Berkshire County — A special meeting of municipal officials from towns involved in the potential merger of Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire regional school districts will be held on Monday, August 28. The meeting will be held both on Zoom and in person at the Sheffield Senior Center, 25 Cook Road, at 6 p.m.
The hybrid meeting will include town officials from Alford, Egremont, Great Barrington, Monterey, New Marlborough, Sheffield, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge, along with members of the Eight Town School District Regional Planning Board.
Back at the board’s meeting on July 18, members of the board voted to recommend the merger of the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire regional school districts. The vote to recommend the merger was not unanimous, however, with committee members Bonnie Silvers of Sheffield and James DiPisa from Egremont both voting against the motion to recommend the merger of the two school districts, while George McGurn from Egremont abstained from voting on the motion.
The vote to recommend the merger is not the same as the Planning Board voting on a regional agreement, which needs to be formalized before a merger of the school districts, and for the proposed merger to go to a vote at the town meetings in all eight towns.
At the board’s regular meeting on Tuesday, August 22, Planning Board Chair Lucy Prashker said that elements of the regional agreement were still being formalized at the time of the meeting. However, Prashker did say that the board is still targeting October 23 as the date for towns to have special town meetings to vote on the proposed merger. She added that the regional agreement would be ready for Planning Board members to vote on at its next meeting in mid-September.
A copy of the latest draft of the merger agreement, in PDF format, can be found on the Eight Towns Planning Board’s website.
The Monday, Aug. 28 meeting can be accessed via Zoom here.
