Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Lenox Select Board held its regular meeting on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at 6 Walker Street, chaired by Mary Beth Mitz. The board ratified appointments, approved licenses and permits, received an update on the municipal aggregation program, heard a presentation from the Lenox Ecumenical Food Pantry, voted to return cannabis community impact fees, approved a request for proposals for cellular tower improvements, and authorized the Chamber of Commerce to use Central Station Courtyard for the Apple Squeeze.
All consent agenda items were approved unanimously.
No members of the public spoke during the Citizens Open Forum.
Good evening, everyone. I'm my name is Mary Beth Mitz. I would like to welcome you to the Select Board meeting of Wednesday, August 19th, 2026. Here it's our regular select board meeting at Six Walker Street in the Select Board meeting room. I'm going to call this meeting to order and introduce uh Jay Green, our town manager, Jared Weber, member of the Select Board, uh Neil Maximilian and Ed Lane. We have a staff member with us tonight, Amon Coughlin who'll be helping us with some of the upcoming discussions that we're going to be having. Uh CTSB is recording tonight's meeting, and um I believe that Clarence Fantau from the Berkshire Eagle is as well. As far as announcements from the chair, I'd like to remind everyone that we have an upcoming state primary on September 1st. So if you're not going to be in the state on September 1st, please visit our town clerk and vote absentee. Um if you will be here, I hope you show up between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the first to do your civic duty. Uh we also have a municipal aggregation update, and I'm going to turn that over to uh Jay Green to give us a little fill-in on that. Thank you for our residents and for our business owners. You may be receiving this week, both on national grid and ever source utilities a postcard in the mail, a mailer. It'll be describing the benefits of the municipal aggregation program. What that is is the towns in Berkshire County all get together. We pile up all of our used kilowatts on an annual basis, and then we hire Colonial Power Group to go out and they essentially bid the electrical load. That results in some savings for our electricity users here in Lenox and the other communities. Periodically, Colonial Power Group will send out a mailer. They call it a sweep, and what they do is they just remind everybody that the program is available, and they tell you what the current contract rate is through the aggregation program. And I can't do it off the top of my head, but I think it's approximately 17 and 15. I think national grids 15, ever source might be 17. The basic rate of both utilities, they change twice a year. The idea of the aggregation program is so that you have that rate consistently all the way through the duration of the existing aggregation contract. You don't have to do anything with the mailer, it's a simple reminder. But as a point of uh public information, it'll come with the town seal on it and it will say uh first point light, I believe, or first point is the is the supplier, and it'll say colonial power group. It's the same information you can find on our webpage. If you're not enrolled in a third-party supplier, you will be automatically enrolled in that program and you'll see savings. You are eligible to unenroll if you like, but you have to do that yourself. If you are enrolled with a third party, i.e. a company other than the colonial power group contractor, and it doesn't have anything to do with Linux. You will have to manually unenroll yourself from the third party. So please be aware if you get third-party solicitations, that is not the municipal aggregation program. You can certainly participate in. That's your choice. All this is is a sweep, it's public information. Information is available on our webpage, and you can call Colonial Power Group and get more information. That's about the simplest I can. It is not, it's a great program, but it is not easy to expect. I think a key takeaway is when you receive this mailer, it does not mean that you have to re-sign up for power. If you're already a participant in our aggregation program. And some people see that and they go, Oh, I have to sign up for something and pick something. When in fact it stays the same unless you want to change it to say a green energy program or something else. More likely than not, you'll save money by being enrolled in the program and staying enrolled in the program.