You all know that by some time in 2009 all TV receivers will have to be "high definition" ones, the pictures that look a lot better than the TV pictures we get now. For those of us in Egremont, that's going to be a problem.

We don't have cable in Egremont, so most of us use a satellite service, either DirectTV or Dish. Because it's hilly and there are lots of trees, getting a satellite dish to point at the satellite is often a problem. It's going to get worse.

I bought new HD TVs recently, because I knew I had to by 2009 and becasue DirectTV already transmits a lot of shows in HD. But when DirectTV came out to put in the boxes, etc., they said I couldn't get the service. Seems your dish needs to look at THREE satellites to get HD, and two of them are a lot lower on the horizon than the one my dish looks at now, so the combination of hills and trees will block me out. I then called Dish, and they came out and said they use the same three satellites, so I was out of luck with them too.

So I think I'll have to put up a tall pole of some sort, and that may get expensive because the dish you use for HD is a lot bigger than the one you use for regular TV, and therefore requires all kinds of guy wires and stuff to protect from wind, etc.

It may make sense for neighbors to get together and share the cost of a common pole. Is that doable? If you know anything about this whole HD problem, please enter a comment so we can all get educated.

Several Egremonters established the French Park Fund in 2002, a charitable organization whose sole purpose is to maintain and improve French Park. The Fund arranged and paid for the horse ring enlargement, the resurfacing of the tennis courts and an updating of the master plan for the park.

Now the Fund is undertaking its most expensive project, a complete replacement and upgrade of the children's playground equipment. Cost is estimated at $90,000. So here's my offer:

Send your tax-deductible check, made out to "The French Park Fund, Inc.", to me at 223 Egremont Plain Road, PMB 108, North Egremont, MA 01252, and I'll match dollar-for-dollar all contributions received by me by December 31, 2007.

Merry Christmas!

You may remember that Tom and Miriam Curnin, part time residents with a house on Shun Toll Road, sued the town last year because they were denied the right to speak at town meetings. Pursuant to a long standing practice in Egremont, nonresidents are allowed to attend, but not to speak, at town meetings, a practice followed by most towns in Massachusetts.



The suit was in federal court and was based on constitutional grounds. The Curnins lost in the federal district court and the circuit court of appeals has just affirmed that ruling. While the Curnins' lawyers are talking about pursuing the lawsuit in some other way, it's difficult to see any realistic way they could do that.



When it was first brought, I told the selectmen and lots of other people that the suit was a loser. And my problem with it was not that I was opposed to letting nonresidents speak, but that I knew it would cost the town's taxpayers a bunch of money to fight and win it. (It has been reported to me that one of the selectmen said it wouldn't cost the town much because our insurance would cover the cost. That selectman apparently doesn't understand what "experience rated" insurance is: the insurance company pays for it now and the town pays for it later through increased insurance premiums.)



I like the Curnins. They're nice people. So last year I told Tom Curnin I'd work with him to get the policy changed if he'd drop the lawsuit. He refused. Keep that in mind if there's an effort to change the policy now. My grandmother used to say "live by the sword, die by the sword."

I just added up the number of governmental positions listed in the new 2007 town annual report. There are 185 of them, in a town with roughly 900 registered voters. Do we really need that much government in Egremont?

When I mentioned this to a member of one of the town boards a few days ago, she responded that it was nice that so many people volunteered for town positions. Therein lies a big part of the problem. Volunteers are great for charities, churches, etc. But those organizations don't have the legal power to, e.g., tax you, enact rules and regulations, levy fines against you, and in other ways tell you what to do or not do. When boards are populated by whoever volunteers, which is the case with most boards in Egremont, you know what you're going to get: a bunch of people with inadequate expertise and too many ideas about what should be implemented and imposed, ideas that are all too often unproven or worse.

And the problem is made worse by the lack of oversight of the boards by the Selectboard. Not only do our Selectmen fail to ferret out qualified people for the boards (it's so much easier just to advertise the positions and choose whoever walks in the door), but also they pretty much let the boards do whatever they choose. Do you remember any recent instances where the Selectboard criticizes a board member, let alone where one has been replaced?

The minutes of a Selectmen's meeting about a month ago mentioned that Verizon had approached the town about installing some cell phone equipment in or near the south village. But our wonderful zoning bylaw doesn't permit that. The businesses in the south village need cell phone service. And we all need it for safety reasons. Even those staunch preservationists in the Adirondacks have okayed cell towers, in part in response to a death of a motorist on the Northway last winter. So what should be done? How do we convince the rocking chair contingent to let Egremont come into the 21st century? Click on "comments" below and make your voice heard.

The last issue of the Egremont Newsletter scared some people. I got two calls from Egremonters asking if they were going to go to jail because they'd done something on property they "owned" without filing papers with the Conservation Commission. (In its writeup, the ConCom put quotation marks around "owned", which tells you something right there.) I told them the law and regulations are so broad that almost anything you do within 100 feet (sometimes 200 feet) of a puddle (let alone a real wetland or stream), or a plant that's on the DER's very long "water plant" list, theoretically subjects you to the jurisdiction of the local ConCom. The scope of the law and regs is so broad that there once was, and I think may still be, an exception for mowing your lawn, i.e., without the exception, mowing your lawn would have been covered and required you to file papers.

So what do most people do? They ignore the law and do the work on the sly. Can you blame them? No matter how small the job and no matter how infinitesimal the effect, theoretically you have to file papers and pay a fee and wait until you get a response.

This is a classic case where overregulation, no matter how well-intentioned, has the opposite effect of its purpose. Ignoring the law has become so common that it's often ignored when it shouldn't be. There are some real wetlands in Egremont that really should be protected, but the fear of overzealous regulation keeps people from complying.

And the broad scope of the regulation just provides a way for one neighbor who doesn't like what his neighbor is doing to stop or delay what may be a harmless activity. (My grandmother taught me about minding my own business.) A member of Egremont's ConCom once told me that what the ConCom did was basically to oversee disputes between neighbors over puddles.

So what do you think should be done about this?

Here's the latest on the North Egremont post office: The USPS folks in Great Barrington called Craig Elliott last week and said they were not going to close him down after all (at least not now). That may have resulted from one or two politically connected Egremonters getting the ear of Senator Kennedy. (Earlier attempts to enlist the aid of Congressman Olver fell on his deaf ears. Let's get rid of this bozo.) But if you have a box at Craig's place, you still have to change your address to "223 Egremont Plain Road, PMB xxx". The Great Barrington post office reportedly is starting to bounce mail addressed to "Box xxx", so why take a chance?

If you do that address change on the Internet, you'll find many web sites bounce your attempt if you don't list the new address their way (which they often get from the USPS). I've found they often want "Road" abbreviated to "Rd" and they insist on "PMB" being "Pmb". Since I think they get those required changes from the USPS, they ought to be okay.

One last thing: The USPS says they won't reinstall the mailbox on the outside of the building, so you still won't be able to drop off mail outside store hours.

Once the locomotive starts down the track, stopping it isn't so easy. The town hall denizens are in the process of letting a contract to an architect to design the new library, even though it hasn't been approved by the voters.

A new library is going to cost what, $500,000? $1,000,000? There's no such thing as a cheap public building, especially given all the requirements (such as handicapped accesibility) that apply. My guess is that Egremont voters are never going to approve funding for a new library, especially since any library you build today is going to be obsolete in a few years.

If voters will never approve it, why are we spending money on designing it? Wouldn't it make sense to cut off the spending now? If you agree, or if you disagree, post a comment to this posting. I might be right or I might be wrong about voter sentiment on this issue, but wouldn't it be nice for the Selectmen to know one way or the other?