Great Barrington — This year’s annual town election will be held on Tuesday, May 9 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Polling stations will be at the Great Barrington Fire Station, located at 37 State Rd., for Precincts A, C, and D, and the Housatonic Community Center, located at 1064 Main St., for Precinct B. On this year’s ballot, Sharon Gregory (D) will be going up against Ben Elliott (D) for a three-year Selectboard seat that is being vacated by Ed Abrahams, who has decided not to run for re-election.
(Tomorrow, The Edge will publish an interview with Ben Elliott.)
Gregory is originally from Sacramento, Calif., but eventually purchased a second home in Sheffield, with her primary residence in New York. She said that she was a part-time resident in Sheffield for 20 years, but eventually moved to Great Barrington. “After 9/11, I permanently moved to Great Barrington,” Gregory said. “I love the area because it reminded me of what California used to be when I was a youngster. That’s probably why I got so involved in everything in town.”
Gregory earned a Bachelor of Science in Business, specializing in law and labor relations with a pre-med minor, from the University of California in Berkeley. On her resume, she describes her occupation as “senior management in finance, technology, and planning.”
From 2008 to 2011, Gregory managed the acquisition and initial redevelopment of the Bryant School property for Iredale Mineral Cosmetics as its vice president of planning and corporate development. Starting in 2007, Gregory spearheaded a citizen’s committee for a zoning change to Main Street. In 2009, residents passed the zoning change at the annual town meeting, which expanded the village center of Main Street to a mile. She served on the town’s Finance Committee from 2011 to 2014 and was the chair of the committee from 2012 to 2014. Gregory has served as a member of the board of the Edith Wharton Restoration (The Mount) in Lenox, the Financial Women’s Association of New York City, the Children of Bellevue Hospital, and as president of the board of the Wall Street Planning Group of New York City.
“I was a leader even when I was young,” Gregory said. “I enjoy complex problem solving and I’m very drawn to that. When I see things that don’t make sense, I go ‘Why is it that way?’ The next step is to research the situation. Once I research the situation, it sometimes uncovers a very different picture. I’m drawn to making things better, especially when it comes to human beings and communities.”
Gregory said she is running because she wants “a seat at the table” when it comes to pressing issues facing the town. “When I was the Chair of the Finance Committee, I had several frustrations because the committee is not empowered to make many decisions for the town,” she said. “It’s the Selectboard that has the power. If you research some of the letters to the editor I’ve written, I talk a lot about our school system and how limiting it is because we have such a small school population. One time I was walking down the street and someone told me ‘Thank you for doing all this work for the town, but you don’t have a seat at the table.’”
One of the many issues Gregory said she would deal with is the situation facing Housatonic Water Works customers concerning their water quality. “I commend the Selectboard for keeping the dialogue going on this, along with community awareness and having several studies conducted on HWW, including the engineering study,” Gregory said. “But much of the discussion about HWW has been behind closed doors in executive sessions, so it’s hard to tell where it’s going. It’s difficult to tell what direction this is all going in. Having a seat at the table, especially in executive sessions, would be helpful and I could provide creative problem-solving solutions.”
When asked if there was an ultimate solution to the situation, Gregory said, “It’s a complex set of transactions, and I would like to test my ideas out with Town Counsel before I definitively state what we ought to be doing. But, in general, I believe that a public utility like water in a small town like this should be owned by the town.”
As for the proposed merger of the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshires Regional School Districts, Gregory said that she supports the merger. Gregory said that she attended Berkshire County Task Education Force meetings for the past seven years and 8 Town Committee meetings for the past three years. “Some of the things that have been talked about at these meetings were population trends, enrollment declines, and the lack of breadth in terms of curricula,” Gregory said. “About seven years ago, I suggested that we should open up discussions between the two districts about these issues, but not everybody has been in favor of it. It’s taken a long time, but we’re moving forward. The work that has been done to get to this point—but it’s quite impressive.”
As for a lack of affordable housing in the Great Barrington area, Gregory said that it is also an issue that people are facing nationally. “The economic divide is much too great,” Gregory said. “We need to look at what we’ve done and where we need to go next. When I was on the Finance Committee, I was once given a chart that showed how much affordable housing we had in town. I was quite surprised because we had quite a bit back then, and much more now. I want to put a study in the town’s master plan to see the demographic, geographic, and housing changes comprehensively so I can help find solutions to this.”
As for economic development, Gregory said, “We have voids in our businesses” in Great Barrington. “In our last master plan, we pointed out that we were without sufficient retail businesses,” she said. “In this master plan, we will look at how the businesses have changed and look at the voids that have been created over the last decade. So I think we’ll be more specific with recommendations for that time.”
Gregory added that she would like the town to focus more attention on Housatonic and potential economic development opportunities in the area. “Housatonic is an important area for Great Barrington,” Gregory said. “But the water problem with HWW has been a deterrent to it, even though the area has many advantages.”
