West Stockbridge — With 38 articles set for passage during the May 5 Annual Town Meeting, 35 passed muster from the 77 voters in attendance, representing roughly 6.6 percent of the town’s registered voters. Among the items that passed, was West Stockbridge’s fiscal year 2026 budget tallying about $7.4 million, amounting to roughly a six percent increase year over year after user-subsidized water and sewer fees are deducted.
According to Finance Committee Chair Robert Salerno, West Stockbridge’s tax rate, or the amount needed for operations and expenses, is set at $9.62 per $1,000 assessed. Out of the 32 towns that make up Berkshire County and the nine South County municipalities, that tax rate ranks squarely in the middle, neither the highest comparable tax rate nor the lowest.
The Town Meeting Warrant can be found here.
However, a push to vote in a change to local inspection services failed. The issue for residents fell on the more than $31,000 difference between the $20,375 fee incurred by the current inspection services performed by Building Inspector Brian Duval and the proposed $51,200 fee imposed from joining a shared-services program with the towns of Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, and Stockbridge.
The issue was previously debated in a well-attended Finance Committee meeting last month during which the dais unanimously voted not to recommend changing the inspection services for the town from Duval, the only budget item not recommended by the group. Duval had garnered the stated support of residents, business owners, and town officials for his quality work.
The Select Board, who signed a three-year shared-services agreement with the other towns on February 18, recommended the budget item that incorporated the $51,200 shared-services fee. Town Meeting approval was required to put the program into effect, and the Select Board promoted the shared-services proposed budget item in a flyer distributed in early May, supporting the collaboration as offering “around-the-clock service,” in-person availability, and a partnership with neighboring communities that could pave “the way for future shared services across departments.”
A copy of that flyer can be found here.
Dana Bixby, who chairs the town’s Planning Board, addressed Town Moderator Joe Roy Jr., asking for an amendment to reject the $51,200 shared-services budget item in favor of the prior year’s $20,375 budget item representing Duval’s continued services. She said the Planning Board voted unanimously against the proposal “based on the cost and based upon the preference to having local inspection services.”
David Potter and Wayne Cooper addressed the constituency in support of Bixby’s amendment and against a shared-services agreement for town inspections, acknowledging the greater costs of the proposed program. “For what?” David Potter said. “So we can fund other towns’ building inspectors and services? We need to put that money back in here because when we vote down that warrant to share building inspection services, we’re going to need the money in this budget.”
David Potter also said that Duval’s dual role as both building inspector and zoning enforcement officer is a benefit to West Stockbridge since contractors know him and he is well versed in what is and is not permissible in the town.
Select Board member Kathleen Keresey spoke in favor of the shared-services agreement, referencing former State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli’s (D – 3rd Berkshire District) push for sharing services between towns, including fire and emergency medical services, as a cooperative and cost-saving measure. “It ensures, and this is nothing to speak poorly about our current building inspector, but it ensures fulltime inspection services into the future, in perpetuity,” she said. “If anything were to happen with our current building inspector, we are covered fully, 100 percent. The other towns back us up. There’s administrative support. There’s a commissioner as well as a shared, in our case, inspector with Stockbridge.”
Keresey said the program would create “a good relationship” that could be built upon to work with other towns, furthering more shared-services opportunities. “There is a department to be had,” she said. “This is not something that is in isolation. This is looking at a way to serve our town into the future.”
The amendment passed by voice vote.
“We just have to go with the will of the body, the supreme body in West Stockbridge,” Select Board Chair Andrew Potter told The Berkshire Edge following the meeting.
Article 10 tabled
Although an amendment to Article 10 that removed erroneous language regarding property tax payment arrears added by mistake was approved, voters tabled a proposal that would have allowed one additional associate member to the town’s Planning Board for a one-year term, bringing the total for the group to two associate members.
Providing the draft’s background, Bixby said two members of the Planning Board recused themselves during meetings this year and, with only one associate member named to the dais, the group was left short and in danger of losing a quorum. “In the 35 years I’ve been on the Planning Board, we’ve never needed more than one associate member,” she said. “In the past year, we had occasion where we did have two members have to recuse and we were a four-member board when it’s preferable for special permits to have a full five-member board.”
A petition to the state legislature is also required for the action to move forward.
The primary issue was the draft wording; specifically, the definitions of “absence” and “vacancy”: “In the case of absence, inability to act or conflict of interest on the part of any member of the planning board or in the event of a vacancy on the board, the chairperson of the board shall designate an associate member to sit on the board.”
In the event a member is sick or couldn’t attend a specific hearing, Town Administrator Marie Ryan advised that “if there’s a vacancy, the chairperson then will designate which of the associate members would sit on the board for that special permit hearing.”
Bixby disagreed and defined “in the event of a vacancy on the board” as denoting someone who has resigned from the panel. “I wouldn’t vote to pass this with the language as it’s written,” she said.
According to Bixby, the current zoning law consistent with state law provides that if there is a vacancy on the Planning Board, the position is to be filled by a joint vote of the Select Board and Planning Board members. The language that is already in place authorizes the Planning Board chair to appoint the alternate, or associate, to serve for a member who has recused themself. However, the proposal is for two alternate members.
Former Planning Board member Mitch Greenwald said the text of the article allowing two associate members was drafted to stick as closely as possible to the existing language for adding one associate member.
Select Board Chair Andrew Potter clarified the provision as the chair having to appoint the alternate who will serve the missing member’s post but that the associate or associates having been already selected.
Objections were also raised regarding the Planning Board or chair choosing the two associate members, with David Potter arguing that the protocol would allow members to “[stack] the deck for special permit purposes.”
The article was tabled with one “no” vote.
Approval to add school district funds, town improvements
About $3.5 million will be directed to the Berkshire Hills Regional School District as its assessment for upcoming educational operating expenses, $40,000 less than the fiscal year 2025 assessment.
Voters also appropriated $15,000 for a new computer server; $93,000 attributed to Town Hall charges for a new boiler ($65,000); new fire sprinkler system ($15,000), energy assessment ($8,000); an ADA-accessible parking lot stairway design ($5,000); a road asphalt preservation program ($75,000); and stabilization funds ($85,000).
Using Community Preservation Funds, residents gave a green light to a $12,000 project to renovate the interior of Old Town Hall as well as support housing reserves ($12,000) and open-space reserves ($12,000).
