Sherri Wilson ran unopposed for library trustee, as did Joe Trybus for Planning Board. Around 450 or 18% of Lanesborough’s registered voters turned out for the vote.
Finance committee chair Jodi-Lee Szczepaniak-Locke defeated challenger Kristen Tool for a three-year term, and first-term select board member Michael Murphy won a three-way race for another three-year term against Barbara Hassan and Deborah Maynard.
Murphy spoke with WAMC on Thursday:
MURPHY: The main one, at least for me, personally has to do with trying to build a permanent home for our police station. We've had a couple of previous attempts that just have not succeeded. The most recent one even looked at the opportunity to incorporate EMS, our Lanesborough ambulance squad, into a potential new building that was met with mixed reviews from some in town. I certainly supported it. This time around, we're going to look at a couple of different options. We put together a new committee of residents. So, new police station, with or without an EMS component to it. Taxes, taxes, taxes, right? It’s a challenge. We have a senior population that continues to grow. More and more seniors, many on fixed incomes, so we're trying to be sensitive to the demands placed on them by, even when the tax rate goes down, their home valuations go up. So either a wash or it still results in an increase in taxes every year. Trying to look for creative and different ways to do that, whether that's bringing in more business, maybe looking at some things that we haven't looked at closely yet, short term rentals, some sort of policy that includes some small tax on those, which more and more communities are doing. Along with trying to keep up with just general services to the community, programming for seniors, for youth, for families in general. Just trying to make Lanesborough the attractive place to live that it's always been.
WAMC: looking at Lanesborough right now, what is the financial stability of the community? How are things going on the money side of things for Lanesborough?
Well, you know, I think in some ways, no different than for anyone else, whether you're talking individuals or entities, right? We're paying our bills, we're providing our services. But, you know, as things increase, whether you're talking utilities, insurances, staffing, unions, big priority and big challenges. School budgets, which are 60 to 65% of the town's budget, has to do with the schools. And just trying to look at ways to work with school committees, for example, work with the schools to keep costs as low as possible, to sometimes reduce or eliminate services if it comes to that. These are challenging times for everybody.
Any message to the broader Lanesborough community after your reelection success this week?
I think one of the foundations of my first three years that I will continue is to be as responsive as I can to the needs of our community. I'm available, I'm accessible by phone, by email, in person. I want to hear from anybody on any side of any issue. Too much gets done on social media. Not that that's not, doesn't have a role and a place for people to publicly discuss and debate some of their issues and concerns. But it just feels sometimes that too many- That's the only place they do that. And I don't do that very often. I would much rather hear from anyone on any side of the issue so that we can respectfully discuss our positions and see where we agree, see where we disagree.
