25-year-old hopes to earn seat on Pittsfield City Council

By Jack GuilletPrint Story | Email Story
Peter T. White is passionate about the city of Pittsfield and its people and wants so much to improve the community where he's lived his entire life. White, a 25-year-old student at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts,will soon be a candidate vying for one of four available at-large seats on the City Council. During a two-hour interview, he passionately spoke about his desire to represent all the citizens of the city and get Pittsfield's youth involved politically. "We need to inject some youth," said White, referring to the council. He thinks he is nine or 10 years younger than the current youngest councilor. "...Before we revitalize Pittsfield, we need to revitalize the City Council" White, who has lived on Plunkett Street the past 24 years, persistently said he wants to talk to as many people in the city as possible to hear what they would like to see happen in the city. During the interview, he described many facets of himself and the city, including what he thinks the role of a Pittsfield City Councilor ought to be and what he thinks are the most important challenges and issues facing the city. Although its his first time running for a public office, in the city or otherwise, White is well-versed in the issues and workings of Pittsfield's government, religiously attending council meetings and as many of the council subcommittee meetings as his schedule will allow. In addition to all those meetings, he attends other meetings concerning city issues, such as the recent public meeting about the proposed waste transfer station on Industrial Drive. On May 1, the first possible day to do so, White obtained nomination papers from City Hall, a task he had planned for a quite some time. Residents wishing to run for at-large seats on the council are required to obtain the signatures of 300 city residents, who are also registered voters. More than once, White said he'd rather collect 300 signatures than the 50 required, from one ward, of ward councilor hopefuls because it gives him many more opportunities to talk to many more people — 250 in fact — to find out their concerns and ideas about what the city needs. White said he chose to run for an at-large seat instead of a ward seat for two primary reasons. First and foremost he said he would rather represent all of the city's residents, as well as all of the city's youth, as opposed to just the residents of one of the city's seven wards. Secondly he said he really likes his ward councilor, James A. Arpante, of Ward 2, and doesn't want to run against him. Two of the issues he said he particularly finds important, mentioning each more than once, is job creation in the city and improving the city's web site. White stressed the need for more good-paying jobs in the city, which he said would hopefully curb the trend he sees of people his age moving from the city. To get ideas for job creation as well as how to further downtown revitalization, he thinks the council and the mayor ought to visit other communities in the state to see what works for them and whatever that is, make it unique for Pittsfield, he said. "I want to see Pittsfield become a better place. I think it has so much potential," he said. "...We just need to tap it." White spoke about some of his ideas for the city and its downtown. He said he thinks the downtown needs a multiuse venue — a restaurant that could double as a comedy club and music venue and have open-mic nights — similar to the establishments on Pearl Street in Northampton. He said he thinks such a place, unique to the area, could be identified with Pittsfield as Tanglewood is to Lenox. White said there are already places in the city that offer open-mic nights and live music, but he said the type of place he has in mind would be a little different and could be heavily promoted. In addition he said he thinks a youth center ought to be constructed somewhere near North Street. It ought to be open past 5 p.m., as other downtown businesses ought to be. North Street businesses, open into the evening, would keep more people downtown, and he said he thinks more people downtown would prevent crime from happening. White said he thinks the city ought to try to lure "big-name stores" with "good names" to North Street, similar to the ones at Quincy Market in Boston. If such stores were present downtown, he said he thinks people would end up visiting a number of stores during a shopping trip, even if their plan was to stop at only one of them. White likened this to when one goes to the mall expecting to go to one store, and then ends up visting a number of stores. White said he thinks the city's web site is very important. He said he thinks it was Ward 1 Councilor Robert G. Tuttle who recently filed a petition requesting that the city look into updating its web site, which contains some information but not a great deal. Furthermore he thinks it was Tuttle's idea that the city offer space on its web site to local businesses. "I think the web site is the best way to get information out about the city," White said. As a potential way to get the city's youth involved, maybe the graphic arts department at Taconic High School, he said, could work with students to update and improve the web site. If he gets elected to the City Council, White said he plans on establishing two separate groups for the youth of Pittsfield and neighboring communities. One, he said, for be for adolescents aged 17 to 20; the other would be for young adults aged 21 through 25. He said the primary questions he would ask of the first group would be: What would keep you off the streets? and What is it that you want to give you something to do? He said he would ask the older group: What's going to keep you here in Pittsfield? In 1996 White graduated from Taconic High School, earning, besides a diploma, a certificate for participating in its vocational program. He then spent 2 1/2 semesters as a graphic arts major at Springfield Tech in Springfield. After deciding that wan't the path he wanted, he transferred to Berkshire Community College, where he was a member of its Student Goverment Association and where he received a liberal arts associate's degree in 2001. Now he's pursuing a bachelor's degree in history at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, hoping to one day be a high school history teacher, he said. White said he really wants people to call him and give him ideas about how to improve Pittsfield and solve its problems. His phone number is 443-5828; his e-mail address is pete_white78@lycos.com.
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North Adams Clothing Store Moving to Larger Space

Staff Reports
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Label Shopper is moving across the parking lot to the former Peebles location in April.
 
The discount clothing store has been located in the downtown's L-shaped mall downtown since 2009. It replaced Fashion Bug, which had been in that spot for 24 years before closing in 2007; the company liquidated in 2013. 
 
Label Shopper is part of Peter Harris Clothes, established in 1970 by Peter Elitzer. Starting as a single store in Latham, N.Y., offering brand-name apparel at discount prices, the company operates more than 70 stores throughout the Northeast and Midwest.
 
The store is set to close on April 6 for the move and reopen on April 9 in the former Gordmans, according to signage. 
 
Gordmans briefly replaced Peebles in the former Kmart until the parent company of the two brands declared bankruptcy and closed its stores in 2020. 
 
At 17,250 square feet, the Gordman's space is at least double the size of Label Shopper's current location.
 
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