More on the police budget:

According to research Craig Elliott did several years ago, Egremont spends more per capita on police than all but a few towns in Massachusetts. Do we really need to spend so much? And are we getting value for what we spend? Now our selectboard has "negotiated" a contract with the police union (yes, we have a police union, and there are several people who should be tarred and feathered for that) that I'm hearing will result in a 35% increase in police employee costs. (I've got some tar and feathers left if anyone wants them.)

This has to stop. But there seems to be no one out there willing to propose how, certainly not our selectmen. That probably reflects the fear of being thrown out of office if you so much as whisper that police costs are too high. (That happened several years ago; all three selectmen were dumped for suggesting that we didn't need round the clock coverage.) Rena Orner made a great proposal at a town meeting a couple of years ago: She moved that we cut the police department budget by 5% and let the powers that be figure out how to implement the cuts. Somebody should do that at the May town meeting.

That's probably a bit less draconian than my proposal: Eliminate the police department for one year and see if it results in any increase in crime. If it doesn't, do it for another year, and so on. If there is an increase, you then have a measurement of the benefit and can judge whether that benefit is worth the cost.