Edward McGowan and Edward Briggs of the Prudential Committee cast their votes in favor of the land purchase at Tuesday's meeting.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — For the second time in three months, the voters of Williamtown have decided not to authorize the Fire District's purchase of a Main Street property.
A special Fire District meeting voted Tuesday night by a 249-167 margin in favor of the purchase, but the motion fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage.
Nearly 60 percent of the voters at the meeting decided in favor of the purchase; the motion needed 279 votes for passage. On Oct. 15, the same proposal garnered 62 percent of 245 votes cast on the question.
A member of the three-man panel that governs the district said after the meeting that Tuesday night's vote will be the last on the department's plan to buy the so-called Lehovec property.
"There's no time [for another vote]," Prudential Committee member Edward M. McGowan said after the voting at Williamstown Elementary School. "The purchase and sales agreement is obsolete, I believe, as of the 27th of December."
McGowan also said the Prudential Committee has no plans to ask the Lehovec estate for an extension on that purchase and sales agreement.
"They say they have people lined up to buy [the property]," McGowan said. "I guess now they'll show us who those people are."
The Fire District negotiated a price of $575,000 for the 3.7-acre parcel just east of the former Agway on Main Street (Route 2).
McGowan acknowledged that the Fire District has the option to seize the property by eminent domain, but he said the Prudential Committee was loathe to take that step.
"It always leaves a bad taste in people's mouths when you do that," he said. "That's why we decided to do what we did. I think we did it the right way."
Now, fire officials are back to "square one" in their efforts to address their aging and inadequately sized station on Water Street, Briggs said.
Tuesday's meeting featured about 40 minutes of debate on the solution fire officials have been developing since 2006.
"This has been a well-thought-out and organized process that has gone on over the last seven years," Fire Chief Craig Pedercini told the voters at the outset of the meeting.
"There is no other piece of property with this amount of land that is geographically appropriate and available in the center of town."
The majority of speakers who rose to debate the proposal spoke in favor of the purchase. But once again two of the plan's most outspoken critics took their turns at the microphone as well.
Charles Fox and Daniel Gendron of the town's Finance Committee each argued that the proposals by the district — a separate governmental entity outside of town government — should be coordinated with the town's other capital needs: a new police station and a new or renovated Mount Greylock Regional School.
Fox said in his opinion the aging junior-senior high school and the police station are higher priorities.
"Unfortunately, at the present moment, we have no clear idea how much of a burden will be placed on us by either of these two higher-priority items," Fox said. "Tonight's proposal is surely putting the cart before the horse."
Two other members of the town Finance Committee, K. Elaine Neely and Elisabeth Goodman, spoke in favor of the Lehovec purchase.
Fire Chief Craig Perdercini speaks in favor of the land purchase.
Goodman emphasized the need of a new fire station to accommodate a tanker truck that is critical to the growing number of town residents who live outside the zone served by fire hydrants.
Neely said the town will be better able to afford the expense of building a fire station down the road because of the retirement of current debts in the coming years.
Local realtor Paul Harsch added to the fiscal argument in favor of buying the Lehovec property by pointing out the town's tax base will grow significantly beginning in 2015 when the first phase of the Cable Mills housing project on Water Street opens.
In addition to dry discussions of tax rates and debt obligations, the meeting featured an emotional moment when a Church Street resident came to the microphone and was moved nearly to tears in making her case for the Fire District's plan.
"About a month ago, we had a complete blackout over there," she said. "For two days, we were without electricity. The boys and Mr. Pedercini were wonderful. I couldn't ask for a better fire department. I think everything they need, they should get."
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Waubeeka Plans Glowball Tournament for Charity
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Golfers will light up the night sky and support a charity that helps underserved communities around the world at Waubeeka Golf Links this week.
Waubeeka will host a Glowball Tournament on Saturday, Aug. 17, from 7 to 10 p.m., to benefit Hope International, a Pennsylvania-based Christian charity dedicated to sharing "the hope of Christ as we provide biblically based training, savings services, and loans that restore dignity and break the cycle of poverty."
Chris Kapiloff, who purchased the golf course earlier this year, has firsthand experience with Hope International, having picked and roasted coffee beans alongside residents of Rwanda on a visit with his family in 2019.
"Hope International is a phenomenal organization," Kapiloff said this week. "My wife and I really like supporting organizations that help children. There are lots of good organizations with lots of good causes, organizations that help people who can't help themselves.
"Hope does an amazing job helping people who can work, who can be creative with just a small break and be amazing. Hope provides banking to people who live in the middle of nowhere, who normally don't have access to banking. It provides training for small businesses."
Founded in 1997, the non-denominational charity fosters economic development in two dozen countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Hope International offers mentoring, training and loans to help people in developing nations launch or expand their businesses.
Golfers will light up the night sky and support a charity that helps underserved communities around the world at Waubeeka Golf Links this week. click for more
Williams College will be back before the Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday for a development plan review for the school's planned art museum at the Field Park rotary.
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The Milne Library's Building and Grounds Committee on Thursday recommended that the director move ahead with several repairs to the building. click for more
The exhibit, "Edgar Degas: Multi-Media Artist in the Age of Impressionism," coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist exhibition, which was held in Paris in 1874.
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