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The new public works building holds all of the city's services.
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The Highway Department has more than enough room for its vehicles. Another section is used for storing plows and other equipment.
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Two high-efficiency boilers heat the building.
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Used vegetable oil for the waste oil furnace.
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Setting up the new mailbox.
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The building has enough room to store equipment for other departments.
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The regional animal shelter, being funded through a $200,000 state grant, is under construction.
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North Adams Public Services Settling Into New Location

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
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Commissioner of Public Services Timothy Lescarbeau in his new office. Lescarbeau says its easier to keep track of operations with all the departments together.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The massive trucks lined up in a row once filled the Department of Public Works garage to overflowing. Now, they take up barely a quarter of the space in their new home. 
 
Space has been the perhaps the greatest benefit of the new City Yard at Hodges Cross Road. But a close second has been the increase in efficiency and teamwork enabled by having all of the Public Service departments under one roof. 
 
"It's working out awesome, everybody's here," Commissioner of Public Service Timothy Lescarbeau said recently in his new office. "I am further ahead on my annual reports now than I ever have been because I'm here working.  
 
"A problem comes up, I walk out there, I can deal with, I come back in here."
 
For the first time, all of the city's Public Service departments are under one roof: cemetery, parks and recreation, highway, building, and water. And with plenty of room left over for a new dog shelter, offices, workshops and storage. 
 
"We were a fragmented department before," Administrative Officer Michael Canales said. "We had stations all over the city and management at City Hall. Now they're all under one roof. ... The smaller you get, you have to run more efficiently. This is really the way it has to work and it allows Tim to be more efficient."
 
Public services is far smaller than it was just a few decades ago, when departments often had their own buildings, administrators and employees. Now, joked Lescarbeau, "we're so small, if I put a foreman in every department, that's all I'd have."
 
The city'd been searching for a solution to its overcrowded, deteriorated and obsolete City Yard on Ashland Street since Lescarbeau was named commissioner by former Mayor Richard Alcombright some eight years ago. 
 
The old yard was used for more than a century, with most recent upgrades dating to the 1970s when the shell building was put up to accommodate the increased size of the plow trucks. A new one was obviously needed but the purchase of the 85,000-square-foot plant was not without controversy.
 
The City Council approved the borrowing of $1,498,550 to purchase and renovate it 2016, after months of debate. The price was nearly a $1 million with the other half-million for renovations, some of which were required to be done by the seller.
 
The front offices were repainted and new windows installed there and in the break room, locker room and rest rooms. The city put in new flooring, ceiling panels and insulation It also took advantage of a lighting program with National Grid that saw $100,000 worth of new LED lighting put in at a cost of $45,000. Lescarbeau said the payback on that will be 18 months. 
 
Over the past few months, the department has also swapped out the massive boilers for two small, high-efficiency natural gas boilers, installed waste oil furnace, built out new work rooms and hallways, and started on the animal shelter. The shelter, along with the building department, are segregated from the rest of public services. 
 
The shelter will serve North Adams, Adams and Williamstown and consist of 14 kennels, a quarantine area, an area for cats, an office and garage to both store the animal control vehicle and create a secure area for transporting animals. 
 
The purchase also includes some 30 acres that connects to Southview Cemetery and the skating rink. Last week, the city was approved to begin filling in the area behind the rink to expand cemetery.
 
There's still more to do — the back area of the building planned to become the new salt shed requires structural work, including a new garage door to accommodate the size of the trucks, and replacement of the roof on the west end. (The majority of the roof is a only a few years old.)
 
The spacious work areas are making it easier to get things done. A stack of picnic tables, for example, built in a week, rather than weeks, simply because there's room to work. 
 
"The maintenance of equipment is just 10 times better," Lescarbeau said. "You can do it now, you're not out in the rain or snow ... We had four trucks broke down the other night and they were all inside all being worked on at the same time."
 
Plus equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars is inside, out of the weather and easy to access. They can be washed down inside now and parts and tires are stored neatly just a few feet away. There's enough room that the building can store equipment for other department's, like the airport's backhoe and Public Safety's command vehicles. 
 
Workers, for the first time, also have decent break areas and rest rooms.
 
"Just the overall attitude of staff here," Lescarbeau said. "More work's getting done, there's less distraction here. We're dealign with our stuff not multiple department stuff. ... People come in and they love it. I haven't heard one complaint."
 
He said he's also been giving tours to citizens who want to see what they've bought. 
 
The department's secretary, Darci Lampiasi, has also moved to the new building from City Hall. She said she has a better handle on who's working in the departments and can communicate with them much easier now. 
 

This 1950s plow will be the facilities new sign.
"I love it. There are no distractions," she said. "It was definitely the right thing to do. It's wonderful to have all the services under one roof."
 
The move has apparently led some residents to think they have to travel to Hodges Cross Road to do business. But nothing has changed, said officials, and any payments (such as for water bills or cemetery lots) can be made directly to the treasurer in City Hall. 
 
What was moved to the new location are the paper cemetery records, but those are rarely used by the general public, Lampiasi said. People wishing to use the records for genealogy research can contact City Hall first.  
 
Residents with questions about plowing, potholes or other public service issues can call 413-662-3048.
 
There's no sign yet but a large V-plow from the 1950s will primed, painted and set outside with the department's name on it. Two pieces of stone work from the old yard — the water work and fire and alarm — will be given places of honor in the entrance. 
 
"I couldn't be happier," said Lescarbeau.

Tags: city yard,   DPW,   

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Clarksburg Gets 3 Years of Free Cash Certified

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
CLARKSBURG, Mass. — Town officials have heaved a sigh of relief with the state's certification of free cash for the first time in more than three years.
 
The town's parade of employees through its financial offices the past few years put it behind on closing out its fiscal years between 2021 and 2023. A new treasurer and two part-time accountants have been working the past year in closing the books and filing with the state.
 
The result is the town will have $571,000 in free cash on hand as it begins budget deliberations. However, town meeting last year voted that any free cash be used to replenish the stabilization account
 
Some $231,000 in stabilization was used last year to reduce the tax rate — draining the account. The town's had minimal reserves for the past nine months.
 
Chairman Robert Norcross said he didn't want residents to think the town was suddenly flush with cash. 
 
"We have to keep in mind that we have no money in the stabilization fund and we now have a free cash, so we have now got to replenish that account," he said. "So it's not like we have this money to spend ... most of it will go into the stabilization fund." 
 
The account's been hit several times over the past few fiscal years in place of free cash, which has normally been used for capital spending, to offset the budget and to refill stabilization. Free cash was last used in fiscal 2020.
 
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