Busy Night for Williamstown Police Includes Life-Saving Moment

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Police Department on Wednesday evening had its hands full with several incidents, including one that allowed officers to help save a life.
 
Between 5 and 9 p.m., WPD officers responded to a three-car motor vehicle accident, calls involving domestic violence and one emergency on Williams College campus where the local police were the first on the scene, Chief Michael Ziemba said on Thursday.
 
The evening included deployment of the department's K9 Unit for tracking and one arrest.
 
"While the number and types of calls are fairly typical, or what some would call 'routine' for our police department, being able to say that we were part of a small team of people who helped to bring back a young life is not something that happens to us every day."
 
The life-threatening incident occurred during a Williams College athletic event, Ziemba said. An athlete from the visiting team had trouble breathing and chest pains.
 
WPD officers administered oxygen and began life-saving CPR until an EMS personnel arrived, he said.
 
An automatic external defibrillator was used three times on the student.
 
"Thankfully, the student was conscious and responsive upon arrival at the hospital and reportedly doing well today," Ziemba wrote in a Thursday afternoon release. "It's a great feeling to be able to share good news."
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Williamstown Housing Trust Gets Update on Production Plan

By Stephen Dravis
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The board of the town’s Affordable Housing Trust Tuesday took a look at some of the data that will form the basis of a Housing Production Plan being developed for the body by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission.
 
"This is the most recent and updated U.S. Census data as well as [Massachusetts] Department of Revenue data related to housing," BRPC’s Brett Roberts told the board. "I’m not going to ask you to digest it all in the next 15 minutes. I want you to take it home, mark it up with your red pencils. There are going to be format changes. There are going to be language changes. All of that.
 
"But what I want you to look at is really the data itself. What strikes you as something important to pull you? What are some things you want to highlight?"
 
Roberts told the trustees that the most interesting part to him was the data detailing Williamstown’s affordability gap.
 
He pointed out that the median household income in town is $108,500, at which the household could afford a home that costs about $348,000.
 
"Then we looked at what is actually on the market," Roberts said. "In May 2026, the average sales price of a single-family home [in Williamstown] was $494,704. The gap between what is in the world and what your median household income can afford, we call the affordability gap.
 
"We talk about how expensive homes are. This gives you a number to point to as, ‘This is what the gap is.’ "
 
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