HAWLEY — Special Town Meeting voters unanimously passed a seven-article warrant on Monday that included their approval to join the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership and of the re-assessed budgets for the Hawlemont and Mohawk Trail regional school districts.
The meeting, which took place in the parking lot of the Town Office, saw little discussion, lasting 20 minutes with about 25 voters present.
Out of COVID-19 safety concerns, the Selectboard kept Annual Town Meeting in June brief, postponing any particularly contentious non-essential votes, including the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership membership vote. Although the deadline to join passed in August, a vote was cast at Special Town Meeting in hopes that the partnership might make an exception for Hawley, as deadlines are being pushed back “across the board,” said Selectboard Chair Hussain Hamdan.
Town Moderator Kirby Thwing Jr. described the partnership as an agreement between communities in western Franklin and northern Berkshire counties “to work for the conservation and management of woodlands to improve the economic base of the region through tourism and natural resources, and to help make the towns viable.”
After several arguments were given in its favor, Hawley residents voted to join the partnership, a vote that may end up being symbolic
Thwing emphasized that a membership does not allow the federal or state government to acquire more land, which has been a contentious point in the past as conserved land is a tax loss for towns. He added that a membership does not entail any financial commitment for participating towns or increase taxes.
“A town like Hawley with only 330 people does not have a lot of clout with the state,” Thwing said. “When you have 20 towns working together, the state pays more attention.”
Joining the partnership would allow Hawley access to grants and may allow for a loan fund.
“There’s no guarantee we’ll get any grants, but we certainly won’t if we don’t join,” Thwing said.
For former Selectboard member John Sears, joining the partnership is positive for both environmental and economic reasons.
“I think this is very important, not only to Hawley, but for the whole region,” Sears said. “The forest is a resource, and they’re being burned. Our forest is intact. It provides firewood, lumber, recreation and it stores carbon. I think we should do the most we can to sustain it.”
Having been finalized before the pandemic, both the Hawlemont Regional School District and Mohawk Regional School District budgets were rejected at Annual Town Meeting.
Hawley’s reassessed contribution to the Hawlemont budget is $262,040 — $23,000 less than in the originally proposed budget for fiscal year 2021, but $14,655 more than the approved fiscal year 2020 budget.
The $262,040 contribution represents a 3.5 percent increase to the town’s assessment, despite an overall budget that is $86,253 lower than last fiscal year. The lower budget and higher assessment for fiscal year 2021 reflects losses in outside revenue such as state aid and tuition.
“We ended up losing more revenue than we could cut off the budget,” said Hamdan, mentioning that the loss was due to the “economic fiasco” caused by the pandemic. “We reduced it as much as we possibly could.”
Hawley’s reassessed contribution to the Mohawk Trail Regional School District budget was approved at $184,533, which is $13,711 less than the district’s fiscal year 2020 budget and $331 higher than the district’s previously proposed fiscal year 2021 assessment.
The increase in Hawley’s contribution to the Hawlemont budget and the decrease in its contribution to Mohawk Trail’s budget amounts to a minor financial change for Hawley from last fiscal year, leading to a lower overall assessment toward the two school budgets.
Charlemont, the other town responsible for contributing to Hawlemont’s budget, does not plan to have a school budget article on the warrant for its upcoming Special Town Meeting, a matter that recently raised concern from members of the Hawlemont School Committee.
For those concerned about Charlemont not voting on the school budget, however, Hamdan reassured attendees that “the school is not about to close down. There is going to be a budget, even if they don’t vote.” If Charlemont does not approve a new budget, the school district will seek guidance from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), and will likely have to operate on a one-twelfth budget based on fiscal year 2020’s numbers.
Hawley voters also approved paying a $1,410 short-term borrowing bill from the reclamation and paving of West Hawley Road, and allocated $1,000 toward expenses related to the Tri-Town Landfill.
With the approval of Article 6, $5,000 was transferred from the Fire Equipment Stabilization Fund to cover costs related to radio upgrade installation.
The meeting closed with a moment of silence in honor of recently deceased resident Margaret Eggert.