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CHP board names consultant to oversee health care network
Great Barrington — After the resignation last month of Community Health Programs (CHP) CEO Bryan Ayars amid a discrimination lawsuit against him and CHP’s Board of Directors, allegations of sexual...
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State threatens to withhold funds from WiredWest member towns
Westborough — In what is a blow to the WiredWest broadband cooperative’s ongoing efforts to bring high speed internet to rural Western Massachusetts, operating as a consortium of towns, Eric Nakajima,...
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Great Barrington upgrades its Web site, with essential new features, information
Great Barrington — If it’s town business you have, you might not need to trek to Town Hall to do it. Want to pay your tax bills and fees online? Now you can, through this page on the town web site....
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Amid national crisis Housatonic gun shop thrives as gun sales soar statewide
Housatonic — In the heart of this Great Barrington village in the Berkshire Mountains, just a few hours away from New York City and Boston, you can buy all kinds of guns. But it’s not that easy. The...
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SBRSD business administrator resigns; assessment fiasco remains unresolved
Sheffield — It was both a tragedy, and comedy, of errors. In the latest installment of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District’s (SBRSD) five town assessment debacle, a struggling school...
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Hotel site review turns quarrelsome; Board chair threatens to resign
Great Barrington — Amid swirling controversy over plans to raze most of the former Searles Middle and High School for a 95-room hotel, the Planning Board Thursday (September 10) continued its site...
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Proposed hotel at Searles complex would generate $450k in annual taxes,...
Great Barrington — An analysis by the local accounting firm Smith Watson & Company concluded a $24 million, 95-room luxury hotel slated for the former Searles Middle and High School complex will...
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Redesigned Berkshire Hotel presented to Great Barrington Selectboard
Great Barrington — Searles, it appears, will be saved. But it depends whom you ask, and how you define “saved.” The Monument Mountain Regional High School auditorium last night saw a strong turnout at...
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Offer to clean up dormant Ried Cleaners rejected; contamination spreads
Great Barrington — The rejection of an experienced developer’s offer to buy a highly contaminated property on Main Street, one that for years has leached carcinogens into groundwater that has migrated...
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Gov. Charlie Baker applauds 17-town Community Compact
Great Barrington — It was a love and laughter fest at Town Hall Tuesday (December 22), as representatives from 17 Berkshire County towns and superintendents of six local school districts were assured...
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The Bookloft, long-time refuge for readers and writers, is up for sale
Great Barrington — It is the town’s warm and cozy black hole of no return for booklovers. And it is for sale. Eric Wilska started The Bookloft at a time when books could only be read on paper. After 42...
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Great Barrington Police Department soon to be county’s first accredited...
Great Barrington — I’m standing in the evidence room with Great Barrington Chief of Police William Walsh when an officer bounds in with a plastic ziploc containing a green substance. “I pulled someone...
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Was Castle St. firehouse sale a boondoggle? Owner, mum on why no renovation,...
Great Barrington — For some reason, nobody wants to talk about the old Castle Street firehouse, finally sold 18 months ago after tortuous, extended negotiations between the town and 20 Castle Street...
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Underground toxic plume still emanates from Ried Cleaners
Great Barrington — A failed 2012 offer to purchase the former Ried Cleaners property on Main Street illustrates not only the liability and costs of cleaning up environmental pollution, but also raises...
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Cleanup options available for pollution from Ried Cleaners
Great Barrington — A toxic waste site in the heart of town on Main Street is in limbo as pollution from a former dry cleaners continues to spread, and as potential redevelopers are thwarted by both an...
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Searles School to be preserved in new hotel plan; key opponents approve
Great Barrington — The Searles School, as it turns out, will be saved –– by the same hotel developer many thought would destroy it. The number of rooms in the luxury hotel, The Berkshire, will drop to...
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Car accident highlights need for traffic light at MMRHS entrance
Great Barrington — A car accident in front of Monument Mountain Regional High School Tuesday (January 12) is once again raising concerns about the safety of an intersection where young, inexperienced...
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Final plans for hotel at Searles School await Selectboard review
Great Barrington — Plans for the adaptive reuse of the former Searles School building, which will be turned into an upscale hotel, were filed with the town Wednesday after developers Vijay and Chrystal...
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Bridge Street: Great Barrington’s emerging commercial corridor
Great Barrington — While the town’s focus has lately centered on the Mahida family’s proposed upscale hotel, other sweeping changes to that Bridge Street neighborhood, including the street itself,...
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Happiness is the uncluttered life
Great Barrington — An international decluttering craze rooted in ancient thinking, one that gained momentum with the work of a young Japanese organizing consultant, is alive and stirring up all kinds...
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