It didn’t happen until after their lunch break, but Williamstown voters finally asked for a paper ballot in order to decide whether to spend an extra $20,000 on a part-time deputy from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department during the coming fiscal year.
The request submitted by Sheriff Bill Bohnyak would be in addition to $50,000 Williamstown already appropriates for coverage that some residents said was less than satisfactory.
Resident Doreen Chambers was one of them.
Chambers offered a critical assessment of the current arrangement, describing the department as unresponsive and citing her own experience involving break-ins.
“This is not working,” she said. “I just don’t think they (Orange County deputies) have the skills to do the job.”
Others wondered whether it was time for the town to consider investing in a full-time constable or some other form of local law enforcement.
That sentiment was shared by at least one member of the Select Board, though others suggested this isn’t the year to make the change.
The request for additional funding was approved, 61-27.
Second paper ballot
A voice vote that was too close for Moderator Winston Chambers to call led to the second paper ballot of the afternoon as Williamstown voters wrestled with whether to grant a tax exemption requested by the Loyal Order of Moose.
The financially strapped club had asked for an open-ended 100 percent exemption and while resident John Perkins said he’d feel more comfortable granting the request through 2014, resident Conrad Beattie said 100 percent tax break was too much to ask. Beattie proposed a 50 percent exemption through 2014.
After Chambers was unable to determine whether the amendment passed or failed, voters who had yet to say no to anything this town meeting, kept the club’s hopes alive. Beattie’s amendment was defeated, 30-61, and voters subsequently approved the three-year tax beak suggested by Perkins.
As the afternoon session was drawing to a close, voters also agreed to appropriate $5,000 to repair the chimneys at the Ainsworth Public Library, and $10,000 for the Williamstown Historical Society.