Pittsfield To Choose First Four-year Mayor On Tuesday
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Voters will decide on Tuesday who will be the city's first four-year mayor.
Incumbent Daniel Bianchi is being challenged for the office by City Clerk Linda Tyer after a preliminary election eliminated Craig Gaetani and Donna Walto from the ballot. The incumbent has been trying to pick up some ground on Tyer, who stormed to victory in the preliminary with 830 more votes than Bianchi.
Bianchi's name will sit atop the ballot. He is a city native who worked 30 years in the energy business. He has a bachelor's degree in business and finance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He first got involved with the city for four years in 1988 as the director of administration and finance. He was later elected to the City Council and served for 10 years, from 2000 until 2010.
In 2009, he then ran unsuccessfully against former Mayor James Ruberto for the corner office. But two years later, in 2011, he beat out City Councilor Peter Marchetti by 100 votes for the office. He was unopposed in 2013.
Tyer grew up in a military family, moving all over the globe as a child. She returned to the city where her grandparents live. She has a degree from Bay Path College and worked with the Boston-based Hill & Barlow. When she returned to Pittsfield she worked for the local George, DeGregorio and Massimiano law firm. She later worked for the Lenox Public Schools as administrative assistant to the superintendent of schools for 17 years.
In 2003, she was part of the Women Helping Empower Neighborhoods political action committee, which launched her into politics. That year she won a seat on the City Council and stayed there for five years. In 2009, Ruberto appointed her to city dlerk, a position she has held ever since.
Tyer is calling for a change and has gained the backing and support of many of the Ruberto supporters. She says the city has been lacking leadership under the current administration.
At the top of her priority list is crime. She says she will hire additional police officers and create anti-gang and traffic units in the department.
She also held two campaign stumps focusing on blight, in which she is calling for regulations forcing owners of vacant buildings to secure their buildings with doors and windows as well as general upkeep of the exterior. The blight efforts will send a positive message to the community and raise property values. She also calls for a group of city officials and local real estate representatives to be formed for a more effective anti-blight effort.
Bianchi says the city's blight issues are directly related to the prior administration's "smart growth" initiatives. He says he has already formed a task force that goes after owners of blighted properties and has been using federal funds to demolish many vacant buildings.
Bianchi has been emphasizing his economic development vision and wants to continue the trajectory. He boasts of the upcoming Berkshire Innovation Center as being the catalyst for local advanced manufacturing businesses to grow with the research and development facility.
He says the innovation center will have some of the best research institutions in the region. When the businesses grow, he says there will be qualified local workers from the new Taconic High School, which is set to break ground next year. He takes credit for moving the Taconic High School project along, which he said was mostly inactive when he took office.
Bianchi says the economic development and education plans combined creates a "pathway to the middle class" for many of the city's students.
Tyer, however, says the mayor is taking credit for plans that were already in place before he took office. When it comes to economic development, Tyer is supportive of a prior effort to bring retail to the William Stanley Business Park. Upon taking office, Bianchi halted those efforts, which Tyer said kept a business off the tax rolls. She says she would not have the mayor sit on the Pittsfield Economic Development Agency board and wants to hire a professional company to build out the park on former General Electric land.
Tyer is also calling for a stronger effort to recruit young professionals, a demographic the county has been losing, to help fill the local skills gap.
Comparing the two candidates, Tyer said she supported the Colonial Theater, helping Unistress expand, and a tax incentive to bring LTI Smartglass to the city while Bianchi, then as a councilor, opposed them. Bianchi also opposed the statement of interest to build the new Taconic but he says he opposed it in a fight to have Conte, Morningside, and Crosby included in renovations.
In the high schools, she is calling for such programs like the International Baccalaureate program to raise academic rigor while Bianchi is calling for a new focus on vocational and expansion of advanced placement courses.
Other focuses of the Tyer campaign has been on expanding early education by working with local providers to grow to accept more pupils, and improved the city's roadways — both in plowing and by repairs which she says the mayor has botched. She said she'd seek out state and private funds to expand access to preschool programs.
Bianchi has criticized Tyer for promising many programs and hiring additional police, which he says is unaffordable for the city. He too agreed with promoting early education through private sector growth. For education, he prides himself on helping to craft multi-year contracts with the teacher's union to avoid work to rule situation.
For crime, the mayor says the Pittsfield Community Connection Program, which was formed under his watch through the winning of the Charles E. Shannon Grant, has created mentors for at-risk youth. He says the mentoring program will help keep youth on track and deal with the underlying issues that lead to violence, drugs, and gang activity.
He points to the hiring of a crime analyst, which has made the department more effective in how it combats crime, the opening of community centers in public housing projects to connect those residents with services, expanded neighborhood watch programs, and created a downtown police patrol. He says he has a public safety task force, which includes the district attorney, police chief, and sheriff, to determine best practices in keeping the city safe.
Bianchi also says he implemented a new paving management system, which "takes the politics out of potholes" and instead priorities levels of repairs and when roads are repaired based on the assessed condition.
However, Tyer says the Bianchi administration has been plagued by "wasteful spending." She says the budget has increased by $18 million, which included funds for an array of unneeded projects such as polishing city hall floors, a settlement with the methadone clinic, and moving the inspection services to 100 North Street.
She says she'd seek grants to grow additional programs — including crime prevention and education — and reprioritized the city's spending. Bianchi refutes those claims that the projects were unneeded and said those cost very little in comparison to the entire budget. He says he is the more fiscally responsible candidate.
Tyer also took Bianchi to task over transparency. She said the City Council was left out of the discussion when the city switched insurance providers from the Group Insurance Plan to Blue Cross Blue Shield. She promised to have a more inclusive management style.
Bianchi said in those conversation it was illegal for him to have a more inclusive and public process because it was a negotiation. He points to his resume of executive and business experience as reasons why he is more qualified for the job.
But Tyer says that management style hasn't worked and pointed to a number of lawsuits from workers — including two from the Police Department and one from the former Veterans Affairs director — who were mistreated.
For personnel, Tyer promises to appoint permanent police and fire chiefs as the two current chiefs are under "acting" capacity. She says that will give the chiefs more authority and security to do their jobs as well as boost morale inside the departments. Bianchi says the title doesn't matter and instead wants to replace the Civil Service system with a new model. New chiefs would be hired through that new model, which Bianchi says will get the best candidates for the job.
The polls will be open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. and the winner will be the city's first four-year mayor after a recent charter change.
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