Letters: Vote on April 24 & Make Your Voice Heard

To the Editor:

We, as Williamstown residents, owe it to our neighbors to get out and voice our choices at the special town meeting that was petitioned by a few residents. There is more at stake than the 10 acres of identified "pristine land." Part of our community, a small community within a community, is also at stake.  

I resided in that community for 15 years until Tropical Storm Irene flooded my home, which resulted in nearly a total loss of my personal possessions, in addition to my home. Where my home once was is now just a cement slab.

The Spruces, even now, is a place where neighbors help neighbors; they have safe space and freedom to ride bikes; have their own flower gardens; walk their dogs and socialize. Because of the flood, I lost that community and because of the housing shortage, I was forced to live outside of Williamstown for over a year. I am grateful to say I was finally able to find housing in Williamstown.

Are we going to allow the additional sacrifices of the Spruces residents to go unnoticed by removing options for development from the table? Do we want to limit the type of housing by limiting the type of land options?

It is too soon to determine what is financially feasible without due diligence. For example: replicating a community, constructing condominiums with an affordable housing component, or multiunit housing?

Phyllis Alcombright
Williamstown
April 16, 2013

BHS' New North County Urgent Care Center Opens Tuesday

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
05:44PM / Monday, December 15, 2025

There is a waiting area and reception desk to the right of the Williamstown Medical entrance. 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Staff and contractors were completing the final touches on Monday to prepare for the opening of Berkshire Health System's new urgent care center. 

 

Robert Shearer, administrative director of urgent care, said the work would be done in time for Berkshire Health Urgent Care North to open Tuesday at 11 a.m. in a wing of Williamstown Medical on Adams Road.  

 

The urgent care center will occupy a suite of rooms off the right side of the entry, with two treatment rooms, offices, amenities, and X-ray room. 

 

"This is a test of the need in the community, the want in the community, to see just how much we need," said Shearer. "One thing that I think Berkshire Health Systems has always been really good at is kind of gauging the need and growing based on what the community tells us. 

 

"And so if we on day one and two and three, find that we're filling this up and maybe exceeding the capacity of the two exam rooms and one provider, then we look to expand it."

 

Hours will be weekdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and weekends from 8 to noon, but the expectation is that the center will "expand those hours pretty quick."

 

BHS has two urgent care centers in Lenox and in Pittsfield. The health system had tried a walk-in center at Williamstown nearly a decade ago but shuttered over low volume of patients.