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Williamstown Community Preservation Panel Finalizes Warrant Articles
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
12:24PM / Friday, April 01, 2016
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The Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday approved the warrant articles it recommends for approval at May's annual town meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday approved the warrant articles it recommends for approval at May's annual town meeting.

The CPC is recommending the town fund six new requests with funds generated from the Community Preservation Act surcharge on local property taxes.

Since adopting the CPA in 2002, the town has assessed 2 percent on property values to support projects that meet qualifications of the act: open space and recreation, historic preservation and affordable housing. The first $100,000 of property value is excluded from the surcharge.

The largest single expenditure of CPA funds on the warrant will be the $137,500 payment on principal and interest for the retirement of a bond that pays the town's contribution to the Cable Mills restoration project. Town meeting committed to contribute $1.5 million toward the project back in 2007 but only recently paid off the bulk of that commitment on the long-delayed apartment complex.

The six new initiatives going to town meeting are the survivors from among 10 applications that came before the committee earlier this year.

After a sometimes contentious review process, the committee settled on the six recommendations, that range in cost from a $75,000 contribution to the town's Affordable Housing Trust to $6,536 toward restoration of a hose cart owned by the Gale Hose Company, a benevolent organization of current and former town firefighters.

"I'd like to thank all the applicants and my committee members and all the folks who came to the meetings to express thoughts on the 10 projects," Chairwoman Jane Patton said. "The discussions were robust and sometimes contentious. … Even though not everyone got what they wanted, they process worked.

"To folks who were willing to step away from issues that were important to them because they thought it was for the greater good, thank you."

In keeping with the spirit of this year's committee activities, Tuesday's meeting was not without disagreements among members, though differences of opinion were resolved equitably.

A couple of the warrant articles received editorial changes at the meeting. The $14,845 expenditure to the Williamstown Historical Museum was amended to include language that specifies the artifact being restored with town funds. A $41,500 expenditure to the Spruces Land Use Committee was changed to delete the term "parkland," lest the town at some point in the not foreseeable future find a use for the former mobile home park as something other than a park.

And the committee returned to a topic that it brought to the Board of Selectmen on March 14: whether the town should continue to participate in the Community Preservation Act.

The well-attended Selectmen's meeting generated numerous comments from the floor and the board in support of continuing the CPA in the town. On Tuesday, the committee discussed whether more public input is needed before bringing the question to town meeting in 2017.

"That was the message I got, too, we need more public discussion on this," Committee member Chris Winters said of the Selectmen's meeting.

"That said, all of our committee meetings are public meetings. We talked about this at more than one of our meetings. I'm not sure what will satisfy the Selectmen."

Although the minutes of Community Preservation Committee meetings reflect discussion of the future of the town's participation on more than one occasion, none of the CPC agendas from fall 2015 or winter 2016 — including Tuesday's —  list the topic as an item for discussion. Its appearance in meeting minutes comes under the heading "other business."

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