WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town is looking for residents' input on a draft hazard mitigation plan that has been prepared at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

 

Town Manager Jason Hoch announced last week the start of a four-week period for public comment on the 143-page document available in PDF format through the town's website.

 

Hoch explained that the document was prepared in cooperation with personnel at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and in consultation with key Town Hall staff, but it is appropriate to solicit public comment to make sure any potential hazards are addressed.

 

"One of the reasons to have it reviewed more generally is there may be something we don't see or don't know," Hoch said in the Select Board meeting telecast on the town's community access television station, Willinet. "You might have something localized in your neighborhood or where you work.

 

"If you have the same drainage issue every day, you might say, 'Hey, they haven't talked about this.' That's fair. Similarly, you could say, 'I've read through this section, and I don't know if it means what I think it means."

 

Select Board member Jeffrey Thomas asked what specific hazards people should think about as they dive into the lengthy document.

 

"Does it look like we thought about the kind of issues that might impact the community, from ice storms, tornadoes, wind ... for instance," Hoch said, drawing chuckles for his reference to the latter threat, which earlier in the day knocked out power to much of the community, including the middle-high school. "Does it look like we were thoughtful.

 

"This is not: Do we have the answers to everything? It's to say: Have we identified the issues?"

 

Hoch described the plans, done about every seven years and formerly at the county level, as more of a risk assessment than an outline to remedies to potential hazards.

 

"At one point, this document could have identified the Spruces, as inhabited, as a risk element," he said. "It's the awareness that the community knew of the issue, not to say it's all fixed."

 

The former Spruces mobile home park ended up closing with the help of a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant after Tropical Storm Irene caused severe flooding on the site in 2011.

 

"The two main reasons to have a document like this is, first, to think about potential risks and think about what kinds of actions we can take ourselves," Hoch said. "But the reason to do it with FEMA is once you have a document, if there are proactive things that we can do that require funding beyond our local capacity, we become eligible for funding from FEMA."

 

Hoch said that after the four-year review period, the draft document will be submitted to FEMA for its review.

 

The main item of business on the board's agenda Monday was its procedural vote to move forward proposed zoning bylaw amendments that the Planning Board is developing to put to town meeting in May.

 

Although the zoning warrant articles -- which need a two-thirds supermajority vote of town meeting -- are the domain of the Planning Board, state law requires that body to submit the draft amendment to the Select Board, which then refers it back to the Planning Board to schedule a public hearing.

 

Planning Board Chair Amy Jeschawitz walked the board through the highlights of the proposals, which would allow for greater flexibility in the creation of accessory dwelling units on residential properties.

 

While the Select Board's role in the process is largely pro forma, several residents who have been consistent critics of the Planning Board's proposals at its meeting, asked to address the Select Board on the issue, reiterating arguments familiar to those who have been following the Planning Board process for the last eight months.

 

Select Board Chair Anne O'Connor allowed the discussion from the floor, limiting each speaker to two minutes. A couple of the commenters accused the Planning Board of not taking input from "the town" into consideration in its deliberations and asked the Select Board to take the unusual step of refusing to refer the warrant articles back to the planners.

 

In the end, the Select Board voted 5-0 to refer the articles back, keeping them on track for a public hearing at the Planning Board's next monthly meeting on March 12.

 

In other business on Monday, Hoch briefed the Select Board on the highlights of the town's fiscal year 2020 spending plan, currently under review by the town's Finance Committee.

 

Hoch emphasized that the budget is still under development, in part because the town has received no budget numbers from the Mount Greylock Regional School District, which is scheduled to present to the Finance Comm on March 20.

 

"These are good numbers, but they're not set in stone," Hoch said.

 

The bottom line is that he is expecting to present a budget to town meeting that will require a 2.5 percent property tax increase to account for increased expenditures on the town side of the ledger.

 

"When we turn it into non-percentages, we're looking at about, right now, a 24-cent increase on the town-only part of your tax bill," Hoch said. "I'm showing about a 38-cent increase attributable to expenses, but 14 cents of that will be offset by [non-property tax] revenue. I expect by the time we're done, the town side will come down from that 24 cents."

 

Thomas closed the meeting by discussing a bylaw that he is considering pushing to get on the warrant for May's town meeting.

 

After hearing a presentation from a proposed second marijuana shop in town, Thomas decided that the town may want to consider limiting the number of licenses for such establishments.

 

"We limit the number of stores that can sell beer and wine to seven, and only two of those can sell liquor," he said. "We don't know enough to know whether we need more marijuana stores in town than we have stores that can sell liquor."

 

Thomas proposed that the town limit the number of pot shops to two for the next two years and then re-evaluate the number that could potentially be allowed after the retail marijuana market is more established.

 

He said it was noteworthy that despite having 2 percent of the commonwealth's population, Berkshire County has been the scene of 11 percent of retail marijuana applications to the state's Cannabis Control Commission. Of course, Berkshire County is the only part of the commonwealth that borders New York, where marijuana is still criminalized.

 

Thomas said he worries that the market may not be able to support all of the shops that are looking to locate in the area, and when they struggle, those stores would "become aggressive with their marketing."

 

He said Hoch is helping him draft a bylaw but noted that the town manager disagrees with the idea and pressed Hoch to share his counterarguments with the rest of the Select Board.

 

"Bylaws are statements of what the community is and isn't," Hoch said. "Bylaws should be statements of what we want our community to be. This, to me, sadly feels like a statement of our fears."

 

Hoch noted that such a temporary limit on the number of shops would keep the town in a "Groundhog Day-type conversation" about the issue, and he said he did not know what new information would be available in 2021 that the town does not have now.

 

As for Thomas' concerns about oversaturation of marijuana shops, Hoch said that it is not the place of town government to control the free market.

 

"We shouldn't substitute our hasty judgment for what the market will correct on its own," Hoch said. "We limit the number of liquor licenses to seven and the number of tobacco licenses to seven. If we're going to limit this, why pick two? Why not pick seven?

 

"I'm sensitive to the suggestion. I'm wondering if we're chasing a problem that is going to work itself out [without a bylaw]."