Alford — A few months after the Select Board received media attention due to the situation between the town and property owner James Chambers, who leads the Berkshire Communists, the Select Board voted at their meeting on Monday, December 11 to shut down Zoom access to its meetings.
The motion was made by Select Board member Peggy Rae Henden-Wilson and seconded by Chair Charles Ketchen. “As per the updated [state] guidance, we’re holding a meeting in a physical location that’s accessible to the public,” Puciloski said. “We don’t need to provide internet access [to the meeting], but I think it’s a good idea.”
“How about if we just have [internet access] for committee members that are elected and go from there?” Board Chair Charles Ketchen asked. “Like, if you’re out of town or I’m out of town, as long as we have a majority here.”
“That’s not allowed,” Henden-Wilson responded. “You don’t get to pick and choose who [Zoom] is for. I would prefer to stop hybrid meetings and meet in person. I think for my purposes it’s much easier to have these communications with each other [in person]. There’s a lot that we are missing when we have some folks missing on our little TV.”
Henden-Wilson said that the Zoom access to meetings would be cut off for Select Board meetings only, and not any other boards.
The motion passed by a vote of two to one, with Puciloski the only board member to vote against the motion.
Towards the end of the meeting, Berkshire Eagle reporter Heather Bellow asked via Zoom for board members to explain why they did not want to hold hybrid meetings. “I did explain it, I explained that it’s far better for us to meet people in person because they have a—it’s a better way of conducting meetings here,” Henden-Wilson said.
“But [meetings are currently] in person as well, right?” Bellow asked. “So, [Zoom] would just be adding another element so that people who can’t make it can tune in. I’m just curious.”
“It’s your business, Heather, on however you think,” Ketchen said. “Before COVID started, you had to come here in person and be on the agenda.”
Earlier in the December 11 meeting, the Select Board conducted business with Jayne Smith and the town’s Board of Health. Smith attended the meeting virtually from her car, and at one point she said she had to pull her car over in order to speak to the Select Board.
In other business: Ketchen told the board that the town sent a certified letter to Chambers concerning his property at 274 East Road, which is where Chambers has his “People’s Gym.” At a previous meeting on November 27, Town Building Inspector Matt Kollmer said that he sent a letter to Chambers and his attorneys, Doran, Kelly, Kirkland PLLC based in Ashville, N.C. The letter, which was the second from the town, stated that Chambers has violated several town zoning laws and that Chambers had 14 days from the November 27 notice to respond to the letter and to schedule a site visit.
At the December 11 meeting, Ketchen said that Chambers now has 14 additional days to respond to the town. However, Ketchen did not say why, exactly, the town has given Chambers additional days to respond to the zoning violations.
Meanwhile, on December 5, Chambers continued to use his personal Instagram account to state his anti-Semitic views.
On December 6, Chambers posted a warning he received from Instagram that several of his posts on his account violated the social media company’s guidelines on violence and dangerous organizations. Subsequently, on December 8, Chambers started a new personal account and confirmed that his previous account was shut down.
The next Select Board meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 8, 6 p.m., at Town Hall. At the January 8 meeting, the board will be talking to representatives from the Southern Berkshire Ambulance Squad about their funding request for 2024. As previously reported, due to a predicted shortfall in the organization’s budget of $475,000 for 2024, each town that the squad serves is seeing an estimated 36 percent increase in funding requests. For Alford, the squad is requesting $37,016 from the town for 2024, a $9,741 increase from this year.
At the December 11 Select Board meeting, board members continued to criticize the squad’s funding request. “Everybody’s got a 30 to 36 percent increase [from 2023],” Ketchen said. “But if you take the town of Monterey, which is three times the size of our town, they’re only paying $70,000. And Mt. Washington is the same size [as Alford], but they have a lot less population.”
According to the U.S. Census for 2020, Monterey has a population of 1,095, while Alford has a population of 486, and Mt. Washington has a population of 136.
“They do [the requests] on an assessed [property] valuation, and our valuations are extremely high,” Ketchen said. “It’s unfair.”
“They haven’t told us what they’re spending their money on,” Puciloski said. “At least under IRS regulations, they have to make their 990 form available to the public.” However, the squad has made their Form 990 tax filings available to the public.
According to ProPublica, which has a database of tax filings for nonprofit organizations, the most recent 990 tax filing by the organization was made for the year 2021. The filing lists that it had $1,976,749 in revenue, but $2,069,653 in expenses, leaving the organization with a debt of $92,904.
