Two Lanesborough Selectmen Publicly Oppose School Project
Chairman John Goerlach used the public comment portion of Monday's meeting to explain his role in a series of emails and a Facebook page.
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Two Selectmen have come out in opposition to the Mount Greylock Regional School project.
The Selectmen voiced their opinions Monday on the $64.8 renovation and new construction project after survey of 900 voters found more asking the board to oppose it than support it.
A total of 894 voters responded to the survey; 435 urged the Selectmen to oppose it, 377 to support it, 80 said none of the above, and two didn't answer the question.
The board has been highly critical of the project and the survey results gave two of the town leaders reason to publicly align against it.
"I oppose the amount of money," Chairman John Goerlach said.
Goerlach was joined with Henry "Hank" Sayers in opposition to the project while Selectman Robert Ericson, who sits on the building committee, supported it. The board didn't take a formal vote but rather just voiced their opinions. The project will be decided at a special ballot vote on March 15, when voters will be asked to approve a debt exclusion to bond the money. Lanesborough is asked to pay a portion of the district's share ranging from $31.5 million to $35.3 million while the state is paying the balance.
The four-question survey showed polarizing results. Not only was there a 49 percent to 42 percent split against the project, similar splits were seen in questions relating to exploring regionalizing with other high schools, importance of the current affiliation, and how important residents felt it was to collect additional financial support from non-profit organizations to offset the cost.
"We sent out a mailing to every registered voter in town," Town Manager Paul Sieloff said. "We got almost a 50 percent return rate, which is very high."
Question two read "should the town of Lanesborough explore regionalization with another high school?" Half of those 894 who responded — 450 — said yes while 380 said no. The rest had no opinion or didn't respond.
Question three read "on a scale of 1-5, how important to you is the regional school affiliation that the town of Lanesborough has with Mount Greylock?" The most responses were on either end of the spectrum. A total of 337 or 38 percent ranked it as "not important" with a 5 while 315 or 35 percent said it was "very important" with a 1. Six percent gave it a 4; 13 percent gave it a 3; and 7 percent gave it a 2.
The fourth question read "on a scale of 1-5, how important should it be to try to collect financial support from tax exempt properties to offset the cost of the Mount Greylock Regional School Building Project?" Again, the most responses were at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Fifty-one percent said it was very important with a 1; 21 percent said it was not important with a 5. Nine percent gave it a 2; 13 percent gave it a 3; 4 percent gave it a 4.
"We've been trying to get a temperament," Goerlach said. "It is really March 15 that makes that decision."
Resident Peter Tague reminded the board that the results are not "set in stone" and that many residents may change their mind after Tuesday's special town meeting. He said he's hearing many people who are now "coming out of the woodwork" to voice opposition to the project without knowing the details.
"This was a poll, basically. That's what surveys are about, a poll to get a feel of what people are looking for. But, this is not a vote for or against," he said. "I think it is imperative to get as much information to people at the special town meeting. These questions are very general that you asked."
The survey itself isn't without controversy. The Selectmen faced opposition to conducting a poll and went through multiple drafts before releasing the final version. Sieloff at one point crafted a survey with an introductory letter, which he then proposed contracting with Siena College to review it and take out any bias.
However, Mount Greylock Regional School Committee member Rich Cohen felt the wording of the survey urged voters against the project. He wrote to officials at the college urging them to avoid getting involved in what he believed was an "unethical" survey with flawed methodology.
Sieloff scrapped the introductory letter and Siena's involvement and narrowed the survey down to four questions. That, too, was opposed because it had an introduction sentence to the non-profit question saying Williams College didn't pay property taxes, which is inaccurate. Williams College is Williamstown's largest taxpayer because of a number of properties which are not tax-exempt.
"It stands on its face with the wording. I don't think there is anything in here that is biased," Sieloff said Monday night about the final product.
Cohen has filed a number of ethics and open meeting law complaints with the state over the project, school budgets, and other actions taken by the Board of Selectmen in the last two years.
He may be sending another one as it pertains to the survey results. Cohen says he filed a public records request on Feb. 10 — two days after the surveys were due back to the town — to see the results but was denied on Feb. 22. State law requires public documents to be available within 10 days of a request.
"Paul [Sieloff] said he would not give access until tomorrow at 10 a.m. One of my compatriots said that tomorrow would be after the survey results are released tonight and asked Paul to tell us the results if he wouldn't give access to the surveys. Paul said that the Selectmen want to be able to release the information tonight. Paul said that he would not give access because he does not trust me personally and doesn't have time today to watch me," Cohen wrote in an e-mail Monday morning.
After seeing the results of the survey, Cohen wrote in an email Monday night that he still has concerns over the validity of the results because it was performed by all in-house staff.
"Unfortunately, there are many questions about the validity of this survey and the fairness and openness of the process. It is too bad that the survey was not conducted by an independent third party so that we could have confidence in the results," Cohen wrote.
However, "whether or not the results are valid, we need to redouble our efforts to inform the community about the merits of the building project proposal."
The multiple complaints have gotten under the skin of the Board of Selectmen and on Jan. 6 — right after Cohen's letter to Siena College was made public — Goerlach wrote an email asking Cohen to resign and an email to Mount Greylock School Committee Chairwoman Carrie Greene saying he wouldn't support the project because of Cohen.
"I was unhappy and I asked Rich to resign," Goerlach said.
Two weeks ago, the Berkshire Courier used that email as evidence that Goerlach and Finance Committee member Ray Jones were rallying support against the project "behind the scenes." Goerlach had also shared a partisan website, mgrhsrenovation.org, on his Facebook, including tagging Jones asking him to share it, too. That website is rife with leading statements, inaccurate information, and urges voters to disallow the project.
It is unclear who created the website but the Selectmen all say it wasn't created by them. If the cost of the website was more than $200, then it would need to be reported to the state Office of Political Finance.
Goerlach said he shared it on his Facebook account to provide people with additional information and varying perspectives. He says he isn't against the project and outlined his previous support for projects at the high school. But, he feels this particular project is too expensive and should have been smaller in scope to bring the price tag down.
"This was brought out to make me look bad," Goerlach said.
Greene, however, says there wasn't a way to bring the cost down any further in response to Goerlach asking if the price could have decreased to the $50 million range.
"The MSBA requires that we build a school to fit the education plan. A $50 million school would not have been approved by the MSBA because it would not have fit the educational plan for the school," Greene said. "We have presented the best project for the best price."
Jones said he shared the website, too, saying "I'm not in opposition to anything, I am giving the other side of the story."
Finance Committee member Ray Jones said he shared the website to show different viewpoints about the project.
Others, meanwhile, contend that the Mount Greylock Building Committee has been pulling the wool over residents' eyes. Resident Don Dermeyer said Mount Greylock officials "misled" town officials by telling the Board of Selectmen not to have a town meeting vote.
Greene did tell the Board of Selectmen on Dec. 15 that a town meeting could be held to reject the project if the board wanted to but it wasn't needed to move it forward. It was the Board of Selectmen that opted to have a non-binding town meeting vote. The Mount Greylock School Committee approved the project; the towns are voting on how they want to pay for it.
"I don't believe the whole truth was given to us about how the approval process goes forward," Dermeyer said, questioning whether a town bylaw requiring expenses more than $500,000 receive town meeting approval.
Greene said she asked that exact question of bond counsel, who said the town meeting vote wasn't needed.
"We're trying to bring down the cost by requiring not another special town meeting. We were trying to bring down the cost to hold the vote on March 1," Greene said. "This is not an effort to pull anything over on anyone."
Resident Michelle Johnson said questions of process and cost were all answered by the building committee throughout many meetings that few residents attended. She said the various options with cost estimates were put out for residents to weigh in on, and that she had a number of questions answered throughout the process.
"I feel like there are some stuff being thrown out about the building committee that is unfair," she said.
Goerlach, however, says with such a big decision, the committee should have reached out to the Selectmen to hold larger and more publicized meetings — like the special town meeting with a non-binding vote being held on Tuesday.
Former Selectman Robert Barton had previously been behind a push to dislodge Lanesborough from the Mount Greylock School District. Two of the survey questions focused on the affiliation with Mount Greylock and looking at other high schools and residents responded in favor of looking at other high schools by a slight margin.
However, on Monday, Barton focused his attention on the cost-sharing agreement with Williamstown for capital projects at Mount Greylock. Barton feels voters will ultimately vote down the project but another one would receive approval if tax-exempt properties were calculated into the equalization values. That concept arose after voters in both Williamstown and Lanesborough approved a new agreement to change the apportionment formula from a one-time calculation to a five-year rolling average — a plan that is expected to benefit Lanesborough while adding cost to Williamstown.
It is unlikely Williamstown voters would approve adding tax-exempt properties to that formula because those do not contribute to the tax revenue stream.
Barton says he is starting a petition to ask the Selectmen to do just that. He also wants to expand that to the calculations for the annual operating budget. Further, Barton is asking for the School Committee to sacrifice full control over a gift from Williams College of $5 million to support capital projects outside of the current proposed project and instead require town meeting to approve expenditures from that endowment.
Johnson called it "crazy" to put restrictions on the giver of a gift. Williams set the parameters of the endowment and the town shouldn't be trying to tell the college how to spend its money, she said.
The Mount Greylock Building Committee has been working on the high and middle school project since 2010, when the committee reformed. Last year, the Massachusetts School Building Authority approved its portion of the project. Voters will be asked to approve the bonding through a debt exclusion vote on March 15.
The building committee prepared a summary report outlining the project, which is available below.
Summary Report 2016-02-05 by iBerkshires.com
Tags: MGRHS school project, MSBA,
