To the editor:
Having lived in this town for the past dozen years, it has been an eye-opener in terms of the odd manner in which the town has managed or handled its essential services.
I have always been of the mindset that the principal role of town government was to maintain the schools, libraries, roads, and bridges, in conjunction with providing adequate police and fire services.
The focus in Great Barrington has not been to service the majority of taxpayers but rather to finance subsidized housing of various types and to enrich the developers and nonprofits that push for these units.
Of note, the town subsidized the change of Thornewood into a form of worker housing with CPA funds. The developer is apparently now advertising in Stockbridge for these units as they are still on the market. I was quite surprised to see the advert while walking past the Red Lion Inn. So much for our tax dollars at “work.”
The current town manager boasted at the most recent annual Town Meeting that he had managed to avoid spending funds on infrastructure projects.
I find that comment to be problematic as the list of dysfunctional buildings and bridges and roads have reached a critical mass. The Town Hall and libraries are in a significant state of disrepair.
We now have three bridges that need to be replaced. The Division Street Bridge over the Williams River is probably the next bridge to be noted as poor, making a total of four bridges.
The Brookside and Division street bridges were allowed to rot to a point that they were closed by the state. Penny-wise and pound-foolish comes to mind.
While the state and federal governments can defray a portion of the cost of these bridges, it is the town’s responsibility to maintain those structures.
The Brookside Road Bridge is also problematic, and should Eisner Camp have a medical emergency, the detour is significant. There does not appear to be a plan B.
Most galling of all is that the bridge was flagged by the state as “in need of urgent repair” in 2019. Yet the Selectboard and town manager cut infrastructure funding drastically at the last budgetary cycle as well as at previous budgets. You can’t blame the DPW as their budget was slashed.
The high school building is ancient and should have been rebuilt years ago. The lack of any meaningful repairs of this aged building over the years is problematic. If you do not want to build a new high school, then put money into repairing the building on an annual basis. Just like the bridges, the lack of infrastructure investment leads to painful solutions.
It is high time that the taxpayers of Great Barrington choose another path as the current manner of ignoring infrastructure investment as carried out by the Selectboard and its town manager is not sustainable, and we all deserve better.
Jan Wojcik
Great Barrington
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