If the town meeting is not able to pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, the town of Great Barrington, like hundreds of other small municipalities in the state with a town-meeting form of government, has a problem.
"We’ll have to see what happens with the signed settlement. We can’t rest easy just yet. We hope there are not going to be any appeals. We hope EPA moves forward to issue a new permit based on the settlement agreement.”
-- Great Barrington Town Manager and Director of Planning & Community Development Chris Rembold
Town planner Chris Rembold told The Edge that the assessment work under the previous grant would be completed at the end of this calendar year, and clean-up work under the EPA grant will begin next year.
Other board members said it was clear to them after that first public hearing that the Foster's lot would be closed to the public if the company was denied the right to build the new lot for its tenants.
In Great Barrington, town officials put out a statement yesterday, and at Monday's selectboard meeting, town health agent Rebecca Jurczyk briefed officials on measures the town is taking to prepare for the virus.
Census specialist Mark Sebastino emphasized that all responses are protected by Title 13 of the federal code, which prohibits the Census Bureau from sharing personal information with any other government agency or court.
If approved, the town wouldn't close on the property until July. If taxpayers rejected the funding, then there would be no project at all, or the trust would have to identify another site.
It was standing-room only as dozens of angry residents of the Housatonic section of Great Barrington, including a former selectman, vented their feelings about the committee's consideration of funding a proposal from the town affordable housing trust to acquire land for housing.
Proposals for how to use the cannabis revenue windfall will be discussed by the selectboard and the finance committee in the upcoming deliberations for next year's budget, with voters having the final say on how to spend free cash at the annual town meeting in May.
A draft analysis of the cleanup alternatives essentially presented two options: Excavate and dispose of soil and remediate groundwater under the footprint of the demolished dry cleaning building; or do so in a larger area around the footprint.
Whether one lane of the Brown Bridge is closed during construction or whether it is shut down altogether, the construction will be a major disruption to traffic, especially considering the fact that the town-owned Division Street bridge was closed by the state in the second week of September.
Sean VanDeusen, who heads the town's public works department, told The Edge the Lake Mansfield Road paving is part of a larger $500,000 project that also includes the repaving of Lake Avenue, Oak Street and Cypress Street.
This survey of a portion of Great Barrington's rich catalogue of historic buildings was a significant undertaking for the Historical Commission. It provides the town with the first of a series of reports that provide documentation of sites worthy of preserving and those potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
