I am writing these comments as an individual property owner, not as the president of the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce nor as a member of the Mount Greylock Regional High School Committee's School Building Committee.

 

Please make every effort to go to the Fire District special meeting tonight at Wiliamstown Elementary School at 7 p.m. Voter registration starts at 6:30 p.m.

 

Besides the FD's original warrant, there will likely be motions made about several different amended versions at tonight's meeting. 

 

Andy Hogeland's amendment idea was mentioned in the article above. Another amendment idea is to authorize the FD to negotiate an extension on the purchase-and-sale agreement including a not-to-exceed amount for a non-refundable deposit on the property to tie it up for three to six more months while the work on the joint public safety building analysis is completed. This option makes the most sense to me.

 

While I wholeheartedly support the idea that we need a new joint public safety building, the new high school must be our top priority. In about 18 months we will be facing a vote to approve our share of the capital required for the school. 

 

if the new fire station, new police station and/or a joint public safety building gets ahead of that project it will be monumentally harder for us to convince the majority in town to take on the additional taxes required to build a new school. This is the idea of tax fatigue that Dan Gendron referred to at the FinCom meeting. Furthermore, allowing the FD to purchase the Lehovec property before we truly know if it can support a joint public safety building jeopardizes the joint public safety building project. 

 

A big part of the savings of a joint building project is we only have to purchase one piece of land. That means we should purchase one piece of property that we know meets all of the requirements for a joint public safety building BEFORE we buy it which is why I believe we should wait until after the PD's study is done to pull the trigger on any purchases.

 

Your vote may be the difference maker. I hope to see you all there tonight.

 

Allen Jezouit
Williamstown