WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Town Meeting will be held at Williamstown Elementary School for the first time since 2019 after a unanimous vote by the Select Board last Monday night.

 

The board voted 4-0 to move the annual meeting back to the Church Street school after it was held at Mount Greylock Regional School the last four years.

 

Twice, in 2020 and 2021, the meeting was held outdoors at Williams College's Weston Field during the height of the pandemic.

 

Technically, the 2022 meeting was scheduled for WES, but by the time it was convened, everyone who attended knew that the first order of business would be a motion to adjourn to a couple of weeks later at Mount Greylock to take advantage of the larger gym.

 

That gym was home to the meeting the next three years.

 

Board members discussed whether to move the May meeting back to WES and closer to the center of the town's population made sense.

 

"It would be nice to get a younger generation participating," Shana Dixon said. "A two-minute walk down the street as opposed to an eight-minute drive to Mount Greylock makes a difference, a big difference."

 

Members Matthew Neely and Peter Beck countered that the time and distance concerns might not be what are keeping people away.

 

Neely said he thought the meeting's length and child-care concerns are bigger factors keeping younger couples — or, often, half of those couples — from attending the meeting where the town conducts its annual business.

 

Beck said lack of interest could be the driving factor in attendance rates that hover around 300 in a town of 7,500.

 

"I think rather than child care or the hours or the day, the number one reason people don't come to town meeting is that they'd rather do anything else than go to town meeting," Beck said. "I think even those of us who go to town meeting probably have years where we've felt that way, and that's OK.

 

"But people who do want to go and aren't able to, that's the problem we should be addressing."

 

That said, Beck said, "I think having the ability for our densest, most walkable part of town to be able to walk to the meeting has benefits."

 

Since moving to town meeting to Mount Greylock, the town has offered a free bus departing from the Harper Center (across Church Street from the elementary school), but it has been, to say the least, lightly used.

 

"My understanding is two years ago they ran a bus and only one person used it," Neely said. "Is there pent up demand of people who can't get to Mount Greylock?"

 

Other members of the board noted that using the bus could leave a resident with the perception that they are then committed to staying until the end of the meeting in a way that doesn't happen at WES, where all attendees can leave when they want.

 

Town Manager Robert Menicocci told the board that moving the meeting back to the elementary school — the site of all elections in town — would be an adjustment for town staff but not necessarily an obstacle.

 

"It's smaller," Menicocci said. "Logistically, it's a little more difficult to get around there. Check in is a little different."

 

Menicocci noted that a February 2023 special fire district meeting that approved the new fire station drew nearly 600 residents that the WES gym accommodated.

 

Neely argued that the middle-high school works fine, but he admitted that he probably was the only person in the room who grew up within walking distance of the Mount Greylock campus on Cold Spring Road in the town's Rural Residence zoning district.

 

Chair Stephanie Boyd said she would rather put the meeting back at WES.

 

"I have a preference to try it at the elementary school," Boyd said. "I think there are pros and cons to both locations. To me, the elementary school seems to be more part of our community. It seems to be more of a community event."

 

Monday's meeting began as a joint meeting with the Finance Committee to review the Select Board's priorities for the town's fiscal year 2027 budget.

 

"Some of the priorities [in a memo that the Select Board sent the Fin Comm] are a little self-explanatory, in the sense that we need to have a frugal budget," Beck said. "We need to consider smart growth and economic development to increase our tax base.

 

"We, at the same time, don't want to cut for cut's sake and end up being penny wise and pound foolish and not able to maintain the incredible town that we have and the essential functions that we do have."

 

Fin Comm Chair Fred Puddester said it was good that the two panels are aligned on controlling costs but suggested that the Select Board needs to talk with the Planning Board when it comes to encouraging economic development.

 

Members of both bodies agreed that they should support a current Planning Board initiative that would encourage mixed-use development in the town's Limited Business and Planned Business zoning districts.

 

That initiative, if passed by town meeting, would only permit new development. It is the market that will decide whether developers take advantage of any changes in the zoning bylaw.

 

In the short-term Puddester reminded the Select Board of two potential storm clouds on the horizon for FY27: another anticipated spike in health insurance that will impact the labor-intensive "businesses" of municipal government and public education and reduced fiscal flexibility for the Mount Greylock Regional School District.

 

"We have to understand the [School Committee] has been, I think, very generous to the towns [of Lanesborough and Williamstown]," Puddester said. "They've been spending down their reserves, recognizing that we have the highest tax rate in the county, people are burdened. It's very hard to be able to afford to live in Williamstown.

 

"They've run out of their reserves, so they're actually starting in the hole, because they used reserves to balance their FY26 budget that won't be there in FY27."

 

Menicocci told the Select Board and Fin Comm that despite factors the town cannot control, like rising health insurance costs, the FY27 budget he'll present to the Fin Comm for review in February is "well under control."

 

"Long-term, if what we're facing today sustains itself at the rates that it is, we have some trouble ahead," Menicocci said. "I think it's good we're having these conversations in a serious way, but it's not a conversation of panic. What we're doing here now is signalling that there are actions we need to take to maintain our fiscal health and be responsible with our budget.

 

"No need to panic just yet, but don't expect a lot of bells and whistles [in the FY27 spending plan."