Great Barrington — The town’s finances are in shipshape condition, an auditor told the Selectboard and Finance Committee at a joint session Monday (December 8) night.

“Your financial position is enviable compared to many communities we audit,” said Patrice Squillante of Greenfield-based accounting and auditing firm, Melanson Heath. “We make no audit adjustments here, and that’s true every year here,” she added. “Lauren [Sartori] does a very good job of the accounting…we don’t have to make corrections…all the numbers are accurate.”

Squillante noted her 27 years of auditing experience. Her firm, she said, audits roughly 100 towns, cities and school districts every year.

The town’s total net position, according to Squillante’s report ,is $32,247,557, “an increase of $410,867 from the prior year.” Squillante said the town has “enormous taxing capacity…and that gives you flexibility that other [communities] do not have.” She said the town’s roughly $3 million in “free cash” — money unspent from the previous year due to conservative budgeting — is a very good sign.

Patrice Squillante advises town officials on preparing for new accounting standards.

Also pointing to the town’s “financial health,” Squillante said, was its “surplus of about $6 million of essentially retained earnings.” Almost all her clients, she added, “have or are hovering at a deficit.” The town’s setting aside of that free cash, she said “is enough to absorb liabilities you have right now.”

While Squillante said the books show tip-top conditions, there were a few things for the town to look out for. One is unpaid taxes totaling just under $600,000, or 3 percent of the net tax levy. “They’re not extraordinarily high,” she said, “but it’s growing. At some point, you need to take that next step [to collect] and you’re doing that.”

Indeed, the town is moving in that direction by auctioning off 14 foreclosed properties at Town Hall on January 30. Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin announced the date at the Selectboard meeting, “as a good step to deal with parcels the town has owned via foreclosure for many years.” The Finance Committee is also on the case of unpaid property taxes, and appears to want to keep the pressure on.

Squillante recommended an increase in the stabilization fund, which, she said was “a little low,” and creating an OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) trust account to have money put aside for future pension liabilities.

“The more money you can put away the better,” she added, but also said that the town’s lack of an OPEB trust has not damaged its financial standing, nor its bond rating with Standard & Poor, for instance.

The town has been “paying about 40 percent to 43 percent of what our actual liability actually is,” said Town Accountant Lauren Sartori. The town, she said, also has a benefit trust with about $360,000, as well as almost $1 million in a pension trust. All of these “really impress Standard & Poor,” she noted. Squillante said it would be prudent to come up with that other 60 percent, but added, “nobody’s going to do that — nobody can afford to do that,” referring to tight municipal finances.

The town pays into the Berkshire County Retirement System, which administers public employee pensions throughout Berkshire County.

Squillante said the unfunded pension liabilities will soon affect the town’s financial statements, however. New accounting standards taking effect next year will require the reporting of the present value of future liabilities calculated by an actuary.

In foreground, members of the Finance Committee receive audit report. From left, Sharon Gregory, Leigh Davis, and Michael Wise. Photo: Heather Bellow

By state law, an irrevocable trust would have to be set up to pay into OPEB. The town can vote to create one, according to Squillante, but that, said Finance Committee member Michael Wise, commits the money into that future piggy bank, reducing flexibility. “You can’t use it for anything else, but that might be a good thing.” Wise, however, doesn’t “conflate unfunded liability with a sky-is-falling-disaster. It depends on your faith in your ability to take care of [liabilities] in the future.”

Finance Committee Chair Sharon Gregory asked Squillante where that money might come from.

Squillante said that if a town decides to vote to create a trust, it might try to find a “revenue source like a hotel tax…to look at a revenue source they haven’t been counting on…or something over budgeted, and put that away.”

Gregory also expressed concern about the same unfunded pension liabilities in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, given, she said, that the school’s “liabilities are backed by the faith of the towns in the district.”

Squillante said the school district could also vote to set up an OPEB trust fund. She noted that by law audits are required for the school district, and those audits are done separately.

Regarding the town, Wise says it’s probably a good idea to start saving up, “not because we’re forestalling disaster, but because we are prudent.”

Lauren Sartori and Sharon Gregory were unable to be reached for comment by the time this dispatch was posted.

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Great Barrington — At its December 9 session the Community Preservation Committee stuck to its guns by refusing to accept late applications for Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding.

Committee member Jessica Dezieck made the motion for the Committee to “reaffirm the policy” that late applications — three in this year’s funding cycle — not be considered.

There was some discussion before the committee upheld the motion by an 8 to1 margin — but not much.

Sally Harris, accompanied by St. James Project Manager Alexandra Lincoln, answers questions about the St. James Place application for historic preservation funding.

Suzie Fowle was willing, she said, to accept the late applications on the condition “that we accept them without setting a precedent. We never want to be in this position again. If we can send that message,” she added, she would take the late ones. “The deadlines were made crystal clear, but what will explain my vote is that the traffic is town generated and is better than, ‘I ran out of gas’.”

Fowle was referring to two applicants who, just before the 4 p.m. deadline on December 1, were foiled, they said, by snarled Main Street construction traffic. Construction usually ends at 3 p.m., but for some reason was still in full swing that afternoon, said applicants for Great Barrington Fairground (GBFG) and Project Native.

The third late application was Construct, Inc., defeated by a last minute printer snafu. A fourth application, from Flag Rock Farm, was at first thought to be late, but Flag Rock’s Ethan Culleton said by email that he had decided to apply another time because there was more work to do, and “elements we were not yet able to answer thoroughly.”

Applicants were asked to submit one electronic copy and 10 hard copies, one for each committee member and Town Planner Christopher Rembold, the committee’s Staff Liason. The strict deadline policy was written in bold on the application.

GBFG and Project Native’s hard copies arrived at Town Hall at 4:06 p.m. and 4:04 p.m., respectively.

“You don’t leave at 3:30,” said Chair Karen W. Smith. “If you’re applying for that amount of money, get your work done early. In this day and age, accountability is critical. If people are cutting it close, what happens with [their] permits…a can of worms can get large and unwieldy.”

“I feel strongly that we stay the line,” she added, “as painful as it may be for some, and I appreciate that. But how you go backwards from a precedent, I don’t know.”

Thomas Blauvelt didn’t like the idea of setting such a precedent, either. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s a learning experience,” he said.

Committee members Ed Abrahams, Kathleen Jackson, William Nappo, Martha Fick and Jessica Dezieck each said they supported the motion. Deborah Salem was the only member opposed.

Project Native Board Chairman Erik Bruun thanked the committee for considering the late submissions. “We respect your decision,” he said. Smith replied that she appreciated “the kind words of Mr. Bruun in this day and age.”

Construct, Inc. Executive Director Cara Davis wasn’t surprised by the committee’s decision. “I didn’t think they would, and I didn’t think they should,” she said. The affordable housing organization will apply again next year, since, she said, CPA funds were critical to the project. “We needed it to leverage other funding.” Construct was seeking $110,000 for a housing project. The funds were to be distributed over two years.

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Executive Director Beryl Jolly.

GBFG had sought $440,000 for historic preservation, recreation and open space work at the Fairground’s site. “Like any non profit,” GBFG Co-Founder Janet Elsbach wrote in an email, “we are always working on multiple funding streams: grants from many sources and direct fundraising from individuals and businesses. We’re an all-volunteer effort, working as a community to build a community resource. We’ll keep working.”

The committee has already scored the 13 applications that made the deadline, and spent four hours last night discussing each one and asking rigorous questions of all the applicants present. The Mahaiwe Theatre, Berkshire South Community Center and the Library Trustees’ plans for Ramsdell Library were the most closely scrutinized and questioned as to the viability of the projects and the timing of the work. A long discussion ensued about the necessity of funding the deteriorating Wetherbee vault in the Mahaiwe Cemetery, a town project.

It is unclear exactly when the committee will make their final determination about how much funding to allocate to each applicant, Smith said, but three more meetings are set for 2014: “The agenda is a moving target, and because it’s our first year we need to leave enough time for consideration.”

The next meeting is Tuesday, December 16 at 5:30 p.m. at the Fire Station, and will decide which applications go to the next level of review, Smith said. Two more meetings are set for December 18 and 30, though the process may continue into January.

But the final decision about which projects will receive CPA funds will be made at Town Meeting in May.

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Great Barrington — Those near and far who disparage Great Barrington’s holiday spirit and who want to tar the town as anti-Christmas again this year won’t have such an easy time of it. Two national television shows are about to descend on Great Barrington, having chosen the town to produce their Christmas specials.

The Bravo Network show, “Real Housewives of New York,” will film their holiday episode on Friday, December 12 and Saturday, December 13, “featuring Christmas shopping on Railroad Street, holiday events, holiday dining and celebrations,” Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin said.

Later this month, Chef Ina Garten is coming to town. Yes, Ina, of the Emmy-award winning Food Network show, “Barefoot Contessa.”

“The show will feature our local cuisine, locally produced food and restaurants along with holiday décor and charm,” Tabakin added.

According to Tabakin, the shows — each with millions of viewers — reached out to the newly formed Great Barrington Film Office at Town Hall and are now working closely with the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative and the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce.

Oddly, we hear bells — we see many twinkling lights. But we haven’t seen any News Foxes slinking about.

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Great Barrington — After Berkshire Hills Regional School District asked the Farmington River District to pay more for its students to attend Berkshire Hills’ schools, Farmington River came back with a counter proposal that was too good to reject: a four percent increase for each of the necceptsxt three years.

The Farmington River counter offer was announced at the Berkshire Hills School Committee meeting December 11 in the Monument Mountain Regional High School library, and although Berkshires Hills had initially demanded a 6 percent, 4 percent, 4 percent increase over the next three years, the committee voted to accept the Farmington River proposal.

That counter offer had come in response to Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s offer — approved by the school committee last month — of a one-year six percent increase, after Farmington Hills originally offered the district two percent for each of the three years.

Due to escalating budgets and rising taxpayer tempers over what many feel is a payment system from outlying districts that overburdens Berkshire Hills — and particularly Great Barrington — the district got tough at the first opportunity.

“I think it’s worth the risk to give them the hard line,” school committee member Daniel Weston had said at the November 21 meeting. “Next year might be a bloodbath, but in the long run it may work out better for us.”

Daniel Weston and Richard Dahomey argued in favor of accepting Farmington River’s offer. Photo: Heather Bellow

But it wasn’t easy. That six percent request from Berkshire Hills could have resulted in Farmington River taking their money — potentially $630,000 — to neighboring Lee, where Farmington River also has a tuition contract. During its November deliberations the school committee had agonized over the decision to take the risk of both the loss of that money, and the 85 students from Otis and Sandisfield currently enrolled at Berkshire Hills.

Several members of the committee and audience pointed out the human costs, since teenagers might be forced to leave the schools they’ve grown accustomed to. But worries over taxpayer pocketbooks won out. “If they’re not willing to pay to get a good education here, then they don’t share our values,” committee member Richard Dohoney said in November.

But given the four percent counter proposal, it appears Farmington River’s values may not be far off, after all. But it appears that wasn’t an easy decision for them, either. Their school committee was split on their December 1 vote, according to Farmington River School District Chair Alicia Dunaj.

Farmington River PTA Chair Sheri DeCelle attended the meeting at which the new tuition agreement was accepted.

Farmington River’s schools end at 6th grade. For 2015 that district pays $6,826 and $7,524 for its middle and high sc

hool students, respectively, to attend Berkshire Hills. Those numbers will rise consecutively up to $8,464 for high school students by FY18 at the four percent increase.

This narrows, but doesn’t close the gap, and committee members appear intent upon working towards that goal. The cost per pupil at Berkshire Hills ranges anywhere from roughly $8,000 to around $16,000, depending on what costs are included in the figure. The district calculated a formula for a more accurate per pupil cost of $8,630 for the out-of-district students, eliminating certain costs that would not affect the final number, such as transportation, since Berkshire Hills does not provide it for those students.

Farmington River Superintendent Jo Ann Austin said in an email that the three-year agreement was an “equitable product of the negotiation process…with the focus where it belongs — on our students.” Austin commended the school committees and particularly Chair Dunaj and Berkshire Hills Chair Stephen Bannon.

“We are all interested in doing what is best for our children,” she wrote.

Thursday night’s marathon Berkshire Hills school committee meeting indicated that what’s best for the children — and even the wallet — prevailed.

“Four, four, four gets us a lot closer than we were,” Weston said. “This buys us time without putting us at risk, without bankrupting Farmington River and without losing kids we like to see in our district.” He added that there should be a “goal of making it better soon.”

Fred Clark was the lone vote against the tuition agreement. Photo: Heather Bellow

“I don’t think we could operate this district if we lost these kids,” committee member Fred Clark said. Clark was the only member to vote against accepting Farmington River’s offer on the principal that he wished it was closer to the six, four, four offer from Richmond Consolidated Schools. Richmond also has a tuition contract with Berkshire Hills, though that district sends fewer students, as Richmond schools end at 8^th grade.

Richard Dohoney said he would have preferred a six, four, four percent arrangement, but “four, four, four is a pill I could definitely swallow.”

“We’re away from the brink now, as far as I’m concerned,” he added, noting the two percent difference between the ask and the get. Dohoney voted in favor, saying while he had concerns about the process of arriving at these numbers, “we desperately want these kids and will do anything to keep them…and they want to stay.”

That was made evident by a group of Farmington River parents who attended Thursday night’s meeting. Farmington River PTA President Sheri De Celle said the group came in “support for your efforts on our behalf. A lot of parents have a lot of strong emotions about wanting their kids to come here.” De Celle suggested keeping an open dialogue between districts, not waiting until the “last minute” to make these decisions. She said her town had struggled to make a commitment in “advance of budgeting…then having to get approval from the town for that increased payment and in falling short and having to make some tough decisions about how to write the check.”

Upon learning of the counter offer of four percent, School Committee Chair Bannon had earlier said, “What we had originally wanted over four years would have been a total of 17 percent. What they’re offering is 15 percent.”

Bannon said it was a good step for working together with Farmington River on “smaller items,” and larger ones, such as how to “come together as maybe one district.”

Addressing the Farmington River parents, Fred Clark summed up the challenge of the negotiation process. “…We have the district that we want to have… the right size…the right programs…there are a lot of fabulous things going on…we just want to do justice to our member towns in terms of…equal, fair pay.”

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Main Street Reconstruction, revisited: Public meeting Dec. 17

Great Barrington — Town Planner Christopher Rembold has compiled a list of ideas to enhance downtown Great Barrington for both during the Main Street reconstruction project and the long term. The ideas were generated by residents last spring at a presentation from Project for Public Spaces, about “Placemaking,” for the downtown area. Rembold sent out a letter along with the list, and said many of the projects were “interesting and very achievable,” and should perhaps be considered now “before the spring construction season.”

“Things like art and cultural offerings, portable seating and shade, music, murals, marketing communications and other activities that will help us through the construction season and make our downtown welcoming to visitors and residents,” Rembold wrote.

“We believe that working together, we can plan and execute a few of these ideas, and have a positive impact.” Rembold is hoping for a good showing this Wednesday morning, December 17 from 8:30 am to 10 am at Town Hall, “to identify how to accomplish some of these projects.”

Rembold encourages residents to come to the meeting.

To see the list of ideas or for more information contact Town Planner Christopher Rembold at townofgb.org.

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American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is one of a handful of nonprofit institutions that currently make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT).

Bill to mandate Payments in Lieu of Taxes dead

A bill attempting to address the needs of municipalities with a large number of tax-exempt properties owned by nonprofits has pretty much died, according to Rep.William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox).

The Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) was behind a policy initiative “requiring a level of contributions from nonprofits,” Tabakin told the Selectboard last week, though she later learned the bill was unlikely to pass. She and the Selectboard have been looking for ways to increase the tax base, and the legislation got Tabakin’s attention.

Pignatelli said today (December 15) that the bill “had already been sent to a study, which is the proverbial black hole.” While the process could be started all over again in January, he said, “the bill is considered dead.”

In prior year budget discussions, Tabakin said she and the Selectboard tried to give the issue attention, to be “more consistent about what we have in terms of payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT).” It now appears such payments will only be made voluntarily, if at all.

Tabakin said she also “recognizes that non-profits are very valuable to the economy of Great Barrington and the state.”

The town has 268 tax-exempt parcels; government entities own 90 of those, and 178 are owned by tax-exempt charitable organizations, according to Tabakin. Several non-profit organizations make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes. According to Town Assessor Christopher Lamarre, Great Barrington’s PILOT participants are Hillcrest Educational Centers, AIER (American Institute for Economic Research), Great Barrington Housing Authority, Berkshire Housing Authority and CDC/Hillside Avenue Apartments.

“We are extremely grateful and appreciative for each of them,” Lamarre wrote in an email. “I’m not surprised the bill met its demise. There is scant enthusiasm to compel nonprofit and charitable organizations to pay taxes either in whole, or in part, as the MMA bill suggested.”

Pignatelli said this is a “historical” problem. From the outside, he said, it looks like a lot of lost revenue. But from the inside, “imagine you are a church and have to start fundraising to pay your property taxes, he said. “What do we do with churches, synagogues, museums, theaters…” He noted non-profits that perhaps offset the loss — organizations like Tanglewood, he said, that generate over $62 million every year. “Are we going to be splitting hairs over their $20,000 tax bill?”

But Lamarre is “very thankful,” he said, for those organizations that “are willing to assist their host communities in defraying the cost of providing essential public services through financial contributions.”

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Community Block Grants Offer Assistance

Federal Community Development Block Grants for housing rehabilitation announced by the Gov. Deval Patrick in Housatonic last summer now make it possible for Great Barrington and Sheffield homeowners with low or moderate income to apply for help. “All applications are strictly confidential,” said Town Planner Christopher Rembold at last week’s Selectboard meeting. He said the assistance could be “substantial.”

Town Manager Tabakin said she was eager to “get the word out” about the grant applications. “It’s a good opportunity, and I want to make sure everybody who is eligible can apply for it.”

The program is managed by Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, and provides the home improvement assistance in the form of zero-percent deferred payment loans for low- and moderate-income homeowners. According to the town, the maximum award of funds for a single rehabilitation project is $30,000; approximately 15 housing units will be rehabilitated. The type of repairs “include roofing, foundation repair, installation of energy efficient windows and doors, insulation, accessibility improvements, plumbing, electrical repair or replacement, septic, water supply, lead paint removal, exterior paint, etc,” according to the town.

Preference will be given to residents living in the program’s target areas: Housatonic Village and town-wide in Sheffield. The application states that “applicants must not exceed the following income limits based on household size: 1 person: $44,750; 2 persons: $51,150; 3 persons: $57,550; 4 persons: $63,900; 5 persons: $69,050; 6 persons: $74,150; 7 persons: $79,250; 8 or more persons: $84,350.”

The grant totaling $803,100 is overseen by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, and also includes “engineering designs for infrastructure improvements in Housatonic Village, and architectural designs for the elimination of accessibility barriers in Sheffield Town Hall.”

Applications are available at libraries, senior centers, Town Halls in Great Barrington and Sheffield, as well as on Great Barrington’s website and Sheffield’s. To learn more about the program and the grant, go to: http://berkshireplanning.org/projects/regional-community-development-block-grant-project/

To call or email, contact Patricia Mullins at 413-442-1521 x17 (pmullins@berkshireplanning.org) or Jaclyn Pacejo at 413-442-1521 x32 (jpacejo@berkshireplanning.org).

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Town auctioning foreclosed properties

Great Barrington — Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin announced at last week’s Selectboard meeting an auction date of January 30 for thirteen properties owned by the town for many years due to foreclosure. Details about each property can be downloaded from the Sullivan & Sullivan Auctioneers LLC website which, in red caps, says, “Town Says Sell – Low Minimum Bids!”

The town website also has a link to the Sullivan & Sullivan site, and has distributed purple flyers to advertise the auction around town. The auction will take place at Town Hall at 334 Main Street at 1 p.m. Registration begins at 12:15 pm.

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Great Barrington — The committee tasked with assessing the needs of Monument Mountain Regional High School’s physical plant met last Wednesday (December 10), and emerged with a written overview and list of “immediate” and “near future” needs of the deteriorating high school, which, if undertaken, are estimated to cost between $26 million to $34 million.

The Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s Buildings and Grounds subcommittee did not include in the estimate “other notable costs” such as “insurance, permits, legal, contingency, hazardous waste abatement (across all projects), demolition or bonds,” according to their preliminary report, which, as of last week, had not yet been reviewed by the district’s Director of Operations, Steven Soule.

The estimates were drawn from schematic design estimates that were part of the Monument High renovation project which Great Barrington voters foiled in November. That proposed $51 million renovation, that included the creation of new science classrooms, would have been eligible for a $23 million state reimbursement, bringing the total Berkshire Hills Regional School District obligation down to $28 million for the three member towns: Stockbridge, West Stockbridge and Great Barrington. The subcommittee’s report issued the caveat that “these estimates are only ballpark figures that serve as an order of magnitude and should not be construed as final or even as comprehensive.”

School committee member Richard Bradway.

School Committee Vice-Chair and Buildings and Grounds member Richard Bradway said in no way was this list of priorities for repairs and upgrades a “formal endorsement,” but rather a “starting point for a dialogue.”

But the repairs, their meeting minutes said, require a larger conversation that includes the community, about “the desired enrollment and programming for the school.”

This is not a committee — and a task — for the fainthearted. Just ask buildings and grounds member Kristin Piaseki. “None of us are architects or designers — do we collectively even know how to go through a list like this ourselves?” she asked the other school committee members at their meeting the following day (December 11). “It’s almost silly,” she said, “we have had a bunch of people tell us how to redesign the school and we didn’t get the money to do it, and now were going to use volunteers to pick through…”

Kristin Piasecki

Director of Operations Steven Soule is helping the subcommittee with their facts and figures, but even Soule, with his expertise, can’t prevent the can-of-worms effect when one begins to make repairs or upgrades to an old public building.

“Any one of these priorities probably would trigger code,” Bradway noted. “We’ve been grandfathered in for so long.”

Bradway was referring to the requirement that repairs or renovations that are more than routine now invoke the necessity to go beyond an individual repair project in order to make the school facility comply with local and state building codes, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It’s the horn-lock between money and education, with all its attendant expenses. Even with the focus on immediate needs, or those requiring attention in the near future, the subcommittee nonetheless has entered a decision-making maze presented by what the district and the state say is an aging, unsafe and unhealthy school in a climate of taxpayer anger over rising school budgets, not to mention Great Barrington’s larger share of costs.

Keeping an old building going is no picnic for budgets, either. Servicing the 47-year-old boiler, for instance, costs the district an estimated $10,000 to $20,000 every year, according to the subcommittee’s report; plumbing repairs run from $5,000 to $20,000. (Exact costs will be provided at the subcommittee’s next meeting).

Superintendent Peter Dillon

Superintendent Peter Dillon asked the multi-million dollar question: “How much can we afford to do now, versus what we might defer for some other possibility down the road?”

If last week’s meeting discussion was any indication, making repairs on a building with such high needs appears to be a gamble, with so many unknowns about changes to school populations, a possible future renovation and a host of other variables. One idea that had circulated in the community, according to the subcommittee’s report, was “mothballing certain portions of the building if enrollment goes down through a natural decline in population or as a result of a business decision.”

Security is first on the priorities list with an estimate of $2 to $4 million; followed by safety at $4 to $6 million; the roof, at $5 to $9 million; HVAC and boiler at $10 million total; plumbing at $1 to $2 million; and electrical at $2 to $3 million. The list did not include upgrades to technology, accessibility, building code, or “Classrooms/Vocational/Library/Auditorium/Gymnasium Spaces.” Nor did the list include temporary classrooms.

School Committee member Fred Clark.

“What can we do to hang on for five years or how ever many years it is [until a renovation],” said school committee member Fred Clark, who later wrote in an email, “There is no doubt in my mind that Monument should be renovated — the issue is having those who benefit share the costs. That largely means dealing with school choice and tuition which collectively make up a third of our students.”

“BHRSD should set a time goal to bring the renovation back, say five years,” Clark also wrote.  “Every repair/replacement should then be done with that in mind. I will advocate for doing the minimum required to maintain a level of safety during the interim.” Clark said he is working on a renovation timeline that considers a host of variables, and would time the debt service to reduce the hit to the towns.

“I’d like to see what are absolute must ‘haves’,” said Committee Chair Stephen Bannon, who noted that until there was a larger plan for a building with “so many deficiencies,” he didn’t want to spend any more money than necessary on repairs. “We need a strategic plan for the building.”

Director of Operations Steven Soule could not be reached for this report.

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Great Barrington — In league with those who opposed the renovation of Monument Mountain Regional High School, Finance Committee Chair Sharon Gregory is now attempting to actively engage her town committee in the budgeting processes of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, pushing the committee far beyond its traditional purview.

The Tuesday (December 16) Finance Committee meeting was almost entirely devoted to an interrogation of Berkshire Hills Regional School District officials. No vote was taken by the committee.

Questioning Superintendent Peter Dillon and School Committee Chair — and select board member — Stephen Bannon, Gregory insisted the district provide the detailed financial analyses she is demanding.

A leading voice advocating the rejection of a $23 million state subsidy to renovate Monument Mountain Regional High School, and a proponent at last year’s town meeting of a $200,000 cut to the town’s contribution to the school district, Gregory has begun making requests for special reports and analyses that Berkshire Hills Regional School District officials say go beyond existing public reporting documents. To comply with her requests, school officials have noted, would require more staff time than the district has available.

At Tuesday night’s (December 16) Finance Committee meeting, school officials pushed back, reminding Gregory that they represent a separate municipal entity with its own board that is responsible for its own budget. While they expressed a willingness to provide the Finance Committee with whatever information it needs to make a recommendation to the Town Meeting, they suggested that to provide Gregory with the answers and information at the granular level of detail she requested would necessitate the hiring of additional personnel.

It was another installment in a running fight. Last month the Finance Committee approved a petition, authored in part by Gregory, demanding sweeping changes in a number of areas of school district policy. The petition was adopted over the objection of two members who had not been shown the document beforehand. The petition went nowhere at the next week’s Select Board meeting, as the Board refused to allow a formal presentation.

Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon and BHRSD Business Manager Sharon Harrison answer questions during Finance Committee meeting.

The details hidden in the agenda for Tuesday night’s Finance Committee meeting similarly were not unveiled until one o’clock in the afternoon before the meeting was to begin, when Gregory submitted a long and detailed list of recommendations and questions to Superintendent Peter Dillon and School Committee Chair Stephen Bannon, although she had invited them to attend the meeting several weeks earlier.

“We got these questions five hours ago,” said Dillon at the meeting. To answer them properly, he said, would require significant effort from him or someone in his office, and distract him from his job “working with principals to support kids and learning,” rather than “chasing rabbits down rabbit holes endlessly.”

The proper arena for a sustained discussion of school finances, he said, is at the School Committee: “These kinds of conversations should be undertaken as a school district…composed of three towns.”

From left, Finance Committee members Michael Wise, Leigh Davis, and Gregory.

Gregory has been after the district to provide more comprehensive financial and enrollment reports because, she says, Great Barrington pays 70 percent of the school budget. She says her attempts to delve into the school’s books and analyze them have been time-consuming and difficult. “I want things in a central place for the budget and planning,” Gregory said.

Gregory’s recommendation memo is looking, for instance, for figures that break down and separate out various expenses and revenues, enrollment figures, and creation of 5- to 10-year revenue trends. She is also looking for a summary for the district’s unfunded pension liabilities, an area of focus she is visiting upon the town’s finances as well.

At last night’s meeting, Gregory said that consolidating information would reduce the number of requests of the district. “People,” she said, had been asking her for this information. She even offered to help the district create an Excel spreadsheet for certain items.

“I’m not sure we need assistance,” Bannon said. “If people are asking then you need to send them to us,” Bannon said, “because we’re a separate municipal entity, and they really shouldn’t be going through you.”

“If you’re looking for public documents that are available,” Bannon went on, “we’ll comply with that in a heartbeat. But some of the information you’re looking for takes 6 to 8 hours of research, and … there are not a lot of other parties asking. If they were, we’d probably be budgeting for an assistant superintendent or business manager.”

“I want to understand your budget enough to make a recommendation at Town Meeting,” said Finance Committee member Michael Wise. He expressed frustration with his inability to draw enough data from the district’s website due to a meltdown last summer from which the site is still recovering.

Committee member Leigh Davis expressed annoyance at Gregory’s late addition to the agenda. “I just got this,” she said. “And I feel quite uncomfortable with this.” She suggested that it may not be the role of the Finance Committee to advise on school finances to such a degree, however tied to Great Barrington purse strings they are. “You have your own [budget] process,” she said, looking at Dillon, Bannon and the district’s Business Manager Sharon Harrison.

Leigh Davis ponders role Sharon Gregory proposes for Finance Committee.

Gregory countered that the Finance Committee is charged with being “advisory.” According to the town charter, the committee is, indeed, an advisory board, “making recommendations to Town Meeting on the Town budget and all warrant articles.”

The fuss over the district’s finances is timely — the topic of funding the schools has consumed Great Barrington politics since last summer, before the November vote on whether to renovate 48-year-old Monument Mountain Regional High School. But a long list of unaddressed issues has led to the perception among enough Great Barrington voters that the funding anvil has dropped in their laps — with the corollary that Stockbridge and West Stockbridge aren’t carrying their weight – resulting in the town’s rejection of the renovation proposal and the $23 million in state aid.

That has thrown the school district under the microscope, and Gregory, who was an executive at Jane Iredale Mineral Cosmetics, thinks she knows how to look into it. She is a stickler for clarity in budgets, the town’s included.

Sharon Harrison explained the challenges of creating a budget when so much is dependent on the state’s rules and inefficient timing. The district is “not like a private company,” she said.

But Gregory kept in pursuit of the recommendations on her list, going back to costs per student.

Finally, Bannon snapped. “I’m really starting to get annoyed,” he said. “You’re the only one asking for this stuff. If people are asking you, send them to us, pack our meetings. I’m not saying our budget is perfect. I want more people at our budget meetings. Tell them to come and ask.”

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Great Barrington — The Community Preservation Committee is now in its final stretch, having determined in a series of meetings which applicants are still eligible for Community Preservation Act (CPA) money derived from a property tax surcharge and matching funds from the state and that is intended to underwrite projects in three categories: historic preservation, recreation and open space, and affordable housing. With the elimination of two projects at last week’s meeting, the committee is now being asked for a total of $956,000, down from what was originally $1.5 million in total requests.

The committee has $1.2 million to allocate.

At its December 18 meeting, the committee vetted the last six projects, asking questions of applicants and taking a straw vote to determine whether those projects would proceed to the next stage, in which the committee will determine how much funding to recommend for each. The final decision on whether to fund CPA projects is made at Town Meeting in May.

Chair Karen W. Smith and the committee gave three town projects the green light. Mason Library needs what a contractor said is $65,000 to repair a deteriorating cupola that has compromised the inside of the building with leaks. Town Hall, says Public Works Director Joseph Sokul, needs $20,000 for an investigation into “serious problems in the southwest corner” of the building. For the actual repairs to the roof, Sokul said he will ask the town for that money, in addition to looking for multiple funding sources.

The more controversial of the three town projects is the Wetherbee Vault. “It’s only dangerous to dead people,” committee member Suzie Fowle said of the deteriorating burial chamber of Charles Lincoln Wetherbee and his wife, located in the historic Mahaiwe Cemetery. Sokul said he was never able to find money to fix the “beautiful structure,” and that tearing it down and re-interring the remains would not be cheap, either. Committee Member Kathleen Jackson wondered what was better, “spending town money to repair it, or town money to knock it down.”

In the end the committee decided to keep the vault in the funding game, but with the request that Sokul ask the Cemetery Commission for leverage for the $27,500 project. Fowle said she liked “the sensitivity that [the application] shows on Joe’s part,” and that it will draw attention to the historic cemetery.

The Great Barrington Historical Society’s Wheeler Farmstead will go forward in its quest for $50,000 to restore its old Dutch wheelhouse. And so will St. James Place, for $150,000 to complete repairs to the roof of the old St. James Church.

The roof and exterior of St. James Church is in the process of being restored.

Likewise, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center will proceed in its request for $30,000 in drainage remediation to the historic theatre, though the committee had concerns that the drainage issues may not be resolved by this work alone. The Mahaiwe’s Production and Facilities Director Tim Schroepfer had learned from an engineer, however, that the work would be a “permanent fix” to the problem. Smith worried that this is a “deferred maintenance issue,” but Schroepfer reassured her. “I don’t know what the deferred maintenance would have been to have solved this problem.” The Mahaiwe will replace the floor and install a larger sump pump.

Deferred maintenance is something Ed Abrahams is concerned about, particularly with regard to the three town projects and the Mahaiwe project. He was unable to attend last night’s meeting, but sent a letter to be read to the committee, in which he wrote, “We might be setting up a financial incentive to encourage deferring needed maintenance until a historic building is in danger.”

Last week, the committee, in a 6-3 vote, decided not to fund the Unitarian Universalist Church in Housatonic for $17,250 in restorations to their building. Chair Karen W. Smith said the reason was that the Church did not appear ready; they had not hired an engineer to determine what was needed, nor were costs documented. “There was no real estimate,” Smith said. “They never came to the first meeting…when you’re spending taxpayer money, you need to be ready.”

The Church sits next to the Ramsdell Library, which was also rejected with an 8-1 vote for $345,000 in funding for an addition and handicapped accessibility. Smith said there were two problems with that application. “There was no feasibility study or engineers, and the plan had nothing to do with historical preservation.” The state CPA officials agreed, Smith said, when Library Trustees President Holly Hamer called them. Hamer then changed the application to ask for $300,000 for system upgrades, which the library had planned to ask the town for in 2017, and $30,000 for a driveway and handicap accessible parking.

Chair Smith said there had not been feasibility studies or engineers to determine costs, and that with taxpayer money you “can’t change the plan midstream.”

The committee suggested the trustees come back next year for funds, and that they work with the church for a shared driveway and parking.

In his letter to the committee, Abrahams, who is also a library trustee, expressed concern that the committee has gone too far in telling applicants where their applications were lacking, and were perhaps too harsh with them in the process.

“As a committee we have gone beyond our expertise in past meetings,” Abrahams wrote. “…And we’ve often raised our voices and even ridiculed applicants. At the least, let’s try to be more civil…our job is oversight and prioritizing.”

Committee member Thomas Blauvelt disagreed that the committee had “ridiculed” applicants, and Smith said “we are asked to spend $1.2 million in revenue…if feelings are hurt…I’ll be glad to take the hit on that. We have a fiduciary responsibility to the town, we need to adhere and we need to be picky.”

Kathleen Jackson said some of that pickiness was a way of “steering [applicants] towards the right application.”

The committee will meet again on December 30, after several project site visits.

The post Eleven projects advance for CPA funds in GB; two eliminated appeared first on The Berkshire Edge.

Great Barrington — A 24-year-old woman was airlifted to Hartford Hospital on Thursday night (December 18) after being injured in a hit and run accident in front of Town Hall. She was released the next day (December 19), according to Great Barrington Police Chief William Walsh. While walking on the sidewalk, she had been struck by a car that had swerved off South Main Street and slammed into her.

Treadmarks in the light snow cover on the grass in front of Town Hall highlight the path of the car after it struck the pedestrian

Here is what can be pieced together from the preliminary Great Barrington Police reports: Just before 7 p.m. on December 18, Amy Smith of Medford, Mass., was walking with her boyfriend on the sidewalk in front of Town Hall.

A northbound car driven by 24-year-old Dylan A. Winters of Canaan, Conn., crossed the two southbound lanes in front of Town Hall, passed between two large trees and hit Smith, according to the reports of police officers Christopher Peebles and Daniel Bartini, who arrived at the scene shortly after. In a press release Chief Walsh stated: “The car also hit two park benches, then scraped another tree, then struck a stone monument and finally ran into two cars parked in front of Town Hall.”

Winters, of High Street in Canaan, got out of his car, then got back in and backed it up. With headlights off, he headed south on Main Street (Route 7), made a right on Taconic Avenue at the CVS Pharmacy, but afterwards managed to drive five miles south to Sheffield Pottery in Sheffield, where he abandoned his car.

Left at the scene in front of Town Hall was a piece of the car’s front bumper containing the license plate.

A little more than an hour after the incident, at 8 p.m., Winters turned himself in. He walked into the Great Barrington Police Station, and told police he left his car at Sheffield Pottery; the car was later impounded at the Great Barrington police department for evaluation. The police report did not explain how Winters got from the Sheffield Pottery to the Great Barrington Police Station at the intersection of Routes 7 and 23, or the route Winters used to get to Sheffield.

The view from South Main Street of the hit and run site, with Town Hall in the background. At right is the stone monument that was also struck. Photo: Heather Bellow

Winters was arrested by officer Peebles, then released on bail on personal recognizance after being charged with leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, and with reckless operation of a motor vehicle. Winters will be arraigned this week in Southern Berkshire District Court.

The Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit is helping Great Barrington police in their investigation. The Great Barrington Fire Department, the Southern Berkshire Volunteer Ambulance Squad, the Lee State Police Barracks, and police from Sheffield and Egremont also assisted.

Both town park benches were destroyed. Fortunately, the stone monument commemorating the location in 1774 of the first armed action against British rule in the Colonies, was only scuffed.

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Great Barrington — Wearing khakis, blue button down shirt and a tie, Dylan Winters was arraigned this morning (December 22) in Southern Berkshire District Court with Judge Fredric D. Rutberg presiding. Winters, 24, of High Street in Canaan, Conn., has been charged with three counts of leaving the scene of a property damage accident, one count of leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, and one count of negligent operation of a motor vehicle.

Dylan Winters, 24, of Canaan, Conn., accused of a hit-and-run incident in front of Town Hall December 18. Photo courtesy of the Great Barrington Police Department.

Judge Rutberg entered a not guilty plea on Winters’ behalf, and kept his bail at $500.

Winters is due back in court on January 22, 2015 for a pre-trial hearing.

Winters, 24, of High Street in Canaan, Conn., was arrested Thursday night (December 18) after his gray 2007 Subaru Legacy, heading northbound crossed the two southbound lanes of Main Street (Route 7) and hit a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk in front of Town Hall, leaving her bleeding from her head, according to Great Barrington police. Amy Smith, 24, of Medford, Mass., was airlifted to Hartford Hospital “with possible internal injuries, severe lacerations,” and was released the following day (December 19) in stable condition “with no serious injuries.”

Winters’ car also destroyed two cement park benches valued at $1,000, and seriously damaged two cars parked in front of Town Hall: a 2014 Volkswagen Jetta valued at $30,000 and a 2013 Nissan Altima worth $25,000, according to the report.

Berkshire Assistant District Attorney Michael D’Angelo tried to raise Winters’ bail to $1,500, given the seriousness of the accident. Later, Clerk Magistrate Thomas Bartini explained by phone that it was the combined “severity of the case, his living out of state, and leaving the scene,” that prompted D’Angelo to try to raise the bail.

The impact of Winters’ 2007 Subaru left this gouge in the ash tree in front of Town Hall. Photo: Heather Bellow

But court appointed attorney Harry Conklin stated that Winters “ultimately turned himself in,” has “local ties,” and “works for Wilkinson’s.” Conklin further said Winters “has no substantial record … no reason to believe he would leave.”

A representative from Joe Wilkinson Excavating Inc., who declined to be identified, confirmed that Winters works for the Sheffield-based company, and also noted that he was laid off the Friday after the accident as part of a seasonal layoff. “He knew when he was hired that that’s how it works here.”

It is still unclear what made Winters lose control of his car. Police received the call of a hit and run around 7 p.m., and two officers arrived at the scene almost immediately. The preliminary police report stated that a witness observed a gray car with no headlights and “heavy front-end damage” leave the scene and head south on Main Street. The driver, said the witness, got out of the car, then got back in, before he drove off.

Great Barrington Police Officer Christopher Peebles went as far as the Sheffield town line to find the driver, while Officer Daniel Bartini tended to Smith. Smith’s boyfriend, Gregory Hughes — with whom she had been walking at the time — said the car came from behind them on the sidewalk when it hit Smith. In addition to the benches and cars, Winters’ car also hit a tree and the stone monument in front of Town Hall. Medics from the Southern Berkshire Volunteer Ambulance squad arrived and began to treat Smith, who was lying near a tree, bleeding from her head and “complaining of severe pain on her right side.”

Scouring the scene, Officer Bartini found a piece of Winters’ bumper with the license plate attached, and traced the plates to Winters with an address in Otis, the home of his stepfather (who declined comment). State police went to that residence and found no one home.

Soon after the accident a witness called police saying she saw a “dark colored car smoking” as it traveled up Taconic Avenue.

The sidewalk where Amy Smith was struck, two stone benches destroyed, and the Revolutionary War monument grazed. Photo: Heather Bellow

At around 8 p.m., Winters arrived at the Great Barrington Police Department, and turned himself in, declaring, “I was the one who hit the girl on Main Street.” His parents brought him to the station after he had abandoned his car, he said, at Sheffield Pottery on Route 7. Winters told police that before the accident, he had been on his way to an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting. He said he last remembered passing the town police station on Route 7, before waking up with his airbag inflated, realizing he had just had an accident. He also told police that he fled the scene because he “did not want to get into trouble.”

The accident is still being investigated by Great Barrington police and the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit. A surveillance video from Wheeler & Taylor Insurance across the street from Town Hall is also being analyzed. Winters’ car was impounded by police, and his Casio cell phone confiscated as part of the investigation.

Witnesses Gregory Hughes of Medford, Mass., and Rebecca Mann of Great Barrington could not be reached in time for this dispatch. Attorney Harry Conklin also declined comment.

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Great Barrington — In a Kenyan village and surrounding areas, 60 women were taught to create a filing system, use paper clips, staples and other office supplies. It revolutionized their lives and their work tracking 3,000 children orphaned by AIDS.

The person who taught these women how to manage the several-inch-thick file for each child hailed from the Berkshires. Karen W. Smith co-founded the SawaSawa Foundation with Phil Pryjma, and both are retirees with a deep urge to help struggling Africans figure out sustainable ways to live and earn, to bring them medical care and supplies, and enhance schools and education.

Smith, 62, a well-known education advocate and Great Barrington town volunteer, had gone to Ghana 17 years before and recalled some of the impoverishment she saw there: “I said to myself, if I am ever unencumbered I’m going back to Africa.”

Preschool students in the village of Ranen.

She did go back, with tragedy as the driving force: some friends lost three children in a car accident and decided soon after to go on a mission to Ghana; then Smith’s fiancé died of brain cancer, and she went along with them on their next trip. Several years later she went to Kenya on safari, when she noticed “all these women on the side of the road, kids strapped to them, a load on their heads, and the men sitting around playing checkers. The women were doing all the work. If I’m ever going to come back, I want to help the women,” Smith told herself. Later, an Oprah episode about a Botswana woman with an abusive husband and five children — who desperately wanted to become a doctor, and succeeded — clinched it for Smith. She was going back. “It was a visceral epiphany.”

Dr. Phil Pryjma, a 67-year-old former psychiatrist and director of the St. Francis Gallery in South Lee, was lured to Africa by local friends Gordon Clark and Rob Kirkman. The men were working with refugees in the Sudan in 2010 during the conflict there. They asked him to come along, but he couldn’t get enough time off to travel so far. Those refugees later fled to Kenya, and Clark followed to work in AIDS orphanages. Pryjma said to himself, “now I have all the time in the world.” He and Berkshire Medical Center colleague Kathy Gideon, a retired art therapist, worked in an area north of Nairobi and in a Nairobi slum, setting up health clinics, doing projects at orphanages and helping create sustainable villages for surviving children. One good thing the Bush Administration did, Pryjma said, “was to deregulate the drug companies to make affordable AIDS medication, so instead of just burying children, those children were growing up and we had to find lives for them.”

Karen W. Smith with mitoto marimbo (beautiful baby) in Dago Dala Hera.

Back in the Berkshires, Pryjma and Smith, who hadn’t seen each other for years, learned from local newspaper articles about each other’s work in Kenya, and decided to join forces and contain their work in one area, a compound called Dago Dala Hera in the village of Ranen. They co-founded the SawaSawa Foundation; Sawa means “good” in Swahili. The Foundation’s mission is to help strengthen a community’s infrastructure and systems, and provide needed goods and equipment. The Foundation does not want to simply drop western technologies and gadgets into the laps of people with their own traditions, say both Pryjma and Smith.

Smith is also the part-time business manager of Pryjma’s St. Francis Gallery, which is dedicated to showing the work of Berkshire County artists, and donates a percentage of all proceeds to SawaSawa. The Gallery also sells crafts made in Kenya.

Service workers Lucy Aieko, Susan Odero and Eucabeth Wairimu working on the laptop Smith sent in February. Pryjma is showing them how to use it.

Smith, Pryjma and Gideon have worked on a number of projects together. Last year, their work was snaggled by Kenyan customs’ refusal to release a shipping container packed with medical and building supplies, among other goods. Smith quickly learned the ropes of Kenyan corruption and bureaucracy, marching daily to the customs office — with two young men for protection — and going toe to toe with officials until they released the container. The container itself became a medical clinic at the orphanage, used to monitor AIDS medications for the children.

Last year was the year of the filing system. Those 60 women, until Smith showed up, had to dig through an entire file to find any basic piece of information about a child whose parents or caregiver had died of AIDS, or were also suffering from it. Smith taught the “service workers,” as they are known, how to alphabetize files by last name and reduce paper by organizing information. Sixty thousand sheets of paper were discarded from files and turned into much-needed fire starter.

The school classroom in Dago Dala Hera.

Smith describes herself as a jack-of-all-trades when in Africa; one might find her atop a rippled, corrugated metal roof, making repairs, for instance. “I realized all I need is a silicone gun and I can give people a roof over their heads,” she says. Smith also finds herself tending to wounds and doing other first aid.

Pryjma and Gideon introduced a creative arts program into a primary school, working with a trained teacher who is now funded by SawaSawa. This is one of Pryjma’s passions, ever since he and Gideon brought arts and crafts to children in a Nairobi slum while waiting for a medical team to arrive. “It turned out to be the best intervention,” he said. “It was magic. The adults said it gave a spirit and joy to their children that they hadn’t seen in a long time. These people who had nothing, saw value in art.”

Gideon, who said she had worked with many different humanitarian groups and has done a “great deal of traveling,” brought basic art supplies to Dago, and organized classes at the school. She said the culture there was “very inspiring,” in that “communities help and respect each other — even the little kids help each other. It’s something we don’t have here anymore.”

Smith is going back to Ranen on January 7 for three months, with Pryjma, Gideon and other volunteers — including an EMT — joining her for a month in February. The projects this time around include making soil amendments, continuing the art program for 300 schoolchildren, creating a clean water infrastructure with a solar water pump, and working on a sound land balance program.

These students have classes outside because they do not have a classroom.

Smith will pack 100 solar powered lights into a suitcase, “so people don’t have to buy kerosene every night, which is very expensive.” Smith said the lights can also help neighbors, and serve as an income stream, which will help them “eventually buy a chicken and a goat.”

“The key to the castle,” Smith says, “is that if everybody has a milking cow, providing a gallon a day, not only can they feed their family, they can sell some of it.”

“We’re empowering them by giving them financial knowhow,” Smith added. “Nobody ever saves or plans there, so what I found out was if you have three hens and a cock, and you don’t eat the eggs or kill the chickens for a year, after a year you could have 250 chickens, which can buy you a cow.” Smith found a veterinarian to inoculate the chickens, and the women had to learn how to protect the chicks. The idea didn’t go over so well at first, Smith said. “They thought I was out of my mind, but then they started to get it.”

Smith is also bringing solar-powered phone chargers. Cell phones are cheap in Kenya, but it’s expensive to charge them, and one must often trek to the nearest village to do so. She will also bring medical and dental supplies, laptops for the women’s service group, and supplies for “simple and sound repairs” to homes. Much of what she is bringing, Smith says, comes from the “incredible generosity” of Berkshire locals and businesses. Southern Berkshire Volunteer Ambulance, Fairview Hospital have donated medical supplies, and dentist Bob Edwards at Delair, Edwards & Krol, donated dental supplies.

Kathy Gideon dancing with a man from a nearby tribe.

“Women drive the economy there,” Smith said, “but you can’t just help the women and children — you have to help the men — the whole village.” She said high numbers of men in the area die of AIDS due to promiscuity.

“We don’t want to do anything to destroy the fabric of the culture or their heritage, which is very strong,” Pryjma said. “Kenyans have a strong family and community system, and they live with good sound principals. The problem is the infrastructure, and the delivery of systems like healthcare. We’re trying to bring technology without causing harm. The last thing we want to do is throw gifts at them and create a consumer culture. We want to instill a spirit of creativity and self-sufficiency.”

“We weren’t sending money and things,” Gideon said of her work in Kenya. “We respected [the people] and their values. We were there finding out what would help and what they need.”

For more information about sponsoring some of the items needed by the Dago Dala Hera community, click here.

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Great Barrington — In its final stretch of decision-making for this year’s allocation of Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding, the Community Preservation Committee Tuesday (December 30) nixed two applications, one from the town to repair the Wetherbee Vault in the Mahaiwe Cemetery, and the other from Berkshire South Community Center for a new pavilion and trails.

The Wetherbee Vault in the Mahaiwe Cemetery. Photo: Heather Bellow

The Wetherbee Vault was immediately turned down after the committee learned from Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Joseph Sokul that the Cemetery Commission all along had enough money to take care of the deteriorating vault, and had, in fact, voted last April, by a unanimous 4-0 tally, to spend up to $30,000 to do the work. Repairs to the vault were estimated to cost around $27,000.

But the Selectboard, and possibly the Finance Committee, decided to hold off until Town Meeting in May to see if the project could be funded by CPA monies instead.

“I find this abhorrent…upsetting,” said committee chair Karen W. Smith, after she told the committee that as of last April, the Cemetery Commission had a current balance from lot sales of $244,178, and $72,832 in perpetual care interest money. “I think they hid this,” Smith added, noting that in future she would start asking more pointed questions about how much money was tucked away in the bank.

“It’s not exactly in the spirit of CPA,” said committee member Thomas Blauvelt. Member Suzie Fowle wondered, however, if it “met the letter of the law.”

Smith said it did, but rather that it went “against the spirit. We have so many [projects] that need doing that may not have access to other resources.”

It was unanimous. Seven-zip. No CPA money for old Wetherbee, no matter how gorgeous and historic his resting place.

The CPA Committee voting unanimously to reject the Wetherbee Vault repair application.

Agonizing, the committee turned down Berkshire South Regional Community Center in their request for $30,000 for the creation of handicapped-accessible paths and a new, accessible open-air pavilion. This was a hard decision, one that resulted in a split 4 to 3 vote (Members Jessica Dezieck and William Nappo were not present). The “organization does a lot for recreation,” member Ed Abrahams said adding that it troubled him that the committee was “second guessing the Center on this.”

But there were problems with the application that sunk the Center’s request for funds, according to those who voted against it. The concerns had to do mostly with what some committee members felt was a lack of coherence and consistency in the application, the lack of leverage, deferred maintenance on the existing pavilion, and confusion over why so much money was needed for the creation of “340 linear feet of trail,” as Smith said.

The committee voted to recommend full funding for all nine remaining projects except one: the Trustees of Reservations’ request for $52,000 to improve trails at Flag Rock, add signage and a parking lot to the entrance area in Housatonic Village. The reason for the reduction was that a study to gauge community support for a possible 20-car parking lot near the trailhead in the Grove Street neighborhood had not been performed, and the committee worried that the Trustees might not be able to do the project if they faced community opposition. The committee agreed to recommend $20,000 instead, for the Trustees to begin trail work while seeking community input and support.

The committee voted mostly in agreement to recommend to the May 4 Annual Town Meeting that the remaining projects receive their requested funds:

• The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. $30,000 for drainage remediation;
• The Historical Commission. $50,000 for phase one of the preservation of the Wheeler Farmstead. The Commission is to receive a match from the Fitzpatrick Foundation for this work.
• DPW: Town Hall. $20,000 for an investigation into leaks and decay at the southwest corner of the building.
• Mason Library. $65,000 for repairs to the widow’s walk and the resulting leaks.
• St. James Place. $150,000 for roof preservation. The $11 million project is funded by other sources.
• Historical Commission. $31,640 to repair and preserve the Newsboy fountain.
• Community Development Corp. of Southern Berkshire. $200,000 in this years funding cycle for affordable housing at 100 Bridge; with a soft commitment for $250,000 in 2016.
• Community Development Corp. of Southern Berkshire. $300,000 for creation of a park and riverfront restoration at 100 Bridge.

Wildlife conservation biologist Suzie Fowle explaining her reservations about the CDC’s Housatonic riverfront park.

Suzie Fowle expressed concern over this last item, and the committee was split. As a wildlife conservation biologist, Fowle wanted “more attention to the [Housatonic River] riverbank restoration,” at 100 Bridge, the site of a $40 million mixed use development —with an expanded Berkshire Cooperative Market as anchor — on what will be a former, highly polluted brownfield, and is now in process of bioremediation. Fowle did not think the work to the riverfront described in the application was “ecologically sensitive.”

Ed Abrahams simply felt it was “a large chunk of money for a small chunk of public space.” He wanted to reduce the allocation to $200,000.

Though the project was carried forward by the 4-3 vote, Smith said Fowle’s concerns could be added to the terms of the agreement as “criteria to be met.”

The committee meets again at the Great Barrington Firestation, on Saturday, January 3, at 10 a.m.

The post Great Barrington CPA Committee approves 9, rejects 2 preservation projects appeared first on The Berkshire Edge.

Great Barrington — David Magadini’s 30-day jail sentence for seven counts of trespassing was stayed Monday (January 5) until January 29 pending appeal, according to the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office.

Since his September 29 jury of six trial in Central Berkshire District Court, Magadini has picked up two new charges of trespassing for violations in Great Barrington at both the Days Inn and the Post Office, according to Magadini’s attorney, Jedd L. Hall. A pretrial hearing for the two new charges is also scheduled for January 29.

In an interview conducted with him in the Mason Library, Magadini, who has adopted a homeless condition of living, explained he hasn’t been allowed in the Post Office since May 2013. His Post Office box, he said, expired that month. The Postmaster could not be reached for comment.

Magazine addresses the Great Barrington Selectboard during one of his frequent visits to Town Hall.

Magadini is not allowed at the Day’s Inn at the corner of Taconic Avenue and Main Street, either, he said. He has been a paying customer in the past, but has been refused there ever since: “I complained about the service,” involving “lightbulbs and a few odds and ends.” He said he also made a mistake when he sent the hotel evaluation card in the room to the main office. He wrote to the Selectboard, he said, asking them to impose a condition as part of the motel’s operating license, that they must serve everyone who asks for a room. The Selectboard, he said, claimed they never got his letter. Licenses were renewed at the end of December.

Two years ago, Magadini filed a complaint with the Selectboard, requesting that the Days Inn license be suspended because he had been refused a room. But during a subsequent hearing on the matter, the selectboard determined that the motel had declined Magadini a room because in previous incidents he had damaged rooms and left them in need of extensive cleaning. The board dismissed his complaint.

Magadini, 68, was set to serve his sentence in the House of Corrections from January 5 until February 5, but appeals attorney Joseph Schneiderman filed an emergency motion to continue the case until the end of the month and the prosecutor agreed. Attorney Hall explained that the stay would give Schneiderman time to review trial transcripts for accuracy and prepare the appeal, noting that appellate courts require transcripts.

Eight charges were brought by the Great Barrington Police Department from incidents that occurred between February and June of 2014. Magadini was convicted of separate occurrences of trespassing at Barrington House, SoCo Creamery, and 4 Castle Street.

Magadini, whose uses public spaces in town as addresses, was found not guilty on one charge of trespassing at St. James Place in April.

The Commonwealth originally wanted to give Magadini a 90-day sentence, Hall said, and the Judge declined to have a forensic psychologist evaluate him. He was given the 30-day sentence instead.

Hall said he is concerned about his client, who, he says, has been living at the gazebo behind Town Hall, and finds his way into various buildings in order to survive when temperatures drop. At trial, Hall said he “requested a ‘necessity defense,’ because 6 out of 7 charges occurred in the dead of winter last year — [Magadini] had basically no other options, and Construct, Inc. wouldn’t take him because of issues they had with him.”

Magadini trudging Great Barrington’s Main Street, here in front of Baba Louie’s. Photo: Peggy Reeves.

Magadini said he and Construct Executive Director Cara Davis could not come to an agreement about how often he would shower while he lived at their shelter. “I didn’t fit in there,” he said, and explained the complexity of a group of strangers living together, and having to vote “on everything,” including what television show to watch. He and Davis clashed on a number of issues, but it was the wrangling over showers that resulted in his being booted out, he said, and “the police came to take me away.”

Hall said the necessity defense “will be a major issue in [Magadini’s] appeal.” Magadini, Hall added, “was found sleeping in doorways and hallways trying to stay warm…choosing something illegal over something dangerous.” It was unfortunate, he said, that this was not taken into consideration during Magadini’s trial, even though he had requested it twice on behalf of his client.

Hall said he understands the challenge homelessness presents for businesses and property owners downtown. He also noted that the Homeless Bill of Rights has not yet found its way into Massachusetts law, though in 2013 state Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) sponsored a bill to enact the law. Only three states have enacted the controversial legislation, and legislation is pending in a number of other states.

“I really wish there was a better way to deal with homelessness in general,” Hall said.

Magadini said he slept outside during last night’s (January 6) frigid temperatures, and said his thick, recently acquired flannel coat has helped him stay warm. When asked what he would do tonight, when temperatures are expected to dip into the negative and school opening tomorrow has been delayed because of dangerously cold temperatures, he said, “I’m going to endeavor to not trespass, and avoid going where I’m not welcome.”

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Great Barrington – Invigorated by the second straight defeat of the Monument Mountain Regional High School Renovation project on November 4, a new Republican governor and Republican Congress, the Great Barrington Republican Committee Tuesday night (January 6) discussed plans to take action at the annual town meeting in May.

“We did on a local grass roots level what was done on a national level,” said Riverhill Farms owner George Beebe, pointing to the roughly 400 Great Barrington voters targeted by the committee after they were identified as having not voted the previous year. “We had a superior strategy.”

At the sparsely attended meeting in Town Hall, the politically steadfast, prolific letter-to-the-editor writer Patrick Fennell, presiding in the absence of Chairman Andrew Moro, said the committee sent out around 600 letters criticizing the $52 million school project before the vote. He said other GOP groups in the state had applauded the committee’s “work with the school vote.” Great Barrington would have been responsible for roughly $19 million of the cost of the project after a $23 million state reimbursement.

“The message is resonating locally and nationally,” said Beebe, who did the most talking of the eight people at the meeting. He excoriated “the Dems” and President Barack Obama, saying, “what the country has seen in the last six years is the face of socialism.” But Beebe quickly brought it back to the local issue du jour, one ignited by two years of school project vote controversies in town: high property taxes.

“One hundred and five families left this town in the last year,” he claimed, though he did not cite the source of his assertion. “We’re losing population here because the taxes are too g-ddamn high. It’s too expensive for people to live here. The town is being gentrified, people are coming in from the outside, from urban areas…trust fund hippies…”

Patrick Fennell, arguing in favor of having nonprofits pay taxes. Photo: Heather Bellow

“This fight doesn’t stop,” Fennell said. “By turning down the vote we’ve made the school committee aware of problems and we hope they will address them.”

And therein lies the germ of the committee’s plans for town meeting. Walter F. “Buddy” Atwood III, who is also a member of the Finance Committee, suggested a “one man, one vote” article on the warrant that would change the school budget voting arrangement of the three towns that compose the Berkshire Hills Regional School District. Fennell said the point was to “make it a total vote amongst all the people,” because right now, he said, “if West Stockbridge and Stockbridge vote yes [on the budget], Great Barrington has to go along.”

Atwood also suggested an article that would force the school district to “list all money paid out over $1,000,” according to the Republican meeting agenda. Atwood said he was “not sure why they weren’t publishing everything.” Fennell said he wanted to see “line item costs — we want to know exactly where they’re spending,” and accused the district of “stonewalling.” They “told [Sharon Gregory] to go to hell,” Beebe said, referring to a testy December 16 Finance Committee meeting where chair Gregory asked the district for detailed financial reports, requests that Superintendent Peter Dillon said go above and beyond what the district is required by the state to publish, and strain his capacities as Superintendent, pulling him away from his work with the schools.

“[Gregory] is exposing their schemes,” Beebe said, and called school officials an “old boys’ network.”

When asked whether the schools are required to list items over $1,000, Berkshire Hills School District Business Manager Sharon Harrison said it wasn’t required of the district, but said all financial details are public information and available to anyone who wants them. Last year’s budget, she said, can be found here on the district’s website, and hard copies are available at district offices in Stockbridge and at all town libraries. Harrison said the new budget will be added to the website in a few weeks, and hard copies made available at the same time.

“Everything goes through the purchase order and warrant process. From what I have seen, in other budget documents, some districts just list totals for categories – for example classroom teachers, and don’t break it down by grade, etc., like we do.”

She added: “There are revolving accounts for which we report revenue and expenditures in total, not line item by line item. However, these expenses all go through the warrant process as well. The only exception is for the high school student activity account, where the Student Activity Account Manager maintains a checkbook, which gets funded through a savings account that the District controls. Even in this case, each expenditure is itemized in the Student Activity software.”

“All funds/accounts are audited annually,” she said.

It is unclear whether the two school items will ever make it onto the warrant, since they are school district-related, and therefore may require agreement among the three towns. However, the spirit of the items, and Beebe’s comment, speak to the Republicans’ expressed mistrust of school officials’ handling of finances.

“Basically, we’re going after the school budget and the school committee,” Beebe said. “That [budget] has been bloated for years. [The district] wins every year by packing the [town] meeting. That’s the thing that’s driving expenses.”

A third article suggested by Atwood is for the town to “list all non-profits, and how much they are paying in taxes.”

Fennel said: “Here’s some people that pay next to nothing and get a lot of services — like Berkshire South and Simon’s Rock…they have health clubs that charge a lot of money.”

“Out of 270 [nonprofits], how many of these are really scams?” Fennell wondered.

There are 268 tax-exempt parcels in Great Barrington, 90 of which are government-owned. Nonprofit organizations own 178 of those, according to the town, and several make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes, though Beebe claimed those institutions had the means to pay more. The total value of nonprofit property in town is $260,649,560, according to town assessor Christopher Lamarre. At a recent Selectboard meeting, town manager Jennifer Tabakin, who along with the board has been looking for ways to increase the tax base, told the board about a now-dead policy initiative backed by the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) that would have required some level of payments from nonprofits.

The committee, Fennell said, must gather the signatures required to put articles on the warrant, and will meet January 20 to work out the language. Articles must be submitted for the warrant between January 26 and February 4. Town Meeting will be held May 5, 2015, in the auditorium at Monument Mountain Regional High School.

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Great Barrington — Wafting rumors of anti-Semitic incidents at Monument Valley Regional Middle School, a swastika spray-painted near the entrance of a house on Division Street, and an upcoming Anti-Defamation League (ADL) workshop for students and parents entitled “Confronting anti-Semitism,” have made people wonder whether there is a larger latent problem in South County.

Swastika spray painted on utility panel on Division Street. Photo: Dan Ruderman

The Jewish Federation of the Berkshires is taking it seriously enough to have scheduled two seminars on Sunday, “Confronting Anti-Semitism: a Family Awareness Program,” for Jewish high school and middle school students and their parents, at Hevreh in Great Barrington and Temple Anshe Amunim in Pittsfield.

“We don’t have a rampant issue,” said Dara Kaufman, president of the Jewish Federation. “Middle school kids sometimes use language they don’t understand the impact of. They are still trying to figure out their way in the world. If I thought there was an issue, we’d be talking about it more publicly.”

Kaufman said the ADL’s “Family Awareness Program” workshop for Jewish middle and high school students and their parents, is meant “to help parents should they ever be in that position,” and said that anti-Semitic incidents need to be “handled appropriately by parents and the school.”

Great Barrington schools are in prevention mode, said both Monument Valley Regional Middle School Principal Ben Doren and Monument Mountain Regional High School Principal Marianne Young. Monument Valley, Doren said, has a “very active PBIS (Positive Intervention and Support) program that was started at the elementary school 6 years ago.” It’s a national program, “an approach to building school culture that emphasizes positive school culture, rather than a culture of discipline.” The school has other programs that work on healthy student interactions, including a mentoring program brought in by Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless and his office. Doren said 40 percent of 7^th and 8^th graders are mentors.

Doren said the school still uses consequences and discipline. “When things happen, we take it seriously,” and Doren said the school has “reached out to the ADL.” The organization tackles all forms of bigotry and threats to civil rights, though it was initially founded to illuminate anti-Semitism and stop it. “It happens everywhere,” Doren said of hate-speech generally, “and it happens here. It’s why we have an actual bullying policy.”

“Academics are important,” but the role of school is also to teach children “to be citizens of the world,” he added.

Doren also noted: “With the rise in social media kids have exposure to things parents used to be able to control.”

Monument High Principal Marianne Young says she isn’t sure how much blame to lay on social media, but noted that a number of slurs, including “the n-word,” are commonly used on social media, and students claim: “That’s just what we say…and they say they didn’t mean anything.” But Young says regardless, “we try to educate students on how that language impacts our school community.” As a long-time principal, Young says she sees these forces as “cyclical, and certain issues, certain phobias, or certain prejudices surface all the time, and it’s hard to gauge whether there’s an increase in incidents or a stronger response.”

Young said she doesn’t see anti-Semitic incidents quite as much, and it’s been a long time since one occurred. In the last few years, she said, racial incidents have been more prevalent, particularly in “the athletic domain,” and have included a parent yelling “awful racial epithets at a basketball game,” and a bi-racial student being “verbally assaulted” on the soccer field by a player on another team. The referee in that case failed to make a call, Young said. It was an opportunity, however, to flick the floodlights on an ugly reality: the parents of the player and the school worked with local organizations and the ADL, and used “respect forums” to educate students.

What are “more subtle, less controversial,” forms of these behaviors, Young said, are those arising from “socioeconomic differences” and the “academically inclined versus not.” Young says these “more hidden” and “what appear to be acceptable” issues “keep people locked in the way they judge themselves.”

“When [incidents] happen, we try to create leadership opportunities for students,” Young said of the school’s handling of all forms of bias made evident.

The high school has worked with the ADL before, and has a mentoring program through the ADL’s “World of Difference,” an “anti-bias” program. Last year, 10 mentors were sent to the ADL’s world congress in Boston, and this last December, the ADL trained 18 Monument students to develop “peer, student-led leadership on tolerance, inclusion and respect,” that runs the gamut from religion to sexual orientation, from class-ism to racism. Some of those mentors will work with middle school students as well.

Last year, advanced drama students from Monument High created a series of videos known as the “Tolerance Project,” Young said, that are available on YouTube, and parts of which are shown to incoming freshman. The introduction video is a mash-up of student and faculty interviews, and clips from TV shows meant to demonstrate how deeply lodged intolerance has been in popular culture, and the complexity of reversing what are sometimes highly nuanced attitudes in a changing world. And one student in the video says tolerance alone may not be enough:

“When you tolerate someone…you know who they are, but you’re not necessarily accepting of them…acceptance is better…because tolerance is just tolerating someone and allowing them to be there. A more positive thing to hope for is acceptance.”

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Stockbridge — Back in November, a projected $325 million budget shortfall had prompted outgoing Governor Deval Patrick to make what are known as 9C cuts to the state’s $36.5 billion budget, cuts that do not require the legislature’s approval. Included in Patrick’s revisions is an $18.7 million cut to regional school transportation — the biggest hit of all — striking a blow to rural districts that spend a fortune on bussing.

Gov. Charlie Baker toured the Berkshires last weekend, with a stop at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield (above). Photo: Jennifer Browdy

Not only are regional school districts alarmed, but they say that cut is illegal, and will collectively take their case to the Attorney General and newly inaugurated Gov. Charlie Baker. Attorneys for the districts say that according to state law, transportation cannot be cut without a corresponding cut to general education, which is “meant to be a safety valve,” said Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon. That way “you couldn’t ding the regional districts without impacting the other [schools].”

“We’re prepared to [sue] if we have to,” said Steve Hemman, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS). The first step is to ask the Attorney General to step in, then to see what Governor Baker will do. If that doesn’t work, “we go to court,” Hemman said.

Should it come to that, regional districts are getting ready, with superintendents firing off letters pleading for a reversal in the cuts and sending MARS $500 for legal fees. In early December, 80 senators and representatives signed a letter written by Rep. Anne Gobi (D-Spencer), begging for a restoration of transportation funding, the entire appropriation for FY2015, stating: “These districts are already in tenuous financial situations, even without the 9c cuts.” Rep. Gobi asked for a response to her letter, but with one foot out the door, the Patrick administration apparently did not look back.

“The Governor disappeared into the sunset,” said Southern Berkshire Regional School District Superintendent David Hastings, whose district will lose around $200,000 if the cuts aren’t reversed. “That’s either three teachers or two teachers and one para-professional,” he said. “There’s not a lot of fat in our budget — no fluff. I don’t want to have to be making programmatic decisions about kids because of transportation money.”

Berkshire Hills would take a $257,876 hit should the cuts remain, but Business Manager Sharon Harrison, Dillon said, budgeted conservatively, “thinking we’d get around 60- percent, since the state “has been so lousy about meeting their obligation,” and as a result he said, there would be no mid-year staff or programming changes.

Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon. Photo: David Scribner

Dillon said Berkshire Hills usually gets somewhere between 35 to 60 percent in transportation reimbursements. All districts were supposed to receive 90 percent this year, as a nod to regional school advocate Sen. Stephen M. Brewer (D-Barre), upon his retirement, but Patrick’s cuts nixed the whole appropriation.

The Southern Berkshire district is also accustomed to the state’s ways and budgeted accordingly as well, Hastings said. “I don’t anticipate layoffs, but you never know,” and noted that some staff may be retiring. But a $200,000 shortfall adds a new twist to taxpayer angst for Southern Berkshire, a district with five towns: the district is about to embark on a $7.7 million roof and boiler replacement for Mt. Everett Regional High School, a project to be completed this summer and into fall, but expected to cost less than the estimated amount, with its 10-percent add-on of contingencies in the event of any unforeseen surprises. “It will be a hard sell to get the project passed if we come to [taxpayers] with a high school budget,” Hastings said.

Berkshire Hills has a million-plus transportation budget, and Dillon said years of being short-shifted by the state amounts to millions, ultimately harming “kids, communities and districts.” And Dillon is frustrated by the state’s inconsistency: “The notion that is pushed widely in Boston is regionalization and schools working together,” he said. “The only concrete thing the state has to do is provide transportation, then they pull the rug out, even though they say they care about this.”

Dillon thinks the state gets away with this bait and switch because rural areas are full of “people perceived to be in the hinterlands and don’t have a population base to take political action.”

“It’s the path of lesser resistance,” said Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli D-Lenox, of hits to regional transportation, and said people on the eastern end of the state are surprised to learn how critical these funds are to rural districts. “During the regionalization push 57 to 58 years ago, the carrot was state funding for transportation, and Southern Berkshire was the first [to regionalize] with the false promise.”

“Every year we file amendments to increase the amount, and the battle starts all over again.”

But Pignatelli says regional districts should start thinking creatively about transportation, anyway, that it isn’t enough to “just complain that the state failed to honor its commitment,” and he wonders about the efficiency of school bussing systems, and what changes could be made there. “I’ve even said we should think about making school transportation a state bid, take it out of local hands…then the state knows what 100-percent [funding] is…”

Given their dismal record with transportation funding, Dillon doesn’t like the idea of handing bussing over to the state. He said the district had its bussing analyzed and got high marks. “It was the best they said they had ever seen,” Dillon said, though he said there is still more to be done for efficiency, particularly since the district by law must reserve seats for all children whether they ride or not. Often, especially due to athletic schedules, he said, many students get picked up by parents.

Dillon said he is more interested in fixing other things, like what is “broken” in state funding formulas because “over time, the state’s contribution is going down and towns’ percentages are going up.”

Money for shared services projects got the heave-ho as well in the 9C cut carnage, but districts in the Berkshires will continue to talk and find ways to work together anyway, Pignatelli said.

Gov. Charlie Baker works the crowd at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield during a visit to the Berkshires last weekend.

Things will get sorted fairly soon, it appears. Massachusetts Municipal Association’s Legislative Director John Robertson said in an email that next week’s (January 22) annual consensus state tax revenue hearing “would provide a good public discussion on the revenue picture for fiscal 2015 and a first look at next year.” He added: “It is my understanding that the Legislature may wish to wait for new Governor Baker to take a look at the budget shortfall this year and make recommendations before taking any action themselves.”

Baker, who traveled to the Berkshires last weekend, has commented that “he wants to protect local aid,” Pignatelli said. “But he has his hands full trying to close this budget gap.”

“And I have yet to hear his definition of local aid. I want someone to ask him what local aid is.”

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Sheffield — The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) Wednesday (January 14) officially approved an estimated $2.6 million for the replacement of Mt. Everett Regional High School’s 23-year-old failing boilers and leaky roof next summer and into fall. The state reimbursement represents about 39 percent of the estimated $7.7 million cost of the two projects, a figure that includes 10 percent in contingencies for possible overruns, and which the MSBA does not reimburse.

The $2,612,552 funded through the MSBA’s Accelerated Repair Program is a “maximum Total Facilities Grant,” and does not include those contingencies, but the project may qualify for extra reimbursements up to $2,743,157 upon review, wrote MSBA Executive Director John K. McCarthy in a letter to Southern Berkshire Regional School District Superintendent David Hastings.

Also, McCarthy wrote, “the final grant amount may be an amount less than $2,612,552.” Hastings explained that “this is because the reimbursement, based on 39.21 percent, would be reduced as the total project costs reduce.”

The 10 percent in contingencies had been added to the project estimate “just in case they find rotting or other problems [with the roof],” Hastings said. “But I don’t think it will get anywhere near that [amount].”

“In the end, even though taxpayers have to approve the full amount, the bonds will be what we actually spend, and the first payment will be almost a year after the project begins,” Hastings added.

Southern Berkshire has 90 days to get “local approval” for all facets of the project, including “cost, site, type, scope and timeline,” according to McCarthy.

The district is composed of five towns: Alford, Egremont, New Marlborough, Monterey and Sheffield. The towns, which hold their town meetings in May, will be asked to hold earlier special elections in order to hasten the project so it does not disrupt school while it is in session, according to school committee chair Carl Stewart. It is still “unclear how the vote will be done,” he added, whether each town will vote separately, or all residents of the towns will vote together. This process, however, will be decided at a special school committee meeting next Tuesday, January 20.

On Wednesday, January 21 at 6:30 pm, the district will hold an informational meeting in Mt. Everett’s auditorium to help residents make an “informed” decision when they vote, Stewart said. Project experts will be on hand to discuss the project, answer questions and hand out literature.

A wood pellet silo similar to the one that will be installed at Mt. Everett Regional High School.

Southern Berkshire will also get $360,000 from the state’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) SAPHIRE program (Schools and Public Housing Integrating Renewables and Efficiency) towards the cost of a wood pellet boiler to replace the current oil system, and $10,000 of that DOER money will go towards “soft costs like engineering.” SAPHIRE collaborates with the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and the MSBA to promote renewable thermal heating and cooling upgrades in public schools and public housing.

A feasibility study funded by SAPHIRE says a pellet boiler, with an upfront cost of $808,000, will give the school an annual fuel savings of 67,600 gallons (of oil) and a $76,631 annual “lifecycle cost saving.”

In an email to all the towns’ Selectboard members informing them of the MSBA’s approval, Hastings also wrote that the district “will be submitting bills to MSBA for reimbursement on a minimum monthly basis throughout the project period, so that by the end of the construction, we will have paid around 61 percent and MSBA will have paid around 39 percent.” The district’s share will be “paid out of a short-term loan (something like a construction loan) which will be turned into a bond when the project is done.”

Hastings also noted that of all the Accelerated Repair Program projects accepted by the MSBA Monday, “our project is the largest, by far…” and that reimbursement rates are based on a host of variables that include “the relative wealth of the towns…”

“You will see, if you get your calculator out,” Hastings wrote, “that some districts’ projects are funded at a much higher rate than ours.”

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Community Development Block Grants for 2015

Great Barrington —The Selectboard voted unanimously Monday (January 12) night for the town to apply for another year of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding in its aim to continue plans from the 2014 funding cycle for storm water infrastructure improvements on Front Street in the Village of Housatonic, and Housing Rehabilitation Program for low to moderate income homeowners.

Town Planner Christopher Rembold.

Great Barrington is eligible for up to $913,067 in fiscal 2015 CDBG money, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and awarded on a competitive basis by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development to communities with populations under 50,000. The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) will administer the Housing Rehabilitation program. The town joined with the Town of Sheffield for last year’s application submission.

Town Planner Christopher Rembold said there were currently 30 applications for housing rehabilitation received for both Great Barrington and Sheffield. Not all could be funded, he noted, but if more funding is awarded this year, “we can try to meet more needs there.” Criteria for eligibility and applications for the program can be found on the town’s website. As an example of the income limits for eligibility, $63,900 is the limit for a family of four to qualify.

Some of last year’s funds went towards the design and engineering of a storm water infrastructure project on Front Street in Housatonic, which will cost around $600,000, Rembold said, and involve “draining water to the River, currently backed up to the mills in the sanitary sewer, and all going through the sewer plant and treated for no reason.” The problem, he added, is causing flooding in the mill properties.

*     *     *

Special Designation for Municipal Employees

Planning Board Chairman Jonathan Hankin urged the Selectboard to revise conflict-of-interest restrictions on volunteers to town committees.

In an effort to ease restrictions that make it difficult for residents to volunteer or work part-time for the town without running into conflicts of interest, the Selectboard voted last night to give Special Municipal Employee status to a number of committees and several part-time positions. State conflict of interest laws can preclude town volunteers or part-time workers from doing business in town, or alternatively, prevent or make residents reluctant to serve the town. State conflict of interest law states that the status can be applied to positions provided “you are not paid; or
 you hold a part-time position which allows you to work at another job during normal working hours; or 
you were not paid by the city or town for more than 800 working hours (approximately 20 weeks full-time) during the preceding 365 days.”

When one position—a committee volunteer, for instance–is designated as “special,” all members of that committee must share the same status.

“There’s no downside to this [designation] because they’re still bound by conflict of interest law,” said Planning Board Chairman Jonathan Hankin, who brought the matter to the Selectboard for consideration, and who himself has served on the board for 18 years. As Selectboard member Dan Bailly pointed out, if, for example, “an architect who is also on the design advisory committee, and one of their projects comes before the group, they would still have to recuse themselves.”

“It allows someone on one board or committee to present to another one, and to get paid for it,” Hankin said. “People have to make a living in this town, and we’re asking people to give their time and energy on all these committees…all your doing is really saying that it allows you to try to make a living in this town and still volunteer. You’re not in any way relieving them of the responsibility of being ethical.”

According to the state ethics commission, School Committee members are also considered municipal employees, and can and should be granted special status. Selectboards from all three towns in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, however, would have to make the designation. Hankin suggested to Selectboard member and School Committee Chair Stephen Bannon that he put the matter on the next school committee meeting agenda.

Hankin hopes the designation will “encourage more volunteers to fill vacancies on town boards and committees and not prevent all volunteers from doing business in our town,” he wrote in an earlier email to the Selectboard. “We need to reward people who donate their time, energy and considerable expertise in serving the town, not punish them.”

The Selectboard will vote on other positions at their next meeting (January 26). Town positions that received Special Municipal Employee status on Monday (January 12) are as follows:

Agricultural Commission

Design Advisory Committee

Historic District Committee

Technology Committee

Animal Control Officer

Conservation Committee

Historic Commission

Tree Committee

Assistant Building Inspector

Cultural Council

Parks Commission

Zoning Board of Appeals

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Great Barrington — The town and Berkshire Hills Regional School District are about to sign off on a solar power purchasing agreement that will save thousands of dollars in yearly electricity costs by generating power from a solar array to be constructed on the old Rising Paper mill property off Park Street in Housatonic.

Aerial view of the site of the Housatonic Solar Project.

The Housatonic Solar Project will also add the former brownfield to the tax rolls, among other benefits.

Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin said she is “pleased” to support the “generation of locally produced solar electricity,” particularly on a former brownfield site. She said the project, brainchild of solar developer Kirt Mayland of Reservoir Road Holdings, LLC, could save the town approximately $70,000 to $80,000 per year, and generate, “if approved,” $70,000 in new property tax revenues, which, over the 20-year period of the agreement, may amount to “close to $2 million.”

Tabakin cautioned, however, that given changing electricity rates, all of this could “change over time.”

The Berkshire Hills School Committee last week (January 15) voted unanimously to partner with the town to sign the solar net metering credit agreement with Reservoir Road. Both the town and school district spend close to $300,000 on electricity, and both will receive the same 21 percent discount rate.

Berkshire Hills facilities manager Steven Soule.

The discount will give Berkshire Hills an annual savings of between $70,000 and $90,000, “depending on how National Grid moves their rates around,” said Mayland at last week’s school committee meeting, where he explained how the net metering process works. The system, Mayland said, is unique to Massachusetts, which makes the decision about how to value the credits. In most states, he said, “I put power on their lines, they pay me for it.” In the Commonwealth, he said, he pumps electricity into the grid, and then puts “credits on off-takers’ bills.” The state encourages developers to find public entities for these agreements, he said; the solar company gets a better rate, which in turn, gives public entities a better rate.

The district, he said, uses roughly 2.1 million kilowatt hours — the same as town’s public building usage — and the array will generate about 3.7 to 3.8 million kilowatt hours. Half the credits for those hours will go to the school and the other half to the town. The district will receive about 1.9 million net metering credits per year, Mayland said, and since each credit is worth roughly 4.5 cents, that translates to a savings of about $80,000 per year.

And without so much as a little paper shuffling from district. Berkshire Hills, Mayland added, does not have to do anything except handle monthly invoices. “You will literally see a dollar amount on your bill,” he said to the school committee.

Another perk is for Berkshire Hills’ students themselves, who Mayland said, could visit the site and have a lesson in renewables.

School Committee member Fred Clark

It all seems too good to be true, and committee member Frederick Clark lightly grilled Mayland on this point. “By entering into this agreement, are we giving up any rights, or anything?” he asked. But Mayland, who said he had several other school district and town projects under his belt, explained the system, and noted Tabakin had vetted the 21 percent discount, and found it to be a “good rate.”

The agreements had also been scoured by the town’s counsel, according to Superintendent Peter Dillon.

And Berkshire Hills Facilities Director Steven Soule vouched for Mayland, his project and discount rate, saying this was a “win win,” and that the district could still purchase power at discounted rates from the “lowest bidder.” Currently, the district purchases from the Lower Pioneer Valley Education Cooperative at a rate “significantly lower” than what National Grid offers.

Mayland said his company specializes in “finding environmentally degraded sites” for solar development, and said the state also provides “incentives” for doing so. He recently developed an old 21-acre sand pit in Sheffield for Altus Power; 4,250 solar panels sit on a small portion of the site, said Altus’ Alana Chain. Mayland said all permitting is in place, along with his contract with Neenah Paper, which in 2013 acquired the Rising Paper mill property off Park Street, “remediated and cleaned” it.

The Housatonic Solar site plan.

“The nice thing about this site is that it’s pretty invisible…closer to the river than the road,” he said. His company will spend roughly $6 million to build the ground-mounted system of arrays on 12 acres of the 72-acre site, on which is “lots of conservation land and some going into a permanent conservation restriction,” that will be held by the Berkshire Natural Resources Council (BNRC). Reservoir Road’s plan is to add a fishing trail along the river, two parking lots along Division Street for a walking trail, and the Housatonic Valley Association HVA is considering a kayak launch for public use.

Also, Reservoir Holdings is buying the old overgrown ball field on Park Street and giving it to BNRC, which, Mayland said, might serve as a nice trailhead for the Flag Rock trails across the street. BNRC’s Director of Land Conservation Narain Schroeder said that the plan so far was for BNRC to own the parcel next year, “but there is no formal contract in place.”

Mayland said this was his favorite project, because, he wrote in an email, “…the community is getting clean energy, $230,000 [annually] in money that was not there before, a LOT of conservation land, and public access for fishing and kayaking on the river.”

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Great Barrington — The town just got a bump in its road money after Gov. Charlie Baker released $100 million in Chapter 90 transportation funds to communities across the state, and increased Great Barrington’s share from $419,219 to $628,828.

A $13 billion transportation bond bill enacted last year (FY 2015) included $300 million in Chapter 90 funds, but the Patrick administration released only $200 million.

Superintendent of Public Works Joe Sokul.

Gov. Baker told the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to release the rest as soon as he set foot in his new office. It began with a promise made at a Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) meeting last January, when then candidate Baker said he would release the entire $300 million “before I take my jacket off on my first day,” prompting local government officials in the audience to swoon with joy.

And those Great Barrington residents who navigate a daily course of potholes and frost heaves will soon join them, since Department of Public Works Director Joseph Sokul confirms it: “Paving projects go out to bid in February.”

And who are the blessed among us? Monument Valley Road, Park Street in Housatonic, and the Brooklyn District of Great Barrington: Quarry Street, Pine Street, Higgins Street, Humphrey Street, Grove Street, Crosby Street, and Warren Avenue.

Great Barrington Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin. Photo: Heather Bellow

Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin was pleased, and said “all the [roadwork] priorities were outlined in the capital plan,” and those projects will be discussed during the budget process.

Chapter 90 money, Sokul said, can be used for any work and maintenance on roads, including sidewalks, road sealing and design engineering. Cities and towns are reimbursed from the funds, which are allocated to communities based on a formula that considers population, employment and road miles, among other factors.

A recent statewide survey by the MMA reveals that the true cost of keeping local roads across the state in good repair would require total spending of $562 million. Most communities spend far less for lack of money, the MMA concluded.

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