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Pittsfield's At-Large Candidates Show Differences In Forum
By Andy McKeever, iBerkshires Staff
09:54PM / Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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Six of the seven candidates seeking four seats debated at Berkshire Community College on Tuesday.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — If given a magic wand to change one thing in the city of Pittsfield, Melissa Mazzeo would give every resident a good paying job.
 
Peter White would do something similar, in that he'd fill all of the business parks with companies offering jobs. Tayor DiSantis would see the small businesses grow. Kathleen Amuso wants everybody to be safe. Peter Marchetti would change the perception people have of the city. And Joseph Nichols would like a new zoning map providing more areas for business growth.
 
The six candidates for at-large seats on the City Council fielded questions for an hour Tuesday night in the only forum ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Churchill Cotton is also seeking to return to his at-large seat but was sick and issued a statement saying so.
 
The total of seven candidates on the ballot are seeking four seats. Not all candidates answered each question, with questions only being posed to groups of four candidates at a time.
 
White, a former councilor, led off the series of questions posed by moderator Dan Dillon saying he does support the City Council's recent decision to ban expanding polystyrene. The majority of the litter in annual park cleanups is Styrofoam containers, he said, so the ban will cut down on litter significantly. However, White was unsure if plastic bags should be banned as well.
 
"I want to hear more about the plastic bags," White said. "I think we could work toward it but I'm not ready to say ban the plastic bags just yet."
 
DiSantis said he, too, supports the ban saying it is a step in showing that the city is clean and well kept, which will deter others from littering or uncleanness. Amuso, an incumbent, also said she supported the efforts in the recent vote but would have rather have had the ban done on a statewide level.
 
Mazzeo was the only one of the four answering the question to oppose the ban. She voted against the polystyrene ban saying patchwork laws across various communities makes operating a business difficult. She would have liked to focus her attention on helping businesses find alternatives now while the state works on a ban for every community.
 
"I didn't want to put an undue hardship on our businesses," Mazzeo said. "I am for banning things if they are known to be bad for the community or a little issue but I'd rather have it come as a statewide initiative."
 
On Tyler Street, former City Councilor Peter Marchetti said he supports the Transformative Development Initiative which is eyed to create and implement a plan for the revitalization of the Morningside neighborhood. Marchetti said he supports the current vision of revitalizing it as a mixed-use area supporting both residential and business growth.
 
"It is not about a project it is about making sure all of the stakeholders are involved," Marchetti said of the process. 
 
Nichols pushed his plan for revamped zoning to attract more businesses to compensate for what he says is too much low-income housing.
 
"I would like to see less low income housing in the area. Let's try to expand our tax base and quality people moving into the area," Nichols said.
 
DiSantis agreed that there is too much low-income housing, which he said stemmed from the smart growth initiatives. He sees Tyler Street as having the potential of being a "vibrant business area" with expansion of the business base.
 
"The lack of a commercial tax base in Pittsfield is really, really hurting our residential taxes. It is also hurting our mid-sized businesses," DiSantis said, adding that with such a small pool of taxpayers each owner is paying more.
 
White said he's like to see the TDI program encourage more market-rate housing developments to providing housing for the skilled workers that will support the area businesses. And, he wishes a bakery would return to where the Morningside Bakery used to sit.
 
"We need to continue to support the projects that continue to bring in market-rate housing for the workforce we need to attract," White said.
 
Nichols was the only candidate asked who opposed building a new Taconic High School. He said the borrowing should have gone to a ballot for all voters instead of being handled by the representative legislative body — the City Council. 
 
"It is unfathomable that we can't take care of a 40-year-old school better than we had," Nichols said. "To me, I am a little ashamed of my city that they didn't take the time to put it on a ballot."
 
He said the city didn't keep up with maintenance on the building. 
 
Amuso, the chairman of the School Building Needs Commission, pointed to both Mount Greylock Regional School and Mount Everett Regional School as two buildings built in the exact same period of time — the 1960s — that need work. The schools just weren't built that well then.
 
"Many of the schools build in the late '60s are not holding up," Amuso said. "The bones at Taconic are not good. There is a lot of things that need to be done there. Pittsfield High has good bones."
 
She added that to fix up the current high school would cost $38 million without any support from the state. It will cost the city only slightly more for a brand-new school, she said.
 
Mazzeo agreed, "It is a wise move on the taxpayer's part. Another community would have got the money if we didn't."
 
Marchetti said the public had plenty of time to weigh in on the project throughout the process. The new school will help "stop the bleeding" of losing children to other districts, which costs the city money, he said.
 
To help small businesses, White said he'd encourage the city to buy supplies from local vendors. He said the little extra the city will pay is worth avoiding the long-term impacts a local business has to the economy when it closes.
 
"I support our local businesses every day," White said, encouraging residents and elected officials to not only shop local but also post to Facebook about it and promote the businesses.
 
White said he has also been in favor of shifting more of the tax burden onto residents. Currently the city's weighted split puts a significant more of the tax burden on commercial properties.
 
DiSantis took a broader look at the shift and instead of changing it ease tax burdens, he said he would like to expand the number of businesses sharing the burden.
 
"I believe that a long-term economic development plan has to start with our small and medium-sized businesses," he said, encouraging a link between the businesses and the education at the new Taconic High School. 
 
Mazzeo said such a link will come from the Berkshire Innovation Center. That research and development center planned to be build at the William Stanley Business Park couples educational institutions and advanced manufacturing businesses. The hope is it is will spur new business growth.
 
"You grow your economy from within," Mazzeo said. "This Berkshire Innovation Center is going to be the key to help our small and mid-sized businesses to grow globally." 
 
Kathleen Amuso supports the new Taconic High School project.
Amuso says she doesn't feel like all of the small and medium-sized local businesses have a "voice at the table." She said she'd like to mimic the Tyler Street Businesses Group on a citywide level to advocate, promote, and hold events for the local companies. Additionally, the incumbent said the city needs to be safe, which includes plowing so customers can easily access stores.
 
When it comes to safety, Marchetti is one of some 30 mentors in the Pittsfield Community Connection program, which was launched to help at-risk youth avoid turning to drugs, gangs, and violence. He said it has become one of his "most rewarding experiences" being a 16-year-old child's mentor. He said the program will make a significant difference on what is "perceived" to be a safety issue with violent crime. He called for the hiring of more police officers to make sure the department is "at full capacity."
 
"You cannot put a dollar among on a person's life," Marchetti said of hiring more cops.
 
Nichols said there is a violent crime issue in the city, which comes from undesirable, unproductive, and low-income residents who "filled the void" when General Electric moved out. He said Section 8 housing vouchers were used to fill the city with low-income residents from other areas, which has led to violent crime now. He said a lot of the problems could be cured only at the state level.
 
"It was a huge error to invite them to build additional low-income housing," Nichols said.
 
White agreed with hiring additional officers. He said the department is understaffed. He went on to say that city can't just "police ourselves out of these issues" and there is a lot of work to be done economically to combat poverty.
 
DiSantis said combating violent crime starts with education. By focusing on early education and improving the city's educational system, that leads to jobs and new businesses, which reduces crime. He said launching such things as a recreational program in the parks will help keep the youth busy. He also cited programs in other towns to go after gangs and drugs.
 
"I think we fail to recognize and admit that we have organized crime in this city. We have to attack that," he said.
 
Finally, if given the keys to the Plastics Avenue building SABIC is vacating, Mazzeo and Amuso said they'd move the Berkshire Innovation Center there to move up the timeline. Amuso said failing that, she'd like to see if General Electric, which owns the building, would return there. White said he'd like to see a distribution headquarters for an Internet company there. DiSantis said GE or a similar company with intellectual jobs. Marchetti would like to see it become a workforce training facility. And Nichols just wants to make sure it stays on the commercial tax rolls.
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