McCann Tech Roof, New Monument Mountain High School OK'd by Voters

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires.com
09:46PM / Tuesday, November 04, 2025Print Story | Email Story

ADAMS, Mass. — By wide margins, school infrastructure projects were approved by voters at both ends of the county on Tuesday.

In Adams, the question of whether to allow a Proposition 2-1/2 debt exclusion to enable McCann Tech’s roof and window replacement project received a resounding yes by a margin of 553-169.

In South County, the three member towns in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District all approved a $152 million project to build a new Monument Mountain Regional High School, according to the Berkshire Edge.

Up north, Adams was the last town to weigh in on the $16.8 million project at McCann Tech.

It was one of only two communities in the nine-municipality district to put the question to a general vote. On Oct. 1, a special town meeting in Savoy saw a unanimous vote in favor of the project proposed by the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District.

All eight towns in the district and the City of North Adams had to take action before a 60-day window closed in order to object to the McCann Tech project, 64 percent of which will be paid for by the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

Savoy's Select Board opted to call a special town meeting to make the final decision, a route that was considered and rejected by other member towns.

Had any of the nine member communities rejected the project, it would have failed, McCann Tech Superintendent James Brosnan said.

On Tuesday, 10.4 percent of Adams' 6,907 registered voters went to the polls to decide whether the its share of the local cost for the McCann Tech project could be exempted from the provisions of Proposition 2 1/2, the 1980 law that limits the amount of money that can be raised in property taxes.

Seventy-seven percent of Adams voters who went to the polls voted in favor of the school project.

With the final yes vote in place, school officials hope the current second-generation roof and original windows at McCann Tech will be replaced this summer. The school reworked its academic calendar to ensure that classes will end earlier than usual in order to maximize the construction season.

The time horizon for the new Monument Mountain is a bit longer, and the stakes were higher when voters went to the polls in Great Barrington, Stockbridge and West Stockbridge on Tuesday.

According to the Berkshire Edge the new high school project won by margins of 1,218-357 in Great Barrington, 636-112 in Stockbridge and 462-131 in West Stockbridge.

The question needed to pass in all three towns in order to move forward. The aggregate vote of the district's voters was 2,316-600, meaning that 79 percent of voters in the three towns voted yes.

The local share of the new Monument Mountain, after contribution from the MSBA, is $89 million.

If all stays on schedule, construction on the new high school is set to begin in spring 2027 with completion in summer 2029.

Tags: debt exclusion, McCann, Monument Mountain, MSBA,

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Letter: Progress Means Moving on Paper Mill Cleanup

Letter to the Editor05:00PM / Wednesday, February 11, 2026

To the Editor:

Our town is facing a clear choice: move a long-abandoned industrial site toward cleanup and productive use or allow it to remain a deteriorating symbol of inaction.

The Community Development team has applied for a $4 million EPA grant to remediate the former Curtis Mill property, a site that has sat idle for more than two decades. The purpose of this funding is straightforward: address environmental concerns and prepare the property for safe commercial redevelopment that can contribute to our tax base and economic vitality.

Yet opposition has emerged based on arguments that miss the point of what this project is designed to do. We are hearing that basement vats should be preserved, that demolition might create dust, and that the plan is somehow "unimaginative" because it prioritizes cleanup and feasibility over wishful reuse of a contaminated, aging structure.

These objections ignore both the environmental realities of the site and the strict federal requirements tied to this grant funding. Given the condition of most of the site's existing buildings, our engineering firm determined it was not cost-effective to renovate. Without cleanup, no private interest will risk investment in this site now or in the future.

This is not a blank check renovation project. It is an environmental remediation effort governed by safety standards, engineering assessments, and financial constraints. Adding speculative preservation ideas or delaying action risks derailing the very funding that makes cleanup possible in the first place. Without this grant, the likely outcome is not a charming restoration, it is continued vacancy, ongoing deterioration, and zero economic benefit.

For more than 20 years, the property has remained unused. Now, when real funding is within reach to finally address the problem, we should be rallying behind a practical path forward not creating obstacles based on narrow or unrealistic preferences.

I encourage residents to review the proposal materials and understand what is truly at stake. The Adams Board of Selectmen and Community Development staff have done the hard work to put our town in position for this opportunity. That effort deserves support.

Progress sometimes requires letting go of what a building used to be so that the community can gain what it needs to become.

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