Residents of Clarksburg, Massachusetts are meeting tonight for their annual town meeting. The town lies on the northern edge of Berkshire County. The community of around 1,650 sits atop North Adams on the border with Vermont. Voters will consider a $5.4 million municipal budget that includes spending plans for the government and school, plus a $500,000 borrowing plan to install a new roof on the Clarksburg Elementary School. The school hosts the meeting at 6. It will be Ron Boucher’s first town meeting as Clarksburg’s town administrator after taking office in January. Since Boucher moved to Clarksburg almost a decade ago, he’s served as town moderator and sat on the select board, finance committee, and planning board. It’s also Clarksburg’s first town meeting since it formally shuttered its police department last fall. Boucher spoke WAMC.
BOUCHER: Before me coming back here to the town, the select board had moved to close down the police department. They were looking at fiscal savings there. We still have the police chief under a different position. He handles all the FID cards and LTCs and stuff like that. Basic government and all these small towns are the same- We have to do more with less. We have a good crew here, and my job is to find ways to create income for us, and by doing that, in this year's budget, I've added a grant writer. We're going from a part-time assessor to a full-time assessor. We also hired the Berkshire [Public] Health Alliance. It's going to help be a code enforcement for the town on the health end of it all.
WAMC: Now, what do you hope those investments are going to yield for Clarksburg?
I would assume, and I'm pretty confident, that the grant writing position will pay for itself and create more revenue. The assessor- This town has is missed out for the longest time. There's a lot of building that goes on here in the town, and people generally in the past haven't taken building permits out, and stuff goes untaxed. So having a full-time assessor here, I think, will more than pay for itself and create revenues for us, so.
In the months since the closure of the police department, what kind of impact has the have you seen in Clarksburg? Has there been a discernible effect of that?
Well, so, we've gone ahead – with the credit of the select board – is we've hired the Mass State Police. They do a couple of blocks a week for us, and they're out there patrolling four or five hours at a time. And overall, we really haven't had any real issues. You have little things that happen, but other than that, there's nothing that stands out.
So as far as that original decision being, this is going to be a prudent financial choice for the community- Do you think so far that's been borne out, or have you seen anything that would challenge that?
No, no, not really. I think in the long run, a lot of these small towns down the road are going to have to look at regionalization with other communities. We got a little head start on it, but so far, it's working. It's working fine. I haven't had any abnormal complaints or any or any serious issues. The Mass State Police have been very, very good on everything.
Now, one of the biggest items on the warrant concerns a roof. Tell us about this- What is the roof in question? And what are you asking of the community at that meeting concerning this roof?
Okay, so we're going back to the Clarksburg Elementary School. We all know the history on that school- We had a new school vote back eight years ago – seven, eight years ago – which failed by one vote. But right now, we have a situation where the school roof is leaking and it is a town building. It's our responsibility to keep the children and the teachers safe in that building. So, I'm asking the town to do a debt exclusion borrowing for five years for $500,000. We also have $113,000 set aside last year for the roof stabilization account. So, between the $500,000 and the $113,000, it gives us around $600,000. We had a bid come in at $399,000, which is great, and the extra money will be there, just in case, for unseen surprises as they start construction, which they'll do towards the end of July.
Now, in the best-case scenario, if voters sign off on this, what's the timeline following construction starting, hopefully, as soon as possible?
Yeah, it'll start late July and it'll be done by the end of August. So, it won't affect the school year.
Is there anything else you want to draw attention to on the warrant? I know from attending many town meetings around the Berkshires this year, we've seen a lot of costs go up for municipalities- Are you seeing anything like that in Clarksburg this year?
It's a pretty simple warrant. It's only 13 articles on there. The only other one that'll bring some attention is the junk vehicles, unregistered and junk vehicles. I've made some changes to those. Again, now we'll have this enforcement agency in place starting July 1st that'll keep everybody on the level. Because not only in our community, but I see in a lot of other communities, that you get a lot of vehicles that are unregistered parts are taken off, they're laying there in their yards, they're in the site of the neighborhoods- My job here is to help get that under control, and hopefully we'll get the response from the from the public to help us along with that. And if not, then that we have the mechanism in place to enforce it, so.
Anything about this I've not thought to ask you that you want to make sure folks understand?
It's a pretty lean budget we put forth, and like I said, I put a couple of mechanisms in there to drive revenue for us. As you know, 54% of our available land is owned by the state. The state recently had meetings where they want to change that [Payment In Lieu Of Taxes] program, because we have, I believe it’s 4,100 acres of land, and we only get $30,000 a year under the PILOT program, which is a huge injustice for the small towns.
