Berkshire Women's Commission, Legislators Discuss Regional IssuesBy Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
06:53PM / Tuesday, January 09, 2024 | |
 Local lawmakers listen to members of the Berkshire Commission on Women on Monday at a roundtable at the Berkshire Athenaeum. |
State Reps. Tricia Farley-Bouvier and Smitty Pignatelli and state Sen. Paul Mark pose with the commissioners after hearing their feedback on bills in the Legislature.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — State legislators on Monday discussed issues that hit hard for women and families in the region.
State Sen. Paul Mark and state Reps. Tricia Farley-Bouvier and William "Smitty" Pignatelli were guests of the Berkshire County Commission on the Status of Women at the Berkshire Athenaeum. On the table were topics ranging from child care and housing to welcoming migrant families.
Shaitia Spruell, executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, also attended the meeting and spoke on statewide efforts.
Established in 2005, the commission aims to be an effective, inclusive voice and vehicle for action for women and girls of Berkshire County.
Commissioner Andrea Wadsworth said the body would like to get behind a few bills such as the Act Relative to Language Access and Inclusion and the Act Relative to Healthy Youth. The legislators are in favor of both.
The Language Access and Inclusion Act, filed by state Reps. Adrian Madaro and Carlos González, pushes for legislation to require state agencies to provide timely, culturally competent oral language services to all limited English-proficiency individuals who seek to access services, programs or activities.
Commissioner Laura Cabrera, who emigrated from Mexico at 18, has helped her colleagues understand the bill and its importance.
"I think it's a fair, no-brainer decision that we should all be focusing on," Pignatelli said, pointing to the state's "Right to Shelter" status.
"We're bringing in people from all over the world with very different languages. I think we need to embrace that."
The Healthy Youth Bill aims to ensure that schools offering sex education courses teach a scientifically accurate curriculum that features age-appropriate information about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Farley-Bouvier said the bill has "quite a history" as it was stuck for years because of issues around teaching LGBTQ-plus topics in public schools and the main advocates having other priorities that were put first.
"It's a bill that to me is a no-brainer," she said. "We should definitely be doing it."
Pignatelli said schools have an obligation and an opportunity to give people a basic understanding of these topics.
"It's amazing even in the liberal Berkshire County, there's pockets of strong opposition to teaching health care," he said. "And that's really what it is."
He pointed to the recent incident in Great Barrington where an anonymous caller brought police to an eighth-grade classroom over the graphic (as in illustrated) novel "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe.
The housing crisis has been at the forefront of discussion since the COVID-19 pandemic. Wadsworth asked the legislators where they stand on the welcoming of immigrant families, explaining that the commission will be discussing it as well.
Pignatelli called for a long-term plan for providing resources to the families. He said immigration is an issue that should be easily fixed but has become a wedge issue for political parties.
"This should have been fixed 50 years ago. It should have been as easy 50 years ago or five months ago or five days ago, as it was for my grandparents to come here 120 years ago," he said. "They went to Ellis Island and came to the Berkshires and the rest is history. We should not be putting up roadblocks. This is unfair."
Chair Shela Levante said she was a huge advocate for the rejected proposal to house homeless families in one of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts dormitory buildings. She said if the Berkshires can attract people from different walks of life such as younger and migrant families to the area there will be a great opportunity for change.
The housing proposal had policy and funding implications and large number of people were protesting it. At one point, the president's office had to be locked.
As a campaign director for the college, Levante said she saw this firsthand.
"I think the Berkshires have a really unique opportunity to attract people or to keep them here," she said.
Pignatelli also spoke about the importance of building equity with homeownership and early child care in the school system funded by the state.
"The issue around early ed is the way that we fund it," Farley-Bouvier said, citing the inequitable reimbursement rates for early education providers across the state.
A coalition was pulled together to address the issue. In December, the Healey-Driscoll administration announced that the state Department of Early Education and Care proposed "transformative" changes to how much the state reimburses early education and care providers who accept child-care financial assistance.
Farley-Bouvier agreed that early education should be provided in schools but emphasized the impact it would have on preschool centers.
The group also discussed the need for housing rehab, new construction, and reform in the local housing authority process.
Farley-Bouvier pointed out that public housing authorities have a history of being in disrepair for underfunding and are not always well managed.
"There is a big push right now to get those units in good repair, turn them over quickly, and fill them," she explained. "That is the case statewide and it is the case in Pittsfield and that has to be a big push because, of course, this is providing housing for the people who need it the most."
She told Ward 7 Councilor Rhonda Serre that Pittsfield has a unique opportunity to set the tone for elected officials to hear because the Pittsfield City Council has five women on it. She encouraged them to set an agenda of a handful of items they would like to accomplish this term.
"The women on Pittsfield's new City Council are very aware of their opportunities and responsibilities and I'm looking forward to it," Serre said.
The legislators emphasized the importance of keeping open and personalized communication.
"Getting to know people really is probably the best way and the way I like to say it is there comes a moment when instead of all of you coming to me, I start coming to you because I start to think you're an expert on whatever it might be," Mark said.
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