the operating budget.
 
"Spending the exact same amount of money from this year to next year — that alone will mean a 4 percent increase [in appropriations] to each of our towns," Bergeron said. "That's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen.
 
"We know we're seeing an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance, but we also have an increasing number of employees who are taking our health insurance, so that health insurance line is increasing substantially. When it comes to out-of-district tuition as well as transportation, both of those are seeing marked increases as well."
 
District staff and the School Committee will further refine its FY27 budget over the next five weeks, with a budget workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, and a public hearing and final budget vote on March 19.
 
The district's appropriations to Williamstown and Lanesborough, which each pay a proportional share of the prekindergarten-Grade 12 district's operating expenses, will face an up-or-down vote at each town's annual meeting, in May and June, respectively.
 
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