Petitions are floating around Egremont and the other school district towns to have school committee members elected rather than appointed by the selectboards. Good or bad idea?

It's reported that the Egremont selectmen are in favor of electing school committee members. Their rationale is apparently based on what I'm told happened in Sheffield: Some or all the Sheffield-appointed committee members weren't in favor of backing out of the expense sharing arrangement, so the Sheffield selectboard replaced them with members who were in favor. That eventually led to the big increase in Egremont's share of the school budget.

But would electing school committee members be better? Shouldn't a town's committee members be doing what that town's selectboard wants? What happens if some group with its own particular agenda works hard and gets its own folks elected? That's happened in some midwest school districts that then voted to put creationism in the curriculum.

In New York, the school district is an entity, separate from the towns in the district, that has the power to govern, assess and tax. There it makes sense to have the school board members elected, and consequently beholden to all the voters in the district. But in Massachusetts, the school district isn't separate from its constituent towns, each of which has to separately vote on the school budget. So why shouldn't the school committee members represent their respective towns (and hence their respective selectboards)?

Sounds to me like this petition effort is a knee jerk response to Sheffield's unfortunate (for Egremont) action. Maybe we should all take a longer range look.

And the Egremont selectboard apparently doesn't see the irony in supporting election of school committee members within a year after supporting appointing, rather than electing, the board of assessors. You can get good people and you can get bad people on boards and committees. At least if they're appointed, it's easier to get rid of the bad ones. If you have the guts to do it.

Town meeting and town election are not far off. Who is thinking about running for the selectboard? One of our three current selectmen is a town employee and another is married to a town employee. It would be nice to cut that to one out of three: Since the selctboard generally votes pretty much across-the-board employee raises, I think those two selectmen are conflicted and ought not to vote on raises, leaving only one selectmen to make the decisions. Do you agree?

I had a guy from DirectTV out to look at my problem again. The problem is this: I and everybody else has to move to HD TV this year, and for us poor Egremonters who have to rely on satellites, that means getting a new bigger dish and reorienting it toward the HD satellite. For many Egremonters, that's no big deal. But for those with tree and mountain problems, it is. Seems the old dish could look through at least some tree leaves and other minor obstructions, but the new ones are more sensitive. Worse, the dish needs to look at 5 satellites, not just one, and those satellites are lower on the horizon than the old satellite. So the DirectTV guy stood on my deck and pointed to an area that had to be clear of obstructions for the dish to be able to pick up the signals. It was a pretty big area, a lot bigger than what I need now, and not quite in the same place as the area I use now. So I counted the trees, some of them pretty good sized, that I'm going to have to take down: about six of them.

Other Egremonters must be dealing with this problem. Any info you can add by commenting on this entry would be appreciated by all.

When the town voted to take over the water company that serves the south village, voters were told is wasn't the town that would be the owner but rather an "enterprise fund" that would be separate from the town, so the taxpayers would never have to pay anything, only the users would pay. Sorry, folks, but that was wrong. In Massachusetts, if an "enterprise fund" can't pay for itself, the shortfall must be made up by the town. That's what's been happening for several years now. At the annual town meeting we vote one appropriation for the next year's water company budget, being assured that the users will actually cover that amount, not the taxpayers, but then we separately vote on another appropriation to make up the last year's shortfall.

Apparently the state doesn't like that little subterfuge. The state thinks voters should be told upfront - if it's true as it has been for many years - that the water company is going to cost more than what they're going to charge the users, so that taxpayers know they're subsidizing the users. The state may insist we do that at this year's annual town meeting.

I'm told the water company could pay for itself without taxpayer money if it raised its rates by about 30% to 40%. That kind of increase may sound high, but it's is in line with what people in other towns hereabouts have been facing on their water and sewer bills. Most of us in town have to maintain and pay for our own wells and pumps. Should we have to subsidize the water company users? And should we think about electing water commissioners who have the guts to raise the rates to cover costs, rather than going for that good old money that grows on trees?

When I went to vote yesterday, I was surprised to see a number of names listed under "town committee" on the Democratic ballot. How did they get there? Was this some sort of palace coup?

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.

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?