Peter J. Most is a member of the California, New York, and Massachusetts bars, practicing complex business litigation. He has been living with his family in Great Barrington since 2018, practicing law remotely.
There will always be challenges at Town Meeting, as there should be. Bumpy though it sometimes feels during town meeting, the town gets to the right place in the end.
Beyond typical budget items, the most pressing issue on the Annual Town Meeting Warrant is Article 13, requesting funding for a “temporary” bridge to serve the nearly stranded Brookside Road community.
What is actually on the table is an ill-conceived proposal to merge two water systems now and figure out the details later. That is “ready, fire, aim” at its most reckless.
The Special Town Meeting Warrant is a half-baked idea posing as a solution. Proposing to purchase two utilities and working out the details later is neither a plan nor good governance.
To HWW ratepayers, the attorney general’s message is clear: “Let them eat cake.” To HWW, despite its ongoing breach of the Settlement Agreement, the message is just as clear: “Have at it.”
The disparity between cost and tuition begs two questions: Why do district towns subsidize the tuition for non-district town students, and is a fairness adjustment warranted?
HWW asserts that Great Barrington’s appeal of the Berkshire Superior Court’s Preliminary Injunction has impeded its ability to finance Phase 2, the manganese greensand filtration system agreed to in its Settlement Agreement with the attorney general.
Commercial properties must be maintained, secured, and either operated or transferred to those willing and able to do so. When buildings fall into disrepair—jeopardizing lives, livelihoods, and the community’s well-being—the burden ultimately falls on the town.
No one could have contemplated that a well-intentioned bylaw designed to preserve historic cottages could be leveraged to create an enormous resort village in a rural residential zone.
The purpose of the following roundtable discussion was to review the whereases, what-have-yous, and what-fors of the petitions to purchase and merge the water companies.
The Affordable Homes Act is consistent with various state statutes that do exactly what you would expect a parent to do when the children consistently misbehave.
Sure, Eagle, be skeptical about a grassroots effort to preserve Simon’s Rock, but at least acknowledge that if any community can pull this off, it is Berkshire County.
Consider there are three legs to a stool for a thriving community: housing, education, and commerce. Lacking any one leg causes the community to collapse.
