Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Housatonic Improvement Committee (HIC) held a well-attended meeting on January 27, 2026, beginning at 6:51 PM. The meeting featured a shared meal and opening remarks emphasizing community, resilience, and collaboration. Key agenda items included establishing shared working agreements, updates on the Ramsdale Library renovation, tree canopy restoration, water filtration initiatives, review of annual goals, youth engagement, and multiple community event plans. Public comments focused on the residential tax exemption and the Housatonic Filter Initiative.
The committee developed five shared agreements to guide future work:
The meeting was attended by a reporter from the Berkshire Edge. The meeting adjourned at 8:41 PM.
I know we've got some stragglers and we're figuring out where everybody's going. We have um quite literally a full house. So thank you all for being here. Um for those attending online, uh, you can't see it, but there are many people in this room, and so we're very excited to have everybody here. Um it is 6.51. Thank you for the folks online for your patience as we navigated this large large S, this abundance. Um we are, yeah, 651. Do I have a motion to open the meeting? Uh do we do a roll call on this one? I think everybody's present. Amanda's not. Uh but I'm gonna go. Oh, all those in favor. All right, okay. We have opened the meeting at 6 51. Is there anybody recording tonight? No. Okay, great. We are recording. Um, just as a housekeeping item, uh, in the interest of time, if you have any comments, because we have so many people, I'm gonna ask that you keep them below five minutes. I will be keeping a timer. Um great. I have it on the notes that I am taking minutes, which would be helpful for y'all to see as well. Uh, but my friend Melanie over here, uh, Melanie McCarthy is taking minutes for us. Uh, I'm deeply grateful to Melanie for taking minutes for us. She is the deputy director at Berkshire Environmental Action Team, who we also have to thank for uh the the catering dishes tonight, the the dishes that you're eating with. They have a really cool free um uh catering dish program where you can request stick catering dishes um and they have a commercial dishwasher. So we're reducing waste as we're as we're gathering. Um I also just want to say a thank you to everyone here tonight. It's a really powerful thing to be in a room together and to be able to gather and share a meal with your neighbors. Um and I think, especially as there's so much that's hard to watch in the world around us, there's a lot of grief and rage and sorrow that we can really feel deep in our bones. And um they are also reminders of our values in the world. And so when we don't gather in community, when we don't look for solutions to problems in our own neighborhood, and we were when we refuse to let these feelings of grief and rage and sorrow open, we really let the violence and dehumanization win. So we can be furious and community, and this fury can show us what's possible. And building a web of neighbors is what we're all doing here tonight. And I'm grateful to be building this with all of you. Thank you. Um so with that being said, uh, a very tactical thing. Um I met with Marilyn Bizowitz from the historical commission, but really from the cemetery commission. Uh, that was the original meeting that we had. And uh the historical commission has given each of the committee members um for high see a copy of the second edition of Great Barrington Here and Gone by Bernie Drew. I had the chance to read it over winter break, and it's really interesting stuff. So if you have the opportunity to read it, there are copies at the Historical Society. Um I believe we have a copy at the library as well.