It was not clear how Kate McCormick would perform the duties of register, a full-time job, and continue to be managing partner of the law firm previously run by her father, Edward G. "Buddy" McCormick.
If voters approve the Great Barrington bylaw, indoor cultivation of marijuana of the sort envisioned in the mills will be permitted by-right in the light industrial zone that covers much of Housatonic.
Selectman Steve Bannon then made a motion that, if building inspector Edwin May attends a hearing in front of the Great Barrington Zoning Board of Appeals or goes to court in the Gary J. O'Brien matter, the town will provide an attorney to represent him. It passed unanimously.
In addition to the trucks and the transfer station activities, there are reports of race cars gunning their engines on the O'Brien property on the weekends.
An independent study submitted to the town in 2012 by a building consultant found that any developer looking to renovate the school is facing a liability of at least $850,000 in required remediation of just the asbestos and lead paint hazards.
Some Great Barrington Selectboard members lit up in 2011 as they considered the restoration of a hamlet that had fallen on hard times, especially after a massive fire wiped out the Aberdale block in the 1960s. Board members were also starry-eyed at the much-needed tax revenue potential.
At least a half dozen offers to buy the property have come in over the nine years it has been on the market, but the offers were too low to clear debts to the town and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
Some Railroad Street merchants and firehouse neighbors have grown furious over the deterioration of the alley in the hands of private owners, its impact on delivery truck access, and the blighted appearance overall.
Castle Street firehouse owner Thomas Borshoff has no incentive to do his promised redevelopment. He is making money by doing nothing, with rent from the town from whom he purchased the property.
“As a property owner in a beautiful little town there’s nothing I’d rather see than that property cleaned up. That’s helps my property value, it helps the town.” -- Mike Arnoff, owner of property adjacent to Ried Cleaners on Main Street.
In the meantime, an environmental report says postal workers exposed to basement air are at “chronic risk” due to naphthalene, tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE).
“I am very confident that we will be able to stand here sometime in the future, and find that Castle Street has been transformed by this restoration.”
-- 20 Castle St. LLC principal Thomas Borshoff, upon acquiring the firehouse in 2014
A site plan review leaves no room for public comment. Planning Board Chairman Jonathan Hankin had to remind everyone that the Selectboard’s special permit hearing Nov. 9 is the place to voice opinions about the project.
The Town Meeting narrative: Dark doom filled the auditorium like the sky in Harry Potter. I checked my warrant and understood why: we were now entertaining the Finance Committee’s proposed bylaw to receive “regular and special reports and statements” about town and school district finances. The proposed bylaw was the by-product of a Mexican standoff between committee chair Sharon Gregory and the school district over her requests for detailed reports.
"I am very confident that we will be able to stand here sometime in the future, and find that Castle Street has been transformed by this restoration."
-- Castle Street LLC owner Tom Borshoff
