Updated June 24, 2015 02:16PM

Pittsfield Narrowly Approves $11M Capital Plan; OKs 2016 Budget

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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The City Council approved the mayor's amended capital budget on Tuesday and passed a $145.2 million operating budget.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Simonelli has made it clear through a series of budget hearings that he wants reductions.

On the capital budget, he was on the losing end of a motion to cut $250,000.

But on Tuesday, he wasn't going to be the one vote to send the city into back-to-back years without a spending plan for major projects.

Simonelli was one of four councilors to reject the $11 million capital budget Tuesday but then asked for reconsideration and changed his vote.

"I still believe there are places to cut but I refuse to let what happened last year happen," Simonelli said, of changing his vote.

The budget needed a two-thirds majority and Simonelli initially joined Ward 2 Councilor Kevin Morandi and Councilors at-large Barry Clairmont and Churchill Cotton in opposition. At Ward 5 Councilor Jonathan N. Lothrop's urging, Simonelli offered up the reconsideration to keep the entire budget from sinking.

In contrast to the capital budget, the City Council passed Mayor Daniel Bianchi's proposed $145.2 million operational budgets for the city and the schools with little discussion.

The council held a public hearing prior to the unanimous vote in which only resident Craig Gaetani spoke. Gaetani, who says he is running for mayor, urged the council to cut the budget by 7 percent and that he'd have the budget cut by 28 percent over four years.

He took particular aim at the school and the Department of Public Works, saying the number of employees in the water and sewer plants could be reduced and there is no need for vice principals in schools.

"There is no more will for the raising of taxes in Pittsfield. The city just doesn't want it and you guys don't seem to understand that," Gaetani said

The city and schools account for $145.2 million in operational budgets. An additional $7.2 million is to be raised for other expenses such as state assessments, regional planning, abatements, and the other postemployee benefits trust fund are outside of those budgets but still need to be raised.

The capital budget approval centered around Cotton's opposition to a $30,000 capital request to bring fiber-optic Internet access to the William Stanley Business Park by making the Berkshire Innovation Center a "community anchor" with the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's program.

The city is currently applying for a federal grant to assist the business park with funds for high-speed Internet but, it isn't known if that will be approved through the competitive process. Mayor Daniel Bianchi said running fiber-optic lines will help businesses nearby and future companies to connect.

"It is truly an economic development initiative," Bianchi said. "It is opening up a whole new area to high-speed Internet access."

Clairmont and Cotton had both voiced concern with what was initially a $60,000 project. The mayor returned with a capital plan that halved that proposal and said he'd be asking the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority to chip in. Clairmont, however, said it would only be helping private companies that can afford to put in Internet access themselves.

Even after a motion to pull that out of the budget failed, Cotton stuck to his word as from the first hearing when he said he wouldn't support the entire budget as long as it contained those funds.


"I want to make sure all of these projects do move forward unlike the case last year. If it means making a compromise to get the eight votes for this, I would like to make a motion to remove the $30,000 for the fiber-optic connection," Ward 6 Councilor John Krol said, as he motioned to help secure the vote for the entire budget.

Krol's motion failed, leaving the fiber-optic money in and thus losing Cotton's vote. Bianchi tried to convince Cotton to approve the budget since the rest of the council was in favor of the Berkshire Innovation Center money.

"Politics is the art of compromise. It is the art of finding a middle ground. If we can't find a compromise on small items, there is something more to it," the mayor said. "This is a responsible capital budget."

Last year, the City Council rejected the mayor's capital budget and Bianchi never submitted a followup proposal. The argument then was over the purchase of emergency response sport utility vehicles instead of a fire truck. That failure to come to terms on a capital plan led to a delay in projects and others not being accomplished.

This year's budget is for $11,120,000, $3.5 million of which will be reimbursed by the Federal Aviation Agency for a project to pave the main runway at the airport, which was outside of the scope of the airport reconstruction project.

Concerned with tax bills, Simonelli said many of the proposed items were "wants" and not "needs." He didn't want to support many items in the budget such as $150,000 for repairs to the electrical system and for a fire curtain at Pittsfield High School or repairs to the mobile stage for $30,000.

"I wanted to reduce the budget prior to adding the $1 million so I have a problem approving this," Simonelli said.

The mayor said those items are for safety reasons and have been prioritized. He also said the plan calls for taking a proactive role so that capital needs don't get backed up.

"You can always defer maintenance but it is a roll of the dice," Bianchi said of the safety concerns. "Can you defer things? That's how you start falling behind."

The capital budget also called for an increase in borrowing for roads, for which the council had asked. The proposal was increased by $1 million — from $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

Morandi said he supports many items on the plan but the proposal is $900,000 more than the one the council rejected last year.

"Now is the time to be business friendly tonight by setting a budget and a capital budget businesses can afford," Morandi said. "We have the highest commercial tax rate in Berkshire County."

Updated at 2:23 p.m. on June 24 to indicate the fiscal 2016 budget had been passed.


Tags: #PittsfieldBudget,   capital budget,   fiscal 2016,   

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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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