BUCKLAND — By a mere two-vote margin, special town meeting voters Monday approved a Mohawk Trail Regional District agreement change that would allow Rowe to rejoin the district.
They also agreed to a regional agreement amendment that includes preschool costs into Mohawk’s town assessment formula, while cleaning up obsolescent language left over from 1994, when Mohawk went from a secondary education district to a K-12 district.
Those who spoke against Rowe’s joining the district said they didn’t oppose Rowe’s joining the district after Mohawk gets permission to make regional agreement changes with a two-thirds majority vote of its member towns; but since Heath’s annual town meeting voters turned down that proposed change, some Buckland residents didn’t want to add a ninth voting town to the district, because regional agreement changes required a unanimous vote.
Buckland school board member Martha Thurber said an equity issue is at stake, since Rowe has tuitioned its students to Mohawk since 1984 without a vote on the school committee, and while contributing at least $400,000 above what was required to the school district, by donations to pay for language arts teachers, technology and late-afternoon school buses.
Selectmen’s Chairman Rob Riggan, a former 30-year-Rowe resident, pointed out that Rowe is still much wealthier than other Mohawk towns, because of taxes coming from the Bear Swamp hydroelectric facility, and “looks at things from a different financial perspective.”
In the end, residents voted 11-9 in favor of adopting regional agreement changes allowing Rowe, a founding member in 1967, to rejoin the district as a Grade 8 through 12 member town.
Currently every Mohawk town that has voted on the Rowe article has voted in favor of asking Rowe to rejoin the district. Heath passed over the article at its annual town meeting and is to address it at a special town meeting. Ashfield, Shelburne, Plainfield, Hawley and now Buckland have voted in favor of it. The article will be taken up at a special town meeting in Colrain and at Charlemont’s annual town meeting on May 24. Rowe may vote on it at a special town meeting, if all the Mohawk towns approve the measure.
The Mohawk article that adds the cost of preschool to the assessment formula was approved by a 16-4 vote.