Many Egremonters don't know that we have a unionized police department. (Some former Selectboard should be drawn and quartered for that sorry result.) I think the Selectboard just negotiated a new contract with the union, and I can bet it didn't come cheap.

We pay a lot for police protection, and many of us think we're throwing a lot of money away. Hillsdale, Alford and other nearby towns don't have police departments at all; they rely on county or state police or both, and there don't seem to be crime waves in those towns. But we not only have full and part timers, we have 24 hour a day coverage, which runs up the cost. Has anyone thought to ask the chief what she thinks about the 24 hour a day coverage? If she thinks it's unnecessary (or could be replaced with cheaper coverage), why would we continue it?

Do you remember the Planning Board several years ago pushing through repeal of the "back lot" provision of the zoning bylaw? The provision allowed a lot with less than 150 feet of frontage if it was behind a lot that met the frontage requirement and if it met certain other requirements. The PB at first proposed changing the provision (by repealing the old one and then adopting the revised one) to one they touted as making it better but that in reality sneakily gutted it. So the PB first pushed through the repeal and then recommended voting against the new provision, on a promise that they'd come up with a revised one that would be better. They've had two years to come up with the new one. Where is it? Do you sense any mendacity here?

The school situation continues to be a mess. Last year Sheffield rejected the contract that for years had allocated school costs among the five towns. With no contract, the state allocation formula sprang into effect. That resulted in a big decrease in Sheffield's allocation (which is why they rejected the contract, of course) and big increases for Egremont, New Marlborough and Monterey (Alford came out about the same). So last August Egremont voters bit the bullet and authorized an increase of about $120,000 as our increased share of the school budget.

New Marlborough has refused to go along, and their selectboard just voted to sue Sheffield, essentially for breach of contract. My take is that the suit is a loser, but it may put enough pressure on Sheffield that some sort of compromise can be reached.

In the meantime, the Egremont selectboard is getting antsy about why we didn't fight rather than caving in. Since our town counsel has a conflict, the selectboard is seeking approval to hire counsel to assess and watch over the situation. Fair enough so long as the amount isn't great, which it isn't.

But I hope the selectboard doesn't overlook the real problem here: no matter what happens in the school budget mess, Egremont is going to have to pay a lot more in the future as its share of school costs. That, combined with rising fuel and other costs, means we're looking at big tax increases and that we should be looking hard at reducing expenses wherever we can. Now that budget season is upon us, let's hope the selectboard does that and doesn't come up with any new ways to spend our tax money on pet projects of the denizens down at town hall.

Both the Eagle and the Record carried articles recently on the Curnin versus Egremont lawsuit. The articles make it sound like the fight is still on. I beg to differ. The fight's over, but the taxpayers are still being hit with the cost of the Curnins bulldog-like tenacity.



The federal judicial system has three levels of courts. The District Court is the trial level court; the Curnins lost there. The loser can appeal to a court of appeals, in this case the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which basically covers New England; the Curnins lost there too. The loser there can appeal to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court rejects the vast majority of appeals, that is, the Supreme Court just lets the Court of Appeals ruling stand.



The Curnins could try to appeal to the Supreme Court, but that appeal would probably be rejected. So they're trying the only other last ditch course open to them, namely an attempt to get all the judges on the First Circuit to rehear the appeal already decided against them. You see, the Courts of Appeals have lots of judges, but normally only three of them are assigned to decide a particular case. That's what happened in the Curnins case. But it's very difficult to convince the judges that a matter is so important that more than three judges ought to decide it, especially if the judges don't see some pretty serious error in what the three judges did. My money is on the judges rejecting the Curnins attempt to get all the judges to rehear their case. And after that, if I were the lawyer, I certainly wouldn't recommend an appeal to the Supreme Court, because it's very expensive, takes a long time and is very likely to fail.



But all of this fruitless activity takes a lot of time for the town's lawyers, and guess who's paying for them? If you think it's the town's insurance company, you don't understand experience rated insurance. Come on, Curnins, give up.

Local newspapers report that Bill O'Reilly's Fox News team was here in December haranguing the Great Barrington selectboard for calling the Main Street lights "holiday lights" instead of "Christmas lights." If the reports are true, it sounds to me like O'Reilly has gone a bit off the deep end again. I think treating Christmas with political correctness is stupid, and that what many towns have done in that regard is stupid, but I don't see why you can't call street lighting "holiday" lights. They're up there at least through New Year's, right? Comments?

A comment was made on my posting about the North Egremont post office, asking why all this was happening after many years. A combination of two phenomena is causing the problem: First the USPS has been trying to close small post offices for many years, including ours. Craig and friends beat back a pretty serious attempt several years ago by enlisting some political help. Second, Craig has been fighting with the USPS for several years over what they pay him to run the post office. It ain't much, and Craig isn't a charity. So when he really put his foot down last year the USPS got nasty, putting the screws on Craig and all us users. The threats have stopped, at least for now, but the changeover in address remains in effect.



Craig has the store on the market. If he sells the new owner will inherit the problem.