LEE — Starting when the sun was still high and ending long after it had set, the five-and-a-half-hour annual town meeting, hosted on the football field of Lee High School, was contentious with almost every warrant article being passed. Some citizens almost came to blows, with police intervening at one point.
Click here to view the 22-article warrant. The town voted to approve a petition to change its town meeting format, as well as most of the controversial warrant articles relating to a planned PCB dump, the result of a settlement between General Electric, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the towns comprising the Rest of River Municipal Committee. A warrant article passed giving voters the chance to voice their approval or disapproval of the GE-EPA settlement agreement in a non-binding referendum scheduled for 2022.
From the start, there were fireworks. “Are there articles on this year’s warrant that the representatives passed this year that you’re not going to follow up on this year?” asked District 1 representative James Castegnaro, taking the microphone to voice his frustration at the selectboard over the PCB dump. “If this is a dictatorship, we may as well all go home.”
Castegnaro was referring to Warrant Articles 10 and 16, passed at last year’s annual town meeting in October. Those articles authorized the appropriation of a lawyer to begin the process of rescinding the town’s settlement agreement with GE and the EPA. At last week’s selectboard meeting, member Bob Jones had made a motion that would have instructed the town to follow through on those two items, but it failed 2–1 with Chairwoman Patricia Carlino and Selectman Sean Regnier voting it down.
After lengthy discussions over budget line items and salaries, town meeting representatives approved a minor increase of $461,530 to the town’s operating budget, bringing its total to $20,810,971. The representatives also authorized the town to borrow money for road repair and paving, as well the purchase of new fire and ambulance apparatuses.
Article 16, which would authorize the selectboard to sell 1.39 acres of land with a farmhouse located in Edith Wharton Park to The Mount also passed 40–0. The farmhouse was built by Edith Wharton and her husband Theodore “Teddy” Wharton in 1906 and the property is owned jointly by the towns of Lee and Lenox.
“It’s a marvelous structure,”said Susan Wissler, The Mount’s executive director. “It’s right within the wheelhouse of what the Edith Wharton restoration and The Mount intends to do, and what we see as our mission.”
The Mount intends to restore the property and potentially have it serve as a writers’ residence space. The original proposal would have seen The Mount acquire 3.4 acres of land, but after some concerns were raised, Wissler rolled back her proposal to 1.39 acres.
The Mount also agreed to give Lee the right of first refusal should the property ever be sold again. This means the town would be asked first if they wanted to reacquire the land. Since the property is owned by Lee and Lenox, its sale has to be approved by both towns. An identical warrant article appears on Lenox’s annual town meeting warrant scheduled for June 29. The article’s passage is the first step in a long process that will require the state legislature to approve the sale.
After Article 16’s passage, the meeting then moved to a brief recess before returning to address several controversial citizen’s petitions. Article 17 asked for approval to change Lee’s town meeting format from being a representative town meeting to an open format. Unlike in Great Barrington or Stockbridge, not every citizen has the ability to vote. Lee uses a town meeting representative model, with citizens being elected from different districts of town and then voting at town meetings.
“I will never get a voice on this floor unless there’s one person, one vote,” said a frustrated citizen. “It’s appalling to me to think that I live in a democracy where I have no say in my own town.”
There was confusion over whether or not the warrant article would actually accomplish what it set out to do. “The citizen petition is not worded in the way you’d want it to be … nothing would happen,” said Jeremia Pollard, Lee’s town counsel. “My opinion hasn’t changed. You may not have listened to it … you can disagree with me, you can stamp your feet, you can yell, but that’s still my opinion.”
That led to an argument between Lee citizens and Pollard. “Mr. Pollard, do you work for the town or the board, because you’re being extremely rude to the townspeople?” asked Laura Murphy, a district 3 resident. “I’d like to know how to get his ass fired!”
The conversation quickly devolved into shouting, with Murphy calling for Selectman Sean Regnier to be recalled. John Coty, a district 3 representative then proceeded to try and call the question, which would have put the article to a vote, despite an effort to amend it. At that point there was a minor altercation between representatives Coty and Castegnaro. Police officers intervened to make sure the situation was stable. Both later were seen shaking hands and apologizing to each other.
After a series of lengthy amendments, the article was changed to ask the state legislature to change the town of Lee’s special act. Massachusetts requires towns to have more than 6,000 citizens if they wish to have a representative town meeting format. Lee’s population has dipped below that level, but the town has been grandfathered in since it has used the current format since 1968.
“We, the reps, need to vote ourselves out of office, right now,” said Deidre Consolati, a District 5 representative.
As the article went to a full vote, it appeared as though it was heading for a tie before representatives realized that Castegnaro had gone to the restroom and motioned him to come back quickly. The article passed very narrowly 23–21.
The discussion then moved to 4 articles focused specifically on PCBs and the dump planned as a part of Lee’s settlement with GE and the EPA.
Article 18 initially proposed a bylaw amendment change that would ban EPA-classified hazardous materials from being stored and buried in the town. Great Barrington had done something similar in a past town meeting. This would include PCBs, but there were concerns about hurting local businesses who store other kinds of materials.
“I cannot store waste oil on my property the way this is,” said district 5 representative Peter Sorrentino. “If you want to do this, you got to find a different way to do it because you’re gonna put the mills out of business, a lot of garages out of business — you got to really look into this one article.”
The article was eventually amended to only include PCBs. It passed 30–8 with 4 abstentions.
Article 19, which would have appropriated $50,000 for citizen scientists to monitor the levels of PCBs in the Housatonic was tabled indefinitely. “Citizen scientists for PCB, it’s a joke,” said Tim Gray, who heads the Housatonic River Initiative. “You’ve got to have a Ph.D. to understand this kind of stuff.”
The article’s author, Phil Matthews, hoped that the article would have prevented corruption and ensured proper oversight over GE’s dredging of PCBs from the Housatonic. Still, the article was tabled indefinitely, 31–10.
Article 20, which would require that PCB materials be transported via railroad out of Lee and the county passed overwhelmingly. Article 21, which places a non-binding referendum on the 2022 ballot asking citizens’ approval of the settlement agreement, also passed overwhelmingly.
“We need everything we can get to stop this dump,” said Gray. “If this town doesn’t start opposing this dump, you will have it … you want to be known as the toxic center of New England? What a shame to put this on our town.”
The only motion that failed the entire night was Article 22, which asked the selectboard to take more proactive steps in dealing with the various repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The final vote was 20–16 with 7 abstentions.
