John Barrett and Andrew Fitch Candidates Forum On Aug. 13

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Williamstown League of Women Voters will be hosting a forum for contending candidates for the 1st Berkshire District of the Massachusetts House of Representatives at 7pm on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the lower level auditorium of Williams College Paresky Center, 39 Chapin Hall Drive in Williamstown.

Incumbent John Barrett will face challenger Andrew Fitch in the Democratic Primary on Sept. 1.

Barrett has been serving as a state rep since November 2017 and, before that, was mayor of North Adams from 1984 until 2009.

A native of Massachusetts, Andrew Fitch moved to North Adams five years ago and is serving his second term on the North Adams City Council. A small business owner and owns Steeple City Social on Eagle Street in North Adams, a bakery, cafe and cocktail bar.

Berkshire County's 1st District includes Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg, Florida, Hancock, Hinsdale, Lanesborough, New Ashford, North Adams, Peru, Savoy, Williamstown and Windsor.

Willinet will be videoing the forum, so if you miss being there in person, you can still access it later on the willinet website https://www.willinet.org/ or livestream it on willinet's youtube channel at https://www.instagram.com/p/DbEdfOVFr7y/?img_index=4 .

 


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Town, Residents Concerned About Forest Service Plan to Use Williamstown Road

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A timber manager with the U.S. Forest Service told the Select Board on Monday that his office was willing to work with the town to address concerns raised by residents over a plan to haul timber out of the Green Mountain National Forest across the state line in Vermont.
 
An overflow crowd of residents from both Williamstown and Pownal, Vt., attended Monday's meeting at Town Hall, where Stacy Stratton and other officials from the Forest Service laid out plans to cut and remove 1 million board feet of wood — about 2,000 cords — from the woodland just north of town.
 
The sticking point is how officials expect that wood to be removed from the forest: down White Oaks Road, a narrow, twisting residential street that town's director of public works says is ill-suited for the operation.
 
DPW Director Craig Clough was joined at the microphone Monday by nearly a dozen residents of Williamstown and Pownal to question elements of what the Forest Service is calling the "South of Route 9 Integrated Resource Project."
 
Most of those concerns centered on White Oaks Road.
 
Stratton told the board that somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 log truck trips will be required to remove the wood that the service plans to remove from the forest, but that number does not include all the heavy equipment that will need to be taken to the cutting site or the daily traffic from loggers traveling to and from the site.
 
The project itself could take anywhere from one to five years, Stratton said. That number won't be known until the Forest Service puts the job out to bid.
 
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