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?