Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

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?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

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?