The major financial decisions ahead of fiscal year 2026 beginning on July 1st concern a $10.6 million operating budget for town hall – up over 6% from the current year – and an almost $15 million Mount Greylock Regional School District budget, up over 7.5%.
“Similar to almost all communities, one of the biggest drivers that we're seeing in terms of cost pressures is related to our employee health insurance coverage," Town Manager Robert Menicocci told WAMC. “Most communities are seeing pretty robust increases in the 15% to 20% range or so, and that's true for us, and that's one of our one of our biggest drivers in our budget. There's not too much in the way of excitement to talk about in terms of great new things we're going to do and expanding services, things like that. The increase that we see in the budget over the kind of 5% range is all due to cost pressures of things like inflation, just cost of living increases for staff through our collective bargaining increases and such.”
Among the 32 warrant articles, voters will consider a zoning amendment from the planning board to put a 90-day cap on most short-term rentals.
“What this really is is a first step at trying to find ways to manage and put some rules in place so that we can allow for short-term rentals, but also not create the kind of pressures where investors can come in and be basically kind of absentee, and remove that potential housing stock from first-time buyers, things of that nature, as well as pulling housing stock out of the rental piece,” explained Menicocci.
Another planning board proposal involves regulation of geothermal wells in Williamstown.
“That was brought to our attention by the head of our DPW, with some concern over if we put geothermal wells near our aquifer that provides the water for the town, that there could be contamination entering the recharge area," said Select board member Stephanie Boyd. "So, we're limiting the fluid that be used in the geothermal piping to water, not to like an antifreeze type of material.”
Both plans come to town meeting with the unanimous support of the select and planning boards.
A plan to invest $32,000 in a new skatepark for Williamstown has the full backing of the Community Preservation Committee, but without that of the finance committee – which voted 7-2 against it – and a 2-2 deadlocked select board.
“Currently, Williamstown has a rather worn out and somewhat dangerous old skatepark that a group of people are working toward renovating that and making it into a really nice new facility that I think would also be attractive to teenagers," said Boyd. "It’s located near our affordable housing project on Cole Avenue, and we don't really have a lot of recreational facilities for teens in Williamstown, and particularly places where they can go on their own and not have to participate in a soccer team and organized activities.”
Boyd says she’s keeping an eye on internal municipal tensions over Community Preservation Committee projects heading into town meeting.
“This year, the Finance Committee voted against a number of projects- Well, in fact, on all of them, four members of the Finance Committee voted no because they think that we should be looking at a different process for allocating the money, and then a few other members joined in," she explained to WAMC. "So, we have some CPC projects that have not as many votes as I'd personally like to see.”
Three citizens petitions are on the warrant. One plainly states Williamstown’s support for transgender and gender-diverse people in the face of rising national prejudice and changes to federal policy restricting rights for trans people. Another would formally reject President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown by reaffirming that Williamstown’s police department will protect the due process rights of community members regardless of documentation status and establishing other guidelines.
Select board member Randall Fippinger says the third one – a proposed ban on smoking or vaping tobacco products in some privately owned housing units – is likely to spur the most debate.
“The most interesting one will be about the smoking in multifamily units of larger than four units," he told WAMC. "The citizen brings up a very interesting and reasonable request to not to want to have secondhand smoke leak through the walls. But I think there's going to be a lot of discussion about personal property rights, which is also a very valid conversation.”
After community outcry, the Hoosac Water Quality District that serves both Williamstown and North Adams has backed off of a controversial plan to use the local plant to process sludge from other communities into fertilizer. As a result, Williamstown’s roughly $1 million share of the district’s annual budget as printed on the town meeting warrant is likely to increase by around $200,000 per Town Manager Menicooci.
Williamstown’s annual town meeting is set to kick off at 7 inside the Mount Greylock Regional School Gymnasium.
