This story has been updated to reflect the exact location of Harris Street in regards to Trúc Orient Express.
WEST STOCKBRIDGE — West Stockbridge, known for its quiet and sleepy disposition, was anything but Monday night as tensions erupted during an intense selectboard meeting. The dispute in question is between two local businesses, the performance venue The Foundry and Trúc’s Orient Express Vietnamese restaurant, both located on Harris Street in downtown West Stockbridge.
The anger, at times directed amongst the citizenry, was largely concentrated at a familiar target: the selectboard. “It’s not COVID that’s going to put me out of business,” Trúc Nguyen, the owner of Trúc’s Orient Express proclaimed during the meeting, “it’s you guys [the selectboard].”
The dispute centers around the closure of The Foundry’s private road to through traffic on Fridays and Saturdays starting at 5 p.m. The road is located off Center Street which houses Rouge, Baldwin’s Hardware and Baldwin’s General Store. That road is also right across the way from Six Depot Café and Roastery.
While there is a street sign in front of the private road, Harris Street is actually the dirt road that runs in front of Trúc’s Orient Express.
Located at 2 Harris Street, The Foundry, a performing arts venue opened in 2019, sought and was granted permission to close its private drive to traffic so it can host concerts outside on a newly built stage.
“We are having this conversation because of COVID-19,” said West Stockbridge Selectboard Chairman Eric Shimelonis. “Most people don’t want to go indoors with numbers of people yet, so this is where we are.”
That new stage abuts the left-hand side of the road with a grassy knoll on the right-hand side to be used as a seating space. The private drive runs in between the stage and seating area. “We have to close the road if we’re performing on that side for safety because we’re trying to be responsible to our staff, our patrons, and performers,” said Amy Brentano, the owner of The Foundry. “It would be dangerous if people were pulling in and parking while there are people trying to get to their seats.”
The road’s closure would effectively close off access to Trúc’s Orient Express, located at 3 Harris Street. In the early 2000s, a bridge between Harris and Main streets that ran under the Williams River was closed to vehicular traffic and made a pedestrian bridge.
“The fact is, this town cut off my access from one street to the next street,” Trúc Nguyen said.
Complicating matters is the ownership of the private road. The Town of West Stockbridge, although they maintain it, do not own the road. It is technically a part of 2 Harris Street, The Foundry’s property. “It was always an assumption that it was a town way,” said Curt G. Wilton, the West Stockbridge highway superintendent. “I’ve maintained that road as a town road. I’ve plowed it, maintained it. We paved that road in 1999. The argument is always there for assumption. Assumption, assumption.”
“We never had a problem using that access road, our customers, our town, my family … everyone uses it. It was never contested for 42 years,” Nguyen said. “So now, I can’t even have customers drive up to my door.”
The selectboard agreed to a feasibility study that would look at extending Harris Street to the main road by creating a vehicle bridge where the current pedestrian one is. That, however, did not solve the issue in the short term as to how both businesses will be able to operate if the road is closed.
While Brentano acknowledged that access would be cut off, she offered concessions and assistance to Nguyen’s business. “I have offered to make signs and pay for them; I have paid staff at the top of the hill to tell people where to detour to go if they come and they don’t know from Trúc’s that they have to detour to go pick up food … I’m happy to pay for runners from my staff to take food over the bridge,” Brentano said.
The tone of the meeting was at times contentious and heated, as insults and accusations were hurled, with the discourse devolving, at times, to name calling.
“I feel when I am being called names like self-serving, I have to defend myself to a certain extent,” said Brentano. “I am not really sure why I am being dragged over the coals here. I do pay my taxes and I do try to support all businesses in town, but nobody is gonna call me a racist…that is offensive and I am really upset about it.”
That insinuation came when Abby Pratt, a resident of West Stockbridge and former reporter for The Berkshire Eagle, recalled the history that Nguyen’s family faced when first moving to the area. “These folks have been discriminated against in the past and I think you need to be aware of how today we are looking at people all over the United States of Asian origin being discriminated against and I don’t think you want to go down this road,” Pratt said. “That is the atmosphere in which we live and it could be interpreted that way.”
“Process and procedure are the tools of privilege,” commented Andy Potter, a West Stockbridge resident.
“I’ve been begging for productive talk,” said Shimelonis. “There’s all this talk of failure and we’re ensuring it through the course of this discussion … it’s a shame to go to bed tonight with this hanging in the air. There’s a lot of goodwill here. I wish we would use it.”
But in the end a solution could not be reached between the two parties, the selectboard adjourning to take more time to hash out the dispute and seek out other solutions. The selectboard will post within the next two days when they will convene again to consider the issue.
“We’ve looked at the long-term situation to try and make amends for what appears to be faulty decision making 26 years ago,” said selectboard member Kathleen Keresey. “Without there being some willingness and concession, I don’t know what the board can do.”
“I am disappointed that we didn’t come to a solution tonight,” concurred selectboard member Roger Kavanagh. “I didn’t have high expectations, but I was hoping.”
The West Stockbridge Selectboard has seen a transformation over the past three years, with all three members being relative newcomers. In 2019, Eric Shimelonis defeated long-time incumbent and then- Fire Chief Peter Skorput. The next year saw another sea change when both Kathleen Keresey and Roger Kavanagh won seats. Keresey won unopposed to fill Bernie Fallon’s seat when he opted to not seek re-election. Kavanagh defeated Skorput to fill Doane Perry’s seat when he resigned less than two years into his term. You can read more about both of their elections here.
“This is our problem because we’re the board now,” Kavanagh said in closing. “Somehow there’s gonna be a reckoning.”
Both Amy Brentano and Trúc Nguyen declined to comment for this story.
