WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday became the second elected body in the last week to express its support for the LGBTQIA+ community.

 

A few days after the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee OK'd updated policies on sexual orientation and gender identity, the Select Board had a chance to weigh in on a town meeting article that seeks to affirm equal protection under the law in the town.

 

Article 28 on the 30-article warrant for the May 22 meeting is titled "Resolution Declaring the Town of Williamstown a Community that Supports and Upholds the Rights of Transgender and Gender-Diverse People."

 

The article, submitted as a citizens petition to the annual town meeting, cites the "targeting" of members of the LGBTQIA+ community by the Trump administration which is, "seeking to end gender-affirming care and ending federal legal recognition of trans people," the article language reads.

 

The article goes on to reference the Massachusetts Constitution and state law, specifically 2022's "An Act Expanding Protections for Reproductive and Gender Affirming Care," which "protects individuals seeking sanctuary from out-of-state prosecution."

 

The petitioner asks town meeting to reiterate its commitment to equal protection of transgender and gender diverse people and prohibit the use of town resources from assisting "any individual or out-of-state agency or department in furtherance of restrictions on the provision of gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental healthcare."

 

Police Chief Michael Ziemba confirmed this week that nothing in Article 28 would impact the operations of the Police Department, which already complies with the 2022 state law.

 

The Select Board voted 5-0 to recommend town meeting passage of the article, one of three citizens petitions on this year's warrant.

 

The bulk of Monday evening's meeting was devoted to a relatively obscure and, in most years, innocuous fiscal article related to the sewer rate.

 

But the transgender/gender diverse article was echoed later in the evening.

 

Randal Fippinger asked his colleagues to approve a plan to celebrate Pride Month by lining Main Street (Route 2) with Pride Progress flags.

 

The town regularly displays American flags on utility poles along the town green from Memorial Day through Veterans Day. Fippinger asked that every fourth flag pole be used for a Progress Pride flag during the month of June.

 

"I spoke with [DPW Director Craig Clough], and he said it is possible and not onerous," Fippinger said of the process of swapping out the flags. "We would need to use some of [the Diversity Inclusion and Racial Equity Committee's] money to pay for the new flags. Bob said it just needs Select Board approval."

 

Menicocci explained that while town meeting was asked last year to approve the use of the Pride Progress flag on certain town flag poles — a request that was approved by a two-thirds majority — it is within the board's purview to authorize public displays like Fippinger suggested.

 

Jane Patton, who last year argued against the article at town meeting, again spoke on a topic that hits close to home.

 

"There might be one person in [the meeting room] who doesn't know that I'm gay," said Patton, who raises two children with her wife. "I struggle with a couple of things.

 

"It would be one thing if we were talking about maybe putting Pride flags where there hadn't been flags before. I think Williamstown is a very gay-friendly town. … My struggle is taking down one flag, especially one that represents the country and has deep meaning to veterans and all manner of people who may be very pro gay rights — to move that flag may be troublesome for them."

 

Patton suggested that, as an alternative, the town buy hundreds of smaller Pride Progress flags and make them available to residents to display at their homes. She said that seeing individuals voluntarily choose to support the LGBTQIA+ community would be a meaningful expression of the sentiment of the community.

 

"I'd rather it be a voluntary option for people than we just say, 'This is how it's going to go,' " Patton said.

 

Fippinger noted that his proposal was just for one month of a more than five-month display and that 75 percent of the flags on the poles would be American flags during that month.

 

He said he respected Patton's point of view but asked that the board could decide one way or another on the proposal on Monday in order to allow time to procure the flags.

 

On a roll call vote, with Jeffrey Johnson participating via Zoom, the board voted 4-1 to go ahead with the temporary installation of the Pride Progress flags with Patton voting nay, "because I feel like the town should have an opportunity to speak on this."

 

As for one flag pole the town did speak to, the one in front of Town Hall, that will fly a Progress Pride flag for one month starting on June 1. On Monday, the board decided to let Fippinger, a proponent of the 2024 bylaw amendment, speak on the panel's behalf at a flag raising ceremony even though his term expires when his successor is sworn in after the May 13 annual town election; Fippinger is not running for another term.

 

Monday marked the closure of the warrant for the annual town meeting, and the Select Board finished its process of making recommendations on all of the items it did not get to at its March 24 meeting.

 

The body voted 5-0 to recommend both of the Planning Board's proposed zoning bylaw amendments — setting limits on the number of days a home can be utilized as an Airbnb and creating rules for geothermal wells in the Water Resource Districts.

 

It likewise unanimously recommended the meeting pass a change in the minimum age for a local property tax exemption from 65 to 60. This is a follow-up to last year's town meeting vote on a home rule petition asking the legislature for permission to adjust the age; that permission was granted, and now the town has an opportunity to act on it.

 

The Select Board voted, 4-1, to recommend the meeting adopt a bylaw proposed by William Raymond to ban tobacco smoking and vaping in multi-unit housing (exempting owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units).

 

Again, Patton voted in the minority, saying the action felt like government overreach.

 

"There is no more passionately anti-smoking person than me," Patton said. "My mother was a heavy smoker. She didn't care. She'd sit there at the table, she'd have four cigarettes going at once. It was disgusting.

 

"My challenge is telling people who own property what to do."

 

And the board voted, 5-0, to recommend town meeting OK Article 30, the final of three on the warrant by way of citizens petition. It seeks to have the meeting reaffirm a policy on immigration enforcement.

 

Citing an executive order President Trump signed on his first day in office in January seeking to deport "all undocumented persons," the article asks the town to reaffirm its 2017 town meeting resolution to seeking to protect due process rights of residents and clarifying that "Federal immigration requests and administrative warrants are not binding on Town officials."

 

Ziemba also confirmed this week that Article 30, like its predecessor in 2017, would not change the procedures at the WPD. Eight years ago, his predecessor told the Select Board that he already had a standing order on the books that reflected the language in the resolution. "[The WPD] does not investigate civil immigration laws, as this role falls to the federal government," then-Chief Kyle Johnson said.

 

The deadline to register to vote in the town election and at town meeting is Friday, May 2, at 5 p.m.

 

In other business on Monday, the Select Board:

 

• Learned that an article seeking to fund the town's Stabilization Fund with $50,000 from its unrestricted fund balance (free cash) had been pulled by the Finance Committee after the town's certified free cash number from the Department of Revenue came in short of the town's projection.

 

• Approved an expansion of the Clark Art Institute's alcohol license to allow full-year sales and expand the areas of the museum where liquor can be served. The Clark's chief financial officer, who manages the license, told the board that the change means the museum will not have to come to the Select Board with requests for special one-day licenses if it wants to host an event at, for example, its Lunder Center at Stone Hill.

 

• Appointed Ursula Bare to the DIRE Committee. Bare talked with the committee at its April 7 meeting  and said she moved to town last year from North Carolina and was struck by the lack of diversity. She said she hopes to be an ally for people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community.

 

• Issued its annual Arbor Day proclamation.