West Stockbridge — On September 5, the Select Board appointed four members to the town’s Affordable Housing Trust: Frank Landsberger, Andrew Potter, Chris Powell, and Mark Webber. Board Chair Kathleen Keresey was also approved to serve as its representative to the Trust and suggested the group form a non-voting advisory or ad hoc committee that would consult with the trustees.
(The Affordable Housing Trust preserves and creates affordable housing in West Stockbridge for the benefit of low and moderate income households.)
But, the measure was not without controversy after the vote was deferred from the August 21 session. At the previous meeting, Keresey said she heard from constituents that some residents weren’t aware of the Trust’s open positions before the deadline for nominations and suggested the deadline be extended to allow for more applications from individuals in construction, law, and development professions.
Four applications had been made before the August 1 deadline (Landsberger, Potter, Powell, and Webber), and the position was posted on both the town’s Facebook page and Local Yokel newsletter. At that meeting, Potter objected to the extension, saying that four qualified applicants submitted and advocating for the appointment of the four applicants who met the deadline as well as Keresey as the Board’s representative. “When you set a goal, you don’t move the goal line,” he said at the time, adding that, otherwise, a lack of process can ensue. “If you want people to trust governance in this town, you have to be able to point to a solid process.”
Residents and the board continued their discussion this week as to extending the time to apply for the Trust positions and whether the methods used by the West Stockbridge government to apprise residents of an important local issue are effective. “I brought up at the time that this sort of exposed the fact that the town didn’t really have a bona fide way of communicating to the citizenry,” Keresey said on September 5. She said that some people don’t refer to the town’s Facebook page and that the Local Yokel edition containing the position announcement came out on the deadline day.
In a heated exchange, Potter said he has “very strong feelings” regarding approving the four applicants who met the deadline. “We haven’t even looked at the qualifications of the people who had gotten their paperwork in on time, who expressed interest by the deadline that this Board agreed to,” he said, acknowledging the four applicants. “And you want to disenfranchise people who step up, aren’t currently holding positions, and want to be involved? It’s purely disenfranchisement. It is a cabal.”
Keresey said she wanted to be more inclusive by expanding the deadline and hoped for a “civil conversation between the three Board members so that we could actually develop a process for reaching out to our constituents to let them know that there was an important decision on the table and get statements of interest from as many people as are listed.” Keresey continued, “It appeared that the date that we chose, which was August 1, and the methods that we chose to get the information out there [weren’t] particularly successful. I didn’t intend to disenfranchise anyone. I didn’t intend to not look or consider anyone.”
Member Andrew Krouss brought up the idea of an advisory committee “as an extension of additional people” to the trustees, incorporating other residents who are interested to serve with the group.
Residents Joseph Roy and Curt Wilton addressed the board, pushing members to appoint the four applicants as trustees as well as create an advisory committee to assist the trustees. “You have the confident people, the trustees,” Wilton said to the Board. “You can play a deadline all you want. That’s something you need to work on, you need to work on communication. Maybe now figure out how to communicate and get the proper advisory committee together so they can work together, then bring forth their intelligence and their advice to the trustees that you already have.”
Following a short discussion regarding the town’s communication methods, board members voted to add the issue as an agenda item at the next meeting.
At the meeting, the board also approved a request by the Vision Committee to research implementing charging stations within the town and to put out a Request for Proposal for the initial design, development, and utilization of West Stockbridge’s Moscow Road property.
