WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday recommended town meeting pass all but one the 32 articles on the warrant for the May 19 session.

 

On a vote of 0-4, the board declined to recommend passage of Article 20, submitted via citizens' petition, which seeks to toughen the 2015 bylaw restricting the use of single-use bags in town.

 

Prior to the vote, two members of the four-person board said they needed more information before they could recommend changes to the existing bylaw.

 

"I would love more information on this before voting for it," Matthew Neely said. "For example, I'm not aware of how many businesses maybe use single-use bags in town and what types of paper bags other businesses use and if there is any argument to be made on their behalf that switching styles of bags might be a hardship.

 

"I just don't have anything other than personal distaste of littered plastic bags to go on."

 

Chair Stephanie Boyd agreed and noted that, unlike the other two citizens' petition articles on the town meeting warrant, the plastic bags article covers ground the Select Board has not discussed in the last year.

 

"I find [the bag article] difficult to read and see what the actual changes are, so I'm not sure if it's ready for town meeting, even if it has good intentions we'd all support," Boyd said. "It has to be in good shape that we're confident it does what it's intended to do."

 

One feature of the proposed bylaw change is that it would eliminate the reliance in the 2015 bylaw (also introduced by citizens' petition) on standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials and replace the ASTM with requirements determined by the International Organization of Standardization that ensure packaging "is suitable for organic recycling, covering biodegradation, disintegration and compost quality."

 

The proposed changes in the 2026 annual town meeting warrant item also would eliminate an exemption for "a nonprofit corporation or other charity" built into the 2015 bylaw.

 

Neely said the proposed warrant article, with numerous strike-throughs of the existing bylaws and new language added in underlined passages is "hard to read."

 

"I think this is a valid effort that I would just like to see more development of," Neely said. "I'm not opposed to it in theory. I'm just not ready to vote for it."

 

The Select Board did vote, 4-0, to recommend town meeting members approve two other citizens' petition articles on the May warrant: One would ban the use of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides on all property in town and follows an existing Select Board-approved ban on using SGARs on all municipal properties. The other would prohibit the use of soil amendments derived from sewage and sewage sludge, a move intended to keep the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances [PFAS] found in human biosolids from circulating back through the environment.

 

Before voting on the biosolids bylaw, the board discussed the proposed fine structure in the warrant article.

 

"Since we discussed it, the penalties were changed," Boyd said. "Now it's $25 per cubic yard [for a second offense]. I think that's more reasonable."

 

Peter Beck asked about the concern that a $300 cap per occurrence for repeated violations is not stiff enough to deter potential large-scale applications of the banned soil amendments. Boyd agreed that the maximum fine might be too low but said the town is constrained by state law limiting the size of the penalty.

 

The town's Agricultural Commission already had recommended passage of the biosolids article, marked Article 19 on the town meeting warrant.

 

"In our ongoing effort to protect the viability of farmland and farm enterprises in Williamstown, we believe this warrant article works well to protect both the agricultural community and the general public of Williamstown," the commissioners said at their April 1 meeting.

 

The Select Board, without much discussion, rolled through Articles 3 through 17 on the town meeting warrant, delivering 4-0 votes to recommend the May meeting pass all of the town's fiscal articles.

 

"I know taxes are going up, and it's getting increasingly difficult to afford taxes in town," Boyd said. "I also know, having watched or sat through at least most of the Finance Committee meetings that we are doing our best to keep costs under control. This is a conservative, no frills budget we have on deck."

 

The board also breezed through a series of 4-0 votes to recommend passage of Articles 21 through 25 which would, in order: authorize a home-rule petition to ask Beacon Hill for permission to end the practice of requiring paid advertisements in The Berkshire Eagle announcing certain public hearings; amend the existing 41C senior exemption for property taxes to raise the income and asset limits; enroll the town in the commonwealth's Seasonal Communities program; and allow the town to acquire a South Williamstown parcel formerly used as a town landfill.

 

The Select Board did split on several of the grant proposals submitted to town meeting by the Community Preservation Committee.

 

Shana Dixon voted in the minority on 3-1 votes to recommend Article 27 (a $20,000 grant to the Sand Springs Pool and Recreation Center), Article 29 (a $350,000 grant to support construction of a skate park on Stetson Road) and Article 32, which covers all three of the grants advanced by the CPC in the "historic preservation" category of the Community Preservation Act.

 

Dixon made the same argument not to support all three of the CPA articles.

 

"I just don't agree with spending the [tax] money on private business or ventures on private property," she said. "I don't see how that $20,000 [for Sand Springs] benefits everybody."

 

Later, she argued that both the Purple Valley Trails Association, which is developing the skate park on town land, and Images Cinema (recipient of a proposed $20,000 historic preservation grant) should raise the funds they need on their own.

 

"I feel like when [Purple Valley Trails] first came to Williamstown and had this grand idea of getting this together and all the fund-raising that was going on, I thought they would have substantially cut down the amount of money they were asking us for," Dixon said. "So it puts me in a place where I don't feel we should put that much money forward, even though it will be a benefit for the families and the children.

 

"I just feel that if we had proper time, maybe we could have applied for more grants."

 

The Select Board's advisory votes, along with those of other relevant committees, will be included in the text of the town meeting warrant.