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Lanesborough Voters Voice Concerns About $65M School Project

This is a picture of people gathered for a public meeting at Lanesborough Elementary School.
Jim Levulis
/
WAMC
Tuesday's public meeting at Lanesborough Elementary School lasted about 3 and a half hours.

Lanesborough residents are raising concerns about a planned $65 million school building project ahead of votes in Lanesborough and Williamstown. A public meeting on the plans Tuesday night lasted three and a half hours.Members of the Mt. Greylock Regional School Building Committee gave an overview of the proposed renovation of the 1960s-era school at Lanesborough Elementary School. During a similar meeting in Williamstown earlier this month, building committee chair Mark Schiek of Lanesborough described the school’s current state.

“It’s inefficient,” Schiek said. “It’s oversized. Poor heating and ventilation. There’s moisture and indoor air quality problems. There’s no ADA-compliance in the building, really.”

Under the plan, the district would pay between $31 and $35 million with the Massachusetts School Building Authority picking up the rest. The district cost would be split — the town of Lanesborough would pay one-third and Williamstown two-thirds determined by a rolling agreement based on the number of students from each community. The annual tax impact based on the average Lanesborough home valued at $217,000 would be between $353 and $393. In Williamstown that range is $505 to $570 based on the average home valued at $356,000. Kevin Young of Lanesborough spoke against the project’s financial impact, citing a 108 percent average tax bill increase from 2000 to 2010.

“I just don’t want to see another school built that is going to raise my taxes as high as they did in that 10-year period,” said Young.

Of the roughly 900 Lanesborough voters who responded to a survey on the project, 435 urged the town’s three Selectmen to oppose it. 377 said support it. With that, chair John Goerlach and Henry Sayers have voiced their opposition. Lanesborough votes on excluding the project’s debt payments from Proposition 2 ½ on March 15. Williamstown votes March 1. The votes are by simple majority and both communities must give approval for the project to move forward.

Ray Jones, who was in the minority on the Lanesborough Finance Committee’s 3-2 approval of the project, raised concerns about potential tax impacts because of business closures at the Berkshire Mall and elsewhere in town.

“With Best Buy having closed our tax rate is going up,” Jones said. “We are losing $220,000 of actual revenue between Best Buy closing and Macy’s closing. That’s going to add a $1.08 to our tax roll.”

Finance Committee Chair Al Terranova challenged that statement and said it’s not a foregone conclusion tax rates will go up because of those closures. Perri Petricca, a Lanesborough resident and president of major construction employer Unistress, says with the business losses and overall regional population decline, education is essential.

“A young family is going to have their pick of multiple homes in Berkshire County,” Petricca said. “I have to believe that having a great school system is going to not only take care of us and our children, but ensure the future of this community.”

Former Selectman Bob Barton passed out a packet urging people to vote “no” on March 15. He says the district should hold off on the Mt. Greylock project for recommendations from the Berkshire County Education Task Force that is reviewing possible regionalization and other topics regarding the region’s schools. Carrie Greene is a task force member and chairs Mt. Greylock’s school committee. She says she raised the issue of what districts in the midst of an MSBA project should do at a task force meeting.

“And to a person, the response was ‘Keep going, you will never get back in,’” said Greene.

Planning for the Mt. Greylock project started about 10 years ago, finally receiving MSBA approval last month. School leaders warn rejecting the project could ruin the chances for state funding, much like what happened for Monument Mountain Regional High School where in 2014 Great Barrington voters rejected an already reduced $51 million building project. MSBA was willing to cover $23 million.

People at public meetings in Williamstown have not raised as many concerns about the project’s financial impact as those in Lanesborough. The projected annual tax increase is higher in Lanesborough — about $1.60 to $1.80 per $1,000 — because the town has fewer taxable properties than Williamstown. The impact in Williamstown would be about $1.40 to $1.60.

Jim is WAMC’s Associate News Director and hosts WAMC's flagship news programs: Midday Magazine, Northeast Report and Northeast Report Late Edition. Email: jlevulis@wamc.org
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