BUCKLAND — Voters in this year’s town election will be asked to weigh in on three ballot questions, including a $151,262 override to fund the fiscal year 2024 operating budget, as well as new candidates for Selectboard, School Committee and town clerk.
The election will be held Tuesday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the second floor of Buckland Town Hall.
After the Finance Committee crafted the budget of $5.67 million, which represents a 7.9% increase over the current year’s figures, the committee found the number to be $151,262 over the legal limit, necessitating an override. Members cited a rise in the cost of students attending Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School; the Department of Public Works budget, which includes a new hire; general government costs like building maintenance and cybersecurity; and the planned switch to shared policing as drivers of the increase.
“As new growth continued to be modest and proposed increases in vitally needed state aid to rural towns like Buckland have not happened, Buckland can no longer hold the line,” a statement from the Selectboard reads. “Increased costs and relatively flat growth in revenues over the past several years has meant limiting Buckland’s investments in personnel and infrastructure.”
The $151,262 override was already approved at Annual Town Meeting in May.
The other two questions on the ballot will ask voters if the elected positions of tree warden and constable should be changed to appointed ones.
There are no contested races in this year’s election, although there are several new candidates running unopposed for empty seats.
Joan Livingston has thrown her hat in the ring to replace Barry Del Castilho on the Selectboard for a three-year term.
Livingston spent much of her career as a journalist with the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where she started as the Worthington correspondent before becoming a full-time reporter, columnist and then editor. She also worked at The Taos News in New Mexico for 10 years, nearly all of them as editor-in-chief, before moving back to the Pioneer Valley.
She and her husband, Hank, settled in Buckland in 2017, after which she applied for a job at the Greenfield Recorder. She ultimately retired as editor-in-chief of the Recorder, the Athol Daily News and the Daily Hampshire Gazette in early 2022.
Livingston feels that working at newspapers has given her a unique insight regarding how town government functions, and that being immersed in the community through journalism will give her the knowledge she needs to do the job on the Selectboard effectively.
“I felt I was doing a service to the area to provide information as a reporter,” she said. “Now I can provide service this time by serving on the Selectboard.”
Funding necessary town services with a limited tax base, she noted, was the largest issue she saw while working at the newspaper and it continues to be the biggest struggle for towns, including Buckland, today.
Livingston said she hopes to learn the ropes on the Selectboard quickly if she is elected, and work as a team to address residents’ concerns.
“I would be honored to serve the town of Buckland,” Livingston said. “I have the knowledge and the time to do the work.”
The town clerk position will also change hands, with Karen Blom not seeking reelection. Blom served the town for 2½ years after taking over for longtime Town Clerk Janice Purington. Alicia Graves, 43, is running unopposed to fill the position.
Graves explained that although she has a background in culinary arts, she feels she is fit for the job because of the administrative roles she took on in the kitchen.
“It is a similar skill set but a different type of work,” she said.
Graves said she left her job to take care of her young child, and she thinks taking on the town clerk position would be a good way for her to reenter the workforce. She has already begun training for the role, and helped out in the election last year to learn the ropes.
David Henry, if elected, will serve as the new Buckland representative on the Mohawk Trail Regional School District Committee. He is running unopposed.
Having two sons who went through the Mohawk Trail school system, Henry said he decided to run for School Committee after receiving a request-for-volunteers email from Blom as a way to give back to the school community.
“I feel indebted,” he said.
Henry, 65, has a background in teaching, which he feels will help him know the language and landscape he will be dealing with on the committee.
“I can talk the talk,” he said.
He taught in the Peace Corps after graduating college, and later worked at The Literacy Project in Greenfield in the 1980s and ’90s. Henry also worked at Channing Bete Co. in South Deerfield as a publisher and writer for 20 years.
If elected, Henry said he is ready to “come with his eyes and ears open,” and he plans to help out on a subcommittee as well.
Other uncontested seats include:
■Board of Health, three-year term — Margaret Louise Hart, incumbent.
■Board of Health, one-year term — Julia Godfrey.
■Board of Assessors, three-year term — Pamela Guyette, incumbent.
■Library trustee, three-year term — Horace Taft-Ferguson.
■Constable, three-year term — no candidate.
■Finance Committee, three-year term — Lawrence Langford, incumbent.
■Finance Committee, three-year term — Abigail Straus.
■Moderator, one-year term — Phoebe Walker, incumbent.
Reach Bella Levavi at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.