Great Barrington — During its special meeting on Wednesday, August 2, the Selectboard tentatively agreed to set a special town meeting for October 23.
At the Aug. 2 Selectboard meeting, no formal motion was made by Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon for the date or a vote by the members of the Selectboard. Members of the board seemed to agree with Bannon and did not state their opposition to the potential date. According to Bannon, the meeting will be used for residents to vote on a potential merger agreement between the Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire regional school districts.
The Eight Town School District Regional Planning Board has been working on a merger agreement for the past three years. At its last meeting in July, members of the board voted to recommend the merger. However, there was no formal vote on the merger agreement itself, which was still in draft at the meeting.
The board is scheduled to meet via Zoom on Wednesday, August 23. As of press time, a vote on a final version of the merger agreement has not been listed on the meeting’s agenda.
“The hope by some of the people on the committee is that most of the towns will have it on the same night, but, very specifically, Sheffield and Great Barrington,” Bannon said at the August 2 meeting. “I just want to make sure that the board is okay with October 23. At this point, it’s very tentative.”
“This is a very critical meeting,” resident Michelle Loubert told the board. “I hope the [special town meeting] warrant is not going to be overburdened because it’s going to be a tough meeting to begin with. But I am assuming that citizen petitions [to add questions to the warrant] may be accepted prior to the special town meeting?”
“We are trying to keep the agenda as light as possible,” Bannon said. “The date is still tentative. There will be citizen petitions because there has to be. I’m not saying we wouldn’t do it anyway, but I don’t think we have a choice.”
