BERNARDSTON — All but one article, a proposed bylaw banning single-use plastics in town, was approved during Wednesday’s 26-article Annual Town Meeting.

The meeting, which was attended by 86 voters, lasted slightly longer than an hour and a half. Most articles were moved and voted on without discussion or opposition.

The only article that wasn’t approved was Article 26, a citizen’s petition to ban the sale of single-use plastics. Voters elected to table the article so the community could have more time to think it over.

School budget

Article 6, which passed by majority vote, elicited the most debate. The article, which entailed funding Bernardston’s nearly $3.53 million payment toward education expenses, was amended to increase the amount by $5,280. This would fund the installation of new carpeting in the teacher’s lounge and replacement stepping stones at Pioneer Valley Regional School — expenditures that were requested by the school district, but not recommended by the Finance Committee or factored into the presented budget total.

Jordan Burns, director of finance and operations for the Pioneer Valley Regional School District, urged voters to approve the $5,280 budget addition as a necessary step to approving the budget as a whole. He explained that legal counsel and the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) each advised him approval of the school budget technically requires that the total amount requested be approved.

“Our understanding and guidance from DESE is that if Article 6 is approved at the lesser amount of $3,527,041.21, that will be, in fact, voting down the entire school budget, including the operating budget,” he summarized.

The Selectboard disagreed, eventually voting unanimously — along with the Finance Committee — to reject the amendment. Members argued that historically, capital projects have always been voted on separately from the general education budget.

“They give guidance,” Selectboard Chair Brian Keir said, referencing DESE. “They don’t necessarily set the rule of our district agreement. For the town of Bernardston, we have definitely voted capital projects in this manner before and it has never failed the budget, so there’s a little discrepancy between what the town and what the school is saying.”

“It’s only $5,000, so it’s not a dealbreaker, but on the other side of this is we have always, always voted this way, and if their lawyer now is saying this is wrong, then their lawyer must have been wrong all the other years because he allowed it,” added Selectboard member Stanley Garland.

The amendment increasing the budget by $5,280 was approved 49-17. Subsequently, the amended Article 26 was approved by majority vote.

Single-use plastic ban

Article 26, which came via a citizen’s petition proposed by Sweet Lucy’s Bakeshop owner Lucy Damkoehler, sought to “eliminate the sale of single-use plastic products” and “limit the type of products that may be furnished” in town.

“The use and disposal of single-use plastic products have significant impacts on the environment, including but not limited to: contributing to pollution of the land environment and waterways; contributing to the potential death of marine and other wildlife through the ingestion and entanglement; littering streets, parks, public places and local waterways; creating a burden to solid waste collection and recycling facilities; [and] requiring the use of non-renewable fossil fuel in their manufacture and composition,” the petition reasons.

The proposed bylaw, which would have gone into effect on July 1, was tabled due to officials and residents feeling like more time was needed to consider the prospective bylaw before making a decision.

Garland voiced a reluctance to approve the article for additional reasons, such as the petitioned article not being written uniquely for Bernardston. The proposed bylaw was modeled nearly directly after one that was approved unanimously at Buckland’s Annual Town Meeting in 2019, Town Coordinator Louis Bordeaux explained previously.

Other articles

Other approved articles involved a vote to raise and appropriate $130,000 toward the town’s prospective Fire Station expansion project; a change to the zoning bylaws’ definition of a “restaurant” to include temporary establishments selling food or drinks; funding the roughly $1.28 million cost of public service departments for FY24; and petitioning the Legislature to approve special legislation so that Fire Chief Peter Shedd could legally serve in his position until age 70, rather than the usual maximum age of 65.

Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.

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