LEE — Only days after incumbent Patricia Carlino announced that she would not seek a ninth term on the Board of Selectmen, one of her adversaries has stepped up in an attempt to fill Carlino’s seat.
Union Street resident Anne Tourville Langlais told The Edge this week that she will run in the annual town elections on May 16 as an unaffiliated voter to replace Carlino. Langlais (pronounced LANG-liss) is a business owner and former member of the Conservation Commission and has served as a representative of Lee’s town meeting.
Langlais was raised in the Berkshires and is also the owner of the Jewelry Box, which sells jewelry, watches, hats, and clothing out of a Center Street storefront next to the legendary Joe’s Diner.
Her entrance into the race is important because a Langlais victory would mark a complete turnover of the three-person board since 2020, when political neophyte Sean Regnier ousted longtime incumbent and veteran board chair Tom Wickham. The following year, insurgent Bob Jones defeated another longtime incumbent, David Consolati.Â
Those races were fought largely along the battle lines drawn by an agreement to site a toxic waste dump in Lee, which was one of five southern Berkshire County towns that negotiated a deal with General Electric (GE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to locate a dump at a former quarry in Lee.Â
The site will be used to dispose of lower-level PCB sediments to be removed from the Housatonic River where GE had dumped them until the early 1970s when the practice was banned. As part of the deal, GE is obligated to pay the town of Lee $25 million.
Wickham signed the agreement, while Consolati and Carlino voted for it. Regnier, though he campaigned against the pact as a candidate, has had a change of heart. He has since said he opposes the dump but does not favor rescinding the agreement.
The Housatonic River Initiative (HRI), of which Langlais is a member, appealed the deal to the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board and lost in a ruling earlier this month. But the HRI has not given up and is appealing to the First Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, which has yet to render a decision.
Separately, an anti-dump group that includes Jones filed suit against the selectmen, claiming that the board exceeded its authority in agreeing to the settlement along with the four other towns that make up the Rest of River Municipal Committee. That suit was allowed to be dismissed by a Berkshire County judge in September.
For her part, Langlais remains resolutely opposed to both the dump and the five-town agreement with the EPA. In a written statement announcing her candidacy, Langlais said she “has been working side by side for years with HRI fighting to stop GE and the EPA from placing a toxic PCB dump in the back yards of Lee residents.”
“Mrs. Langlais continues her regular practice of informing other business owners about the impacts of contentious projects such as GE’s, and other bylaw and regulation changes affecting the business community,” the statement said.
In a brief Edge interview, Langlais said she was also active in helping to stop the construction of a wind turbine near October Mountain and has been informing neighbors of other issues facing the town.
At last year’s annual town meeting, the representatives voted for Lee to revert back to the open town meeting form of government — a change Langlais said was very positive and a move toward “one person, one vote.” Langlais said she looks forward to helping to implement the change.
Langlais said she had heard that Robert Wright and former selectman Gordon Bailey also have plans to run. Town Clerk Christopher Brittain had not returned messages by publication time inquiring as to whether any other candidates had officially taken out papers to run for Carlino’s seat. If he does, this story will be updated.
Update >> Town administrator Christopher Brittain wrote: “At this point we have certified signatures for Anne Langlais and Gordon Bailey.”
