Williamstown Selectmen Make Plans for Year AheadBy Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
02:04AM / Thursday, July 09, 2015 | |
 The Board of Selectmen reviews goals for the coming year during a retreat on Wednesday morning at the Williams Inn. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Wednesday morning discussed its priorities for the next 11 months and divided the workload to keep its long-term projects moving forward.
Those projects range from raising awareness about the region's opioid abuse problem to implementing recommendations from the Economic Development Committee to reviewing the town's contract for recyclables.
The occasion was the board's retreat at the Williams Inn, where Selectman Andrew Hogeland took the lead on compiling the list of potential projects for the selectmen to consider.
Hogeland likened the process to the mandate the the board gave to the ad hoc Economic Development Committee.
"With the Economic Development Committee, we gave them a task and a year to do it, and they're doing it," Hogeland said. "Other committees sometimes drift. The idea is to give us a task."
There was no shortage of ideas to consider in a free-wheeling brain-storming session that took about 90 minutes.
Most of the items on Hogeland's list, first discussed at the board's June 22 meeting, were adopted as projects for 2015-16 (selectmen terms run through May's annual town meeting).
And a suggestion from Chairwoman Jane Patton to add opioid awareness to the list was accepted by her colleagues.
"I think the whole own needs to be educated," Patton said. "It would dovetail, at a minimum, with the question of why do you need a better, more efficient police station.
"I'm confident we're all five or six degrees separated from someone touched by this problem, if not fewer [degrees]. It makes me insane that no one in this town is talking about it.
"The first thing is to say it's an issue and here's why it's an issue."
Selectman Ronald Turbin agreed that the issue needs to be addressed but suggested that the proper role for the town is to engage with state officials already looking at the problem.
But Patton argued there is a stronger role for Williamstown to play.
"One of my big concerns is there's no treatment facilities, and the ones that do exist are so ... I'm fascinated by the notion that one gets put on a waiting list to receive treatment for a heroin addiction," she said.
"I think we need to take a leadership role."
Among the steps the town can take includes making sure the Williamstown Police are trained and have Narcan if needed. The prescription medication (naloxone) can reverse the effects of an opiod overdose.
The board agreed to let Patton take the lead on that issue, focusing efforts on awareness and lobbying state officials to make sure North County receives its share of funding to address the problem.
Patton also will be the point person for another priority on which the board wants to focus: building a new police station and possibly a joint facility with the Williamstown Fire District.
The selectmen agreed that they should continue to support the work of the Public Safety Building Study Committee, which this spring asked the board to engage the owners of a Main Street parcel with potential to house a combined police/fire facility.
Patton, who also chairs the study committee, said Wednesday that she is not ready to give up on a joint facility but noted that if the no land can be acquired that will house a joint facility, the town-owned lot at 59 Water St. could host a police station.
59 Water St., the former site of the town garage, is another priority the board decided Wednesday to keep an eye on over the next year. At one time, the site was under consideration for the construction of subsidized housing, but a prior incarnation of the board effectively closed the door to that possibility.
The current board on Wednesday discussed creating a formal parking lot on the dirt lot currently used as a de facto parking lot while acknowledging that other development — like a police station — is a possibility.
The board's newest member, Anne O'Connor, volunteered to be its point person on environmental issues. That includes working through implementation of the recently adopted bylaws on plastic bags and polystyrene packaging.
The latter will be implemented by the Board of Health, according to the bylaw. Implementation of the former will fall to town staff. O'Connor agreed to be a liaison with the Board of Health and Town Hall and to help efforts to educate business owners about the new bylaws.
O'Connor also said she would begin the process of evaluating the town's recycling contract. The issue was raised by constituents, she said.
Another idea that O'Connor proposed: the institution of a community cleanup day.
A couple of initiatives on which the board will focus are currently percolating through committee.
And the selectmen expect much of their time after the first of the year to be devoted to the recommendations of the aforementioned Economic Development Committee, whose final report is expected in December.
Finally, the Board of Selectmen agreed to spend a little time over the next 10 months taking steps to no longer be the Board of Selectmen.
Rather, the panel agreed to ask the town at town meeting 2016 whether the charter should be changed to adopt language referring to the body as the Select Board.
Turbin made he suggestion as the result of a conversation he had with state Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, D-North Adams, at Williamstown's Fourth of July parade.
"I think it's time," Patton agreed. "I think with all the conversation out there around gender equality, whether it's pay equity or what have you, it's time to take that step."
Turbin took on the role of investigating how the town would go about making the change.
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