Stockbridge Forms Committee to Study Expanding Select Board From Three to Five Members

LENOX — March 23, 2026 — Stockbridge forms committee to study expanding its three-person Select Board. Selectman Georgia Marsden convened the inaugural meeting of the Five-Member Select Board Study Committee on March 23, bringing together eight members to examine whether the town should increase its Select Board from three to five members, a change that would require both a simple-majority town meeting vote and a special act of the Massachusetts General Court. The committee, which has no set deadline and does not expect to be ready for town meeting before May 2027, appointed Sally Underwood Miller as clerk and Patty Kea as central research analyst. Members flagged the cost of adding stipends and health, dental, and life insurance benefits for two additional board members as a central question. Research conducted before the meeting showed that no Massachusetts town with a population near Stockbridge's approximately 2,000 residents currently has a five-member Select Board, making the town a potential outlier; the nearest comparable recent case, Lanesboro, has about 3,100 residents and passed its expansion by just three votes — 55 to 52 — at a town meeting attended by roughly 100 people.