To the Editor:

Try driving down West Street without spilling your coffee or losing a tire. Our roads look like they've been shelled — and every spring, we pretend it's just part of "living in the Berkshires."

It's not. It's failure. Year after year, the same lazy patch jobs fall apart, using the same materials and the same contractors who benefit from doing it wrong. The city shrugs, blames the weather, and cuts another check. Rinse, repeat.

This isn't just a pothole problem. It's a leadership problem — and a collective amnesia. We keep pretending someone else will fix it, while handing control to the same officials and backroom deals that got us here. We've outsourced not just the work, but our right to govern ourselves.

Let's stop acting like we need to be ruled. We're capable of organizing and maintaining our communities without pretending career bureaucrats or political lifers are the answer. But instead, we keep the machine alive, then gripe when the wheels fall off — literally.

The potholes are bad. But the real damage is deeper. We've traded power for passivity, self-governance for spectacle —and now we pay for it one axle at a time.

This system won't fix itself. And it sure as hell won't fix the roads.

Patrick Connor
Pittsfield, Mass.

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