MCLA Green Living Seminar: Social Marketing & Demand for Fuel Efficiency

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Lisa Watson, associate dean of research and graduate programs and associate professor of marketing at the University of Regina, will give a talk titled "Consumer Demand for Fuel Efficient Vehicles and the Role of Social Marketing" as part of MCLA's Green Living Seminar Series at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. 
 
Green Living Seminar Series webinars are free and open to the public; community members can register for each lecture at mcla.edu/greenliving. All seminars take place weekly on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. through April 14. 
 
Watson researches in the areas of consumer entitlement, sustainable decision-making, and social marketing. According to as press release, Her entitlement research considers how a false sense of personal entitlement (as opposed to actual deservingness) leads to unfavorable behavioral outcomes on the part of the consumer, such as consumer debt and obesity. Watson's sustainable decision-making research explores how and why purchasing and consumption choices put personal comfort and prestige before broader societal welfare. Her social marketing research links the understanding of potentially detrimental consumer choices gained above to behavior change and social marketing theories The purpose of this transformative consumer research is to find ways to motivate positive behavior change to benefit individual consumers and society. 
 
Every semester, MCLA's Green Living Seminar Series hosts lectures by local, regional, and national experts organized around a central theme related to the environment and sustainability. The 2021 series theme is "Individual Actions and Environmental Sustainability." The series is a presentation of the MCLA Environmental Studies Department and MCLA's Berkshire Environmental Resource Center. 
 
For more information, go to www.mcla.edu/greenliving or contact Elena Traister at (413) 662-5303. 

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North Adams Council Votes $55M Budget

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The $55 million fiscal 2027 budget approved by the City Council on Tuesday had been cut by $298,000, as of Monday.
 
The proposed fiscal 2027 spending plan is $54,964,135.99, up 5 percent over this year. The Finance Committee gave a final recommendation of the draft on Monday.
 
Of the amount approved, nearly $24 million comes from state aid (minus $4.5 million in charges), $9.5 million from local receipts, and $25 million through taxation. 
 
Mayor Jennifer Macksey told the Finance Committee, as it was giving its final look at the plan, that she'd made cuts on previously recommended budget lines. The budget has been under review for several weeks. 
 
"We were trending at $1.8 million that we were closing the gap on, and then it became evident that we couldn't push any more really on local receipts," she said. "The team really took a deep dive into what can we really survive without. ... I feel like we, as an administration, tightened up a lot, but we are trying to keep the budget in balance."
 
The reductions, use of $663,000 in reserves and accounts sitting outside the general fund, will be used to close the gap, along with an anticipated $1.1 million more in local receipts.
 
"We have the reserve, we should use it. It's hard to both on the city side and on the school side, you know, to say to a taxpayer, your taxes are going to go up, we have spread out this $2 million and we're sitting on a savings account for $2 million right?" the mayor said.
 
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