Editorial

Ideals and Goals

Was Stockbridge as ideal as some claim?

Maybe — for two hundred eighty-three years the village planned and self-governed in a way that made it a most desirable village today — judging by house and land prices.

It resulted in a prescription for living that was — actually — loveable; and created something about Stockbridge that made those who came want to stay. That’s why we now have 60% second homeowners.

Good planning is based on good values, and Stockbridge had a simple recipe for good planning: we did not overbuild; we left air and space and greenery. We valued our history. We knew about those who came before and were looking out for those who would come after.

Stockbridge had a simple recipe for good living too: common decency, unerring politeness, and an understanding that maintaining the relationship was more important than winning an argument. The underpinning of it all was: every human being deserved dignified response. That is why we never honked at people or sued people, shook our fist at people, or saw our neighbors as enemy combatants

The permanent population was always small. The fewer people, the more any one person was valued. Contrary to what you’ve heard or read, Stockbridge was never rich — Stockbridge just attracted the rich. They liked to have the best of everything, and Stockbridge sure was the very best of something. They came to be with us because of the smallness, simplicity, and niceness.

Newcomers always mistakenly believed we wanted them to come and were better off for their coming. We let them believe it. Many cannot imagine a people for whom money is not the highest goal.

If you come to live in our midst, don’t be too quick to know what’s best for Stockbridge. Sit awhile. Get to know us and learn our ways. Our values stood us in good stead for a very long time. Don’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg. No need to push and shove and end by looking over your shoulder with regret for what was lost.

You see it doesn’t matter if Stockbridge was ideal if an ideal informed Stockbridge’s decisions and shaped Stockbridge’s goals.

Happy New Year! Let us resolve to listen as much as we talk, preserve decency as well as beauty, and leave room enough to stretch our thoughts and change our minds.

by Carole Owens , Managing Editor

News

Holiday Events

Holiday events continue through the first week in January at Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge Library, and Naumkeag; however, Winterlights is sold out.

News

Notes from the Housing Trust, December 15, Hybrid meeting

Present:

• Jay Bikofsky, Chair
• Tom Sharpe
• Mark Mills
• Nancy Socha
• Patrick White, Select Board
• Michael Canales, Town Administrator

1. Minutes from the last meeting approved as written.
2. Chair: opened discussion, what can a housing trust do?
   1. Financial support for affordable housing built by private developer
   2. Rehabilitation and repair of houses that could be converted to affordable housing (e.g., tax delinquent and/or deteriorating)
   3. Develop surplus land
   4. Grants to first-time home buyers for down payment (generally repaid when sold)
   5. Obstacles: real estate market in Stockbridge very high priced
3. Canales said the median priced house is $489,000 — about double the cost of houses in other parts of the county.
4. White said there was a “sweet spot”; Habitat for Humanity can build houses for about $250,000 and then the Trust can help first-time home buyers to purchase them.
5. There was a suggestion to expand Pine Woods (an affordable housing development) –White said a change in federal policy requires such a development have 50 units to qualify for maintenance funding and Pine Woods has 32 units. White mentioned Pine Woods was surrounded by wetlands.
6. Chair proposed that the committee invite representatives from the Bridge Street development in Great Barrington and the proposed Brushwood Development in Lenox to discuss obstacles and successes in affordable housing projects.
7. Mills asked how many properties were available (unpaid taxes or deterioration) that Town could take over and develop. Canales answered — right now only Sammy’s garage on Rte. 7 — “not much in residential areas”.
8. Mills feared no one wanted to build low-cost housing in this market. White again mentioned partnership with Habitat for Humanity and how they keep costs down with donated labor as well as donated and recycled materials
9. Socha and Mills agreed 4-acre zoning may be a problem in developing lower cost housing.
10. Canales said Stockbridge has the required 10% low-cost housing and so there is no mandate to develop more
11. Chair suggested plan:
    1. Step one — identify possible building sites
    2. Step two — identify tax lien properties (“in tax title”)
    3. Step three — consider possible bylaw to reduce acreage requirement to build lower cost housing
    4. Invite someone from Lenox to speak to committee about their experience
    5. Have a warrant item ready by April for May Town Meeting to set up the Housing Trust

Meeting adjourned

News

Notes from the Select Board, Public Hearing December 16, Hybrid meeting

Present:

• Roxanne McCaffrey, Chair
• Chuck Cardillo
• Patrick White

Also present: Michael Canales, Town Administrator; Brian Cruey, Director, Naumkeag; Matt Larkin, President, Board of Directors, Berkshire Botanical Garden (BBG); Dana Audia, Special Events, BBG; Acting Exec. Dir. BBG, and numerous attendees in person and via Zoom — some estimated as many as 70 attended.

1. Chair opened the Public Hearing. Although all other entertainment licenses were granted at the regular Select Board meeting earlier in December, Naumkeag and BBG were singled out for a Public Hearing apparently due to a number of citizen complaints
2. The Chair changed the order and heard the BBG license application first.
   1. Larkin spoke on behalf of BBG as did Audia. They stressed that BBG has had weddings for many years — last year there were twelve.
   2. With respect to Music Mondays, they work with neighbors to address complaints. Audia said she was always available — offered her cell number — and would ask band to turn down volume if anyone complained.
   3. A neighbor present (could not see name) said his relationship with BBG was “always collegial — peaceful coexisting.”
3. Chair called for a motion to close the Public Hearing. Motion passed and Chair said, “the evidentiary portion” is now closed. Then the Chair said, “right now I am going to make one comment not as a Selectman but as an abutter… I am surprised no hard rock as [the music was] so loud.”
   1. White reminded Chair that the Public Hearing was closed.
   2. McCaffrey continued as an abutter giving evidence that she knows it is “an issue here…disruptive to neighbors…due to amplification.”
4. Chair called for motion to condition any approval
   1. Cardillo suggested all weddings be indoors and outdoor events (such as Music Monday) not be amplified
   2. Patrick said in the “new normal” there could be more outdoor events but that “encroachment and expansion were reasonable concerns” therefore limit number of events and then leave design of events to the nonprofit.
   3. Chair prevented Audia from speaking as “Public Hearing closed…no more public comment”
   4. McCaffrey suggested “clear problem is amplification”
   5. White repeated he did not want to micro-manage
   6. McCaffrey iterated that “I have heard…the problem is overwhelmingly Music Mondays”
   7. Final motion: Entertainment license conditional on no amplified music outdoors
   8. Interim Executive Director asked, “will this be applied equally?” Chair responded, “I am going to stop you right there. There can be variations based on specifics of properties, and she added, although they are all in residential neighborhoods”.
   9. Condition on license passed 2-1; White voted “no” explaining without amplification SB “has effectively eliminated Music Monday”.
   10. Entertainment license passed 3-0.
5. Naumkeag
   1. Chair said she sees it as one household only complaining about music. She asked Cruey if no amplification would harm music — he said yes
   2. Cruey said essentially all music is amplified, singers must be amplified, and outdoor summer music must be amplified.
   3. Chair asked how many events Naumkeag has per year Cruey said 10 as follows: 6 Thursday night music, 3 tea parties in Chinese garden, and the 1 Naumkeag party plus The Incredible Naumkeag Pumpkin Show and Winter lights.
   4. The complaints about traffic were mentioned but Chair explained Rte. 102 was a major road and traffic not unreasonable
   5. White asked that number of events be limited to “not overstress” community and again said no amplification shuts down an entire class of events
6. The SB approved 15 events per year with amplified music (counting the 60+days/nights of Pumpkin Show and Winterlights as one each). Condition passed 2-1. White voted “no”. Entertainment license passed 3-0.

Other matters postponed — Meeting adjourned

Editor’s question: As a self-identified abutter, should McCaffrey have recused herself from deliberation and vote on BBG license?

Editor’s comment: Both Naumkeag and BBG are on Rte. 102

News

Notes from the Tri-Town Health Department, December 15, Hybrid meeting

Present:

• Charles Kenny, Chair
• Hank Schwerner
• Rae Williams
• Jim Wilusz, Executive Director
• Colleen Henry, Lee Chamber of Commerce
• Roxanne McCaffrey, Stockbridge Select Board
• Marybeth Mitts, Lenox Select Board
• and others

1. Minutes approved as written
2. Wilusz presented proposed budget for Tri-town Health fiscal 2023
   1. Amount will be paid on a percentage reflecting use as follows: Lenox 43%, Lee 33%, and Stockbridge 24%
   2. The proposed budget is “level funding” except for cost-of-living raises
   3. Maintenance budget possible due to outside resources. New sources of funding are from American Rescue Plan (ARPA) and grants including. $4.1 million awarded to “equalize health care countywide”
   4. Equalizing health care includes comprehensive nursing, vaccinations and other services to ten towns: Alford, Great Barrington, Monterey, Mt Washington, New Marlborough, Otis, Sheffield, Lee, Lenox and Stockbridge.
   5. Budget passed unanimously
3. COVID 19 update
   1. Those vaccinated who are 61 years and older: over 79%; those vaccinated who are 31 — 60 years old 75-9%; 21-30 years old 57%
   2. Number of cases in County are up
   3. In 2021, 992 cases — Lee 512; Lenox 378; Stockbridge 102
4. Dr Charles Wohl made a presentation urging the Board of Health to mandate showing proof of vaccination to enter a restaurant in Lee, Lenox, and Stockbridge
   1. He said larger cities, for example New York City, require proof of vaccination to eat in a restaurant
   2. People are usually close together and unmasked in a restaurant
   3. He feels the restaurant setting is a potential spreader unless folks are vaccinated
5. Select Board Chair Roxanne McCaffrey spoke against the requirement because she felt it was unenforceable and would burden restaurants
6. Colleen Henry, Executive Director Lee Chamber of Commerce said it was a “huge burden” for restaurants and would hurt business
7. Select Board member from Lenox was against the mandate as restaurants would “lose business”.
8. Chair said the issue of requiring proof of vaccination at restaurants would be discussed and decided at a future meeting. Wilusz said he would get word out so public could be present and weigh in

Meeting adjourned

Opinion

Bowl Games

This year, Updates Editor Carole Owens wrote a spirited editorial about management issues related to our lake, the Stockbridge Bowl, which is owned by the state and belongs to us all. Soon after, Selectboard member Roxanne McCaffrey and Stockbridge Bowl Association (SBA) President Pat Kennelly responded in the Berkshire Eagle, assuring us all that the town and the SBA got along fine and were working well together, contrary to what Owens had suggested.

Now, thanks to a concerned resident’s Freedom of Information request, we have a copy of a letter (click here) sent to the State Department of Environmental Protection from the SBA’s lawyer shortly after the McCaffery/Kennelly press release. I’m not a lawyer, but here is what I read. The SBA, a private non-profit agency, asked for a private meeting directly with the state DEP regarding their plans to treat weeds in the lake with chemicals. It references two prior lawsuits the SBA filed against the town, which the SBA won. And it seems to indicate that the town is not included in the project and need only be notified so as not to interfere.

Assuming I have this right, it looks like the SBA and the town have not been working well together, and may barely be working together at all, despite the existence of a town-appointed advisory Stewardship Commission for the lake. And, a previously longstanding practice of having the town and the state governments manage this public property together, not SBA, a private nonprofit.

Not only did Updates get this story right, but the McCaffrey/Kennelly press release was misleading. It makes no mention of what was clearly already happening. The SBA is managing the lake via legal actions.

I understand that a judge decided that the SBA lawyers were the winners here. Still, we did not elect the SBA, a private nonprofit, to represent us. Their tax filings are public information, if you want to know more about them. You may also want to know more from some town officials on this matter. What happened to the state/town partnership to maintain our lake?

Town officials need to be transparent in real time about such matters. I cannot help feeling disenfranchised here. After 50 years of enjoying and supporting the Bowl, I am saddened to feel like it is passing into private hands.

by Bruce Blair

The Last Word

Reader to Reader

Dear Carole,

Thanks for continuing to keep us up to date!! Wishing you a happy and HEALTHY 2022.

Marion Adler

Dear Marion,

So nice to hear from you. All the best in 2022.

Carole

Dear Carole –

Many thanks for sharing the happy Yuletide news about the Larrywaug Bridge! Stockbridge now has its own Christmas miracle about which to be very thankful!!!

I’ve also enclosed a “seasonal” photo for possible use in your upcoming Stockbridge Updates.

Very best wishes from Marilyn and me.

Nathan

Dear Nathan and Marilyn,

Nice photograph, thank you, and all the best in the new year.

Carole

Dear Carole,

Sweet news flash. [Larrywaug Bridge opens]. May all your news be good, I love it!

Anita Schwerner

Dear Anita,

All the best to you and Hank in the new year,

Carole

Dear Carole,

Wonderful news [Larrywaug Bridge opens]! Thanks to the hard-working crews.

All of us at Norman Rockwell Museum are elated by this good news.

Warmest holiday wishes to everyone.

Best,

Laurie Norton Moffatt

Dear Laurie,

The best in 2022 to you and your talented and dedicated staff at NRM.

Carole

Ms. Owens –

Thank you for your insight and historical reporting throughout the year. [Article about Norman Rockwell appended].

Best,

Tim O’Brien

Dear Tim,

Thank you for the kind words.

Carole

Perspective

Bonus: Photos!

It’s a short issue and we received so many. Thanks to all of our contributors.