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Breda Family Reunion Celebrates Patriarch's 90th year

Breda, his wife, Dorothy, and their daughters from a video shown at the reunion.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Four generations of Bredas gathered at the family home this weekend for a family reunion with a special celebration: the 90th birthday of paterfamilias Genesio Breda.

Breda, retired city engineer, was getting his birthday party nearly a month early — he'll be 90 on Sept. 18 — to conincide with what's become an anual gathering of far-flung Breda clan.

"We're expecting close to 70 or 80 people," his daughter Barbara Breda Bolte said on Saturday. "We have them coming from Florida, Connecticut, Lanesborough ... Virginia ... My son is coming from California."

Dressed in a personalized Jack Daniels-style T-shirt (Genesio, aged for 90 years), Breda said he'd worked for the city for more than 40 years.

"They hired me right out of school," he said. "They didn't even give me a chance to take a vacation."

Breda had been working on the city's survey crew after leaving the Navy in 1948. He took a leave to attend Chicago Technical College, an intense three-year hands on course in engineering. No sports, and no summers off, he said.

Archie Wright, a surveyor and uncle of his good friend Walter Konopka, had gone there and suggested Breda would be a good fit.

"It sounded nice to me," Breda said. "They called it a knowledge factory."

He was still in Chicago when he was offered the job of assistant city engineer in 1951 and was appointed as engineer in 1962 by Mayor Francis C. Florini. He worked with Konopka, Frank Knowles and a future mayor, Louis Diamond and later was on the City Hall Building Committee.

Cost, Access to NBCTC High Among Concerns North Berkshire Residents

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
06:15PM / Thursday, April 25, 2024

Adams Select Chair Christine Hoyt, NBCTC Executive Director David Fabiano and William Solomon, the attorney representing the four communities, talk after the session. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Public access channels should be supported and made more available to the public — and not be subject to a charge.

 

More than three dozen community members in-person and online attended the public hearing  Wednesday on public access and service from Spectrum/Charter Communications. The session at City Hall was held for residents in Adams, Cheshire, Clarksburg and North Adams to express their concerns to Spectrum ahead of another 10-year contract that starts in October.

 

Listening via Zoom but not speaking was Jennifer Young, director state government affairs at Charter.

 

One speaker after another conveyed how critical local access television is to the community and emphasized the need for affordable and reliable services, particularly for vulnerable populations like the elderly. 

 

"I don't know if everybody else feels the same way but they have a monopoly," said Clarksburg resident David Emery. "They control everything we do because there's nobody else to go to. You're stuck with with them."

 

Public access television, like the 30-year-old Northern Berkshire Community Television, is funded by cable television companies through franchise fees, member fees, grants and contributions.

 

Spectrum is the only cable provider in the region and while residents can shift to satellite providers or streaming, Northern Berkshire Community Television is not available on those alternatives and they may not be easy for some to navigate. For instance, the Spectrum app is available on smart televisions but it doesn't include PEG, the public, educational and governmental channels provided by NBCTC.