Egremont — Finance Committee Chair Laura Allen (R) will be running against Ari Zorn for a Select Board seat in a special election to be held on Tuesday, June 18. Both Allen and Zorn are running for a seat left vacant by the death of Chair George McGurn, who passed unexpectedly on April 5. Zorn previously announced his candidacy in late April.
Allen and her husband Richard were originally second-home owners in Egremont for over 25 years before becoming full-time residents in 1999. She grew up in both Bloomfield and West Hartford, Conn.
During her career, Allen has worked as a corporate paralegal, a bank vice president, and a global vice president for Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase). Allen moved to Hong Kong with her husband in 1994 to work for Chemical Bank and traveled all across Asia during the five years she was employed with the company.
Allen spoke prominently about her time with Chemical Bank while talking to The Berkshire Edge about her extensive work experience. “In my time with the company, I dealt with people from Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, so many people with different backgrounds,” Allen told The Berkshire Edge. “Working in Asia broadened my experience and made me a better person. It was a great time in my life.”
Allen has been retired for several years; however, she has held a seat on the town’s Finance Committee since 2002 and became its chair in 2004.
“What do I like about Egremont? I like the fact that we have a diverse mix of people,” Allen said. “We have a lot of retirees, but we also have some young families with children. It’s a beautiful scenic area, and there’s plenty of things to do because it’s a very cultural town.”
Allen said that the town has grown substantially over the past few years, mostly due to people moving in during the pandemic. “We went from 900 registered voters before 2019 to a little over 1,200 registered voters right now,” Allen said. “There has been a lot of growth in population. But this doesn’t change my opinion about Egremont being a great place to live.”
Allen, who has unsuccessfully run for Select Board three times before, said that she decided to run again because she enjoys working for the town. “I see many issues that need to be dealt with,” Allen said. “This includes creating affordable workforce housing, the regionalization of fire departments and emergency services, and keeping our taxes low. We need to focus on what we have and look critically at the things that are nice to have.”
She said that she would use her experiences with the town’s Finance Committee when it comes to issues around town taxes. “Because I’ve been on the Finance Committee for years, I know how to look critically at grant applications and budgets,” Allen said. “I also know how to compare ourselves to other towns across the state to make sure that we are in the same ballpark when it comes to paying the town’s employees, and where it comes to receiving aid from the state.”
Allen said that property assessments have continued to rise in Egremont, contributing to higher taxes. “The way to keep taxes low is to spend less,” Allen said. “We need to think about spending on what the town needs to have and less on what is nice to have. Ben Franklin once said something like, ‘Watch out for the pennies because the dollars take care of themselves.’ To me, that’s true.”
Allen said that she would not cut anything in the fiscal 2025 budget that the Select Board and Finance Committee developed together. “But one thing that we might want to think about is if we want to have our police department operate 24/7,” Allen said. “Based upon what the voters said years ago, this is what they wanted. But our police department’s budget is approaching $1 million, and this is everything. This is all due to collective bargaining, department expenses, benefits, and insurance costs. That’s where I would look more critically, but I’m not so sure how the town responds to that.”
Allen, just like many other candidates running for office in Berkshire County, said that affordable workforce housing is a critical issue, even in a small town like Egremont. “We’re looking to provide housing for people who would fill the positions that our local businesses need, but also for positions that our town needs,” Allen said. “Frankly, we have three long-term employees who have been working many years for the town that will be retiring in July 2027, and a couple of other town employees who may retire before then. We have to have a plan when it comes to that so there is a smooth transition and no glitch in services.”
As for the town’s fire department and emergency services, Allen said that the state has urged towns to consider working together to start planning on regionalization. “Getting towns to work together is not an easy thing to do,” Allen said. “It’s hard to get separate towns to come together, but we need to start doing that. It’s not necessarily easy because each town has its agenda. For example, a few years ago I was involved in a situation where Egremont was looking to hire a shared personnel director.” Allen explained that the town did not need a full-time personnel director, but it needed someone who could work at least part-time. “We spoke to Sheffield, Monterey, and New Marlborough about a shared personnel director,” Allen said. “It became complicated. Questions were raised like how would we pay for these services? How many hours would the director spend in each town? Where would be the director’s home base? In the end, the whole thing fell apart. The other towns drifted away, but we eventually found a personnel director who works for the town for 10 hours a week.”
Allen said that, if elected, she would step down from the Finance Committee as per the town’s bylaws.
“I hope that people vote for me because I’ve got a good head on my shoulders; I have excellent managerial skills and a good set of ears,” Allen said. “I’m a solver of problems because, to me, the devil is in the details.”
