Lanesborough Selectmen Want Town Meeting Vote on School District
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Monday voted to ask a special town meeting whether voters want the board to pursue withdrawal from the Mount Greylock Regional School District.
The board also put an article on the Dec. 1 ballot asking whether the town approves amendments to the agreement between Lanesborough and Williamstown that governs the junior-senior high school district.
The Mount Greylock School Committee drafted the amendment in response to a request from Lanesborough officials to modify the way the district apportions capital expenses in light of the proposed Mount Greylock Regional School renovation project.
Williamstown voters will decide on the amended agreement question on Nov. 17 in a special town meeting at Williamstown Elementary School.
The Williamstown and Lanesborough Finance Committees have each recommended passage of the amended agreement. On Monday, the Williamstown Board of Selectmen voted to recommend passage.
The Lanesborough Board of Selectmen did not make an advisory vote on the question on Monday. However, it continued its meeting to Thursday at 5 p.m. to consider several other warrant articles that need to be vetted by town counsel.
The regional agreement revision will be the first question at the Lanesborough special town meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 1, at Lanesborough Elementary School.
Further down the agenda that evening, the Selectmen want to survey town voters by paper ballot about whether they want the board to pursue the dissolution of the regional school district.
That question appeared to have been put to rest when the Lanesborough Elementary School Committee — which Selectmen had agreed was the proper authority to consider a tuition proposal from the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District — voted unanimously not to enter talks with Adams-Cheshire.
But on Tuesday, the three-member Board of Selectmen decided to put the question to voters, citing concerns that the School Committee did not adequately study the question.
"Based on the meeting at Mount Greylock at 10 in the morning, we don't feel they gave that a fair shot," Chairman John Goerlach said. "It seemed odd they'd schedule a meeting like that during the day at Mount Greylock.
"[The question] had to go to the School Committee. It was not our choice to decide yes or no. But we don't feel like it got a fair shake."
All three members of the Lanesborough School Committee attended Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting.
Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego asked to be recognized by Goerlach during the public comment portion of the meeting, after his statement about the proposal not being given "a fair shake." But Goerlach, who at the outset announced a limit of five minutes to public participation, declined to recognize DiLego, citing the expiration of the five minutes.
After the meeting, DiLego explained that the 10 a.m. meeting on Oct. 15 already had been scheduled when the district received the formal proposal from Adams-Cheshire.
"We thought the prudent, polite thing to do was to make a reply, since our next scheduled meeting is Nov. 24," DiLego said. "And that was the answer we had after discussing the proposal."
As for the timing of the meeting, the committee, which usually meets in the evening at Lanesborough School, chose the 10 a.m. time at Mount Greylock so it could bring in Tri-District Superintendent Douglas Dias and Business Manager Lynn Rauscher and have them educate the committee's newest member, P.J. Pannesco, about the budget process. Pannesco is employed at Mount Greylock.
As to the larger question, DiLego said she thinks the members of the Board of Selectmen need to educate themselves about the provisions of Massachusetts General Law in regard to education.
Resident Michelle Johnson, the only person able to address the board during the predetermined five-minute window, asked why the selectmen were "circumventing people we elected to make school-based decisions."
"With all due respect, we didn't elect you to make school-based decisions," Johnson told the Selectmen.
"If you think it's unfair to put the question to the people of the town, there's something wrong with that, Michelle," Goerlach responded.
Selectmen Robert Ericson and Henry Sayers each said they were approached by residents who wanted to know why voters were not asked whether they wanted to break up the Mount Greylock district and send Lanesborough's junior-senior high school-aged students to Hoosac Valley High School
It's a $15 million question," Sayers said. "Does the town want to spend $15 million [on the proposed building project] to stay at Mount Greylock or save a million [in annual operating expenses] and go somewhere else?"
That comment elicited grumbling from several of the dozen people crammed into the Selectmen's Meeting Room. Advocates of preserving the two-town district maintain that the dollar savings figure claimed by Adams-Cheshire is not realistic.
The board voted 2-1 to put the amended regional agreement on the special town meeting warrant. Sayers objected to the warrant article.
He noted several other changes to the regional agreement that were added to the document to bring it in line with state law since its last revision.
"When we first started, we asked if we were going to take a look at the whole thing or just part of it ... and we were advised it was only going to be the bond issue change," Sayers said. "It came back with all these changes. What we requested as a town — four changes — got shot down by the School Committee."
Mount Greylock School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene and Mount Greylock legal counsel Fred Dupere both tried to explain that the only locally generated amendment to the document is the one dealing with capital apportionment. Every other change was recommended by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
"It's under the [state] regulations," Dupere said of one amendment. "It's necessary. You'd have to do it whether it's in the agreement or not."
"I see the agreement as a guide for future School Committee members, future town officials," Greene said. "The information we put in here is helpful. If we take it out, the next time someone revises the agreement, they have to go and ask DESE what the protocol is."
"It is a protocol that would be required by the state," Dupere said.
In other business on Monday, the board approved the Fire Department's purchase of a $475,885 pumper truck. Most of the funds will come from the stabilization fund. The purchase will require a loan of about $130,000 Town Administrator Paul Sieloff said.
The board also discussed Sieloff's new contract. He is requesting about a 9.1 percent raise.
In explaining the request, Sieloff cited his accomplishments in his three years on the job as well as assurance he was given at his time of hiring that his compensation would raise to meet his initial request — an amount just above what he is now seeking.
Ericson said it was problematic to give Sieloff such a large raise at a time when the board is pushing for austerity in other areas, like schools.
On the other hand, Ericson said, "I think [Sieloff] has done a heck of a job. There's no doubt about that."
The board also discussed a number of other articles proposed for the Dec. 1 special town meeting warrant, including a regulation limiting chickens and rabbits on residential properties, a bylaw banning overnight parking in the winter, a fine structure for repeated false alarms on burglar alarm systems and a procedure for police vetting of people soliciting door-to-door in town.
Tags: ACRSD, dissolution, MGRHS, school district, special town meeting,
