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Sen. Elizabeth Warren tours the Saturday's vaccine clinic at Berkshire Community College.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren Vists BCC Vaccination Site

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
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The chart shows the number of inoculations to date through Berkshire Vaccine Collaborative nearing 20,000.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — State and local officials welcomed U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to the Berkshire Community College vaccination site on Saturday for a tour of the clinic that has received many positive reviews.
 
"We need to get as many people vaccinated as possible, not only to prevent them from getting sick right now but also to get people immunized before the variants," Warren said. "This is the best possible use of public money, it's effective, and it's worth it."
 
Mayor Linda Tyer, North Adams Mayor Thomas Bernard, state Sen. Adam Hinds, and state Reps. Tricia Farley Bouvier and William "Smitty" Pignatelli were in attendance.
 
Warren entered Paterson Field House wearing a BCC hat that was given to her when she was a keynote speaker at the college's 2015 commencement ceremony.
 
She said she is collaborating with the Biden administration to ensure that residents are properly supported by the federal government, with an emphasis on providing needed resources to frontline workers addressing racial disparities in COVID-19 testing and treatment.
 
Warren worked to include these values in the American Rescue Act of 2021 that allocated around $41 million to Berkshire County.  
 
"When this pandemic first hit, and there were no vaccines and tests were in very short supply, the only information that was collected and reported was about the gender and the age of the person who had been tested. I started working with Congresswoman [Ayanna] Pressley [of Boston] to insist on collecting data on race and ethnicity, and ultimately got that into the COVID, relief packages, and earlier COVID relief package," She explained.
 
"And as the reports came through we saw the disparate treatment, which ultimately should have surprised no one. These communities of color were already underserved medically and that problem was magnified during this crisis. In this latest American Rescue package, I was able to work with colleagues, to get more funding to target underserved communities specifically and to support vaccination efforts that reach out into those communities."
 
Mobile vaccination clinics, increased vaccination supply, and collaboration between community-based organizations are ways that Warren believes the state could further support these communities.
 
Warren also spoke to the issue of vaccine ability and appointment securing, which is an issue that state residents of all ages are facing. She spoke to a couple of vaccine recipients at the clinic who all admitted to having difficulties securing an appointment on the state's registration portal.
 
"Vaccine rollout has been slow and very bumpy," the senator said. "It's better now, but every single person who I have spoken to here said they had trouble getting signed up, that is a serious problem. We are now months into vaccine distribution, and people are still talking about getting up at 4 in the morning, to try to get on a website where they think they might be able to sign up for a vaccine. That's unacceptable."
 
Warren said she was glad to hear that Berkshire County has been working with trusted organizations, particularly in the immigrant community, to assist eligible residents in acquiring vaccination appointments. The same is being done for disabled populations and seniors, and the county's 32 Councils on Aging have helped seniors to secure appointments as well.
 
Farley-Bouvier said the race to get an appointment is "quite the Hunger Games" in reference to the popular movie series.
 
"We're trying at the federal level to get money to the states to get more vaccines to the states," Warren assured the officials. "But we're relying on states to spend the money well on distribution."

Tags: COVID-19,   Warren,   


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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi said the walkthrough was "striking" at points, particularly at Conte, and had her thinking there was no way she would want her child educated there. She recognized that not everyone has the ability to choose where their child goes to school and "we need to do better."

"The two facilities that we are looking at I think are a great place to start," she said.

"As the Ward 6 councilor, this is where my residents and my students are going to school so selfishly yes, I want to see this project happen but looking at how we are educating Pittsfield students, this is going to give us a big bang for our buck and it's going to help improve the educational experience of a vast group of students in our city."

During the tour, Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey, saw where it could be difficult to pay attention in an open classroom with so much going on and imagined the struggle for students.

Councilor at Large Alisa Costa said, "we cannot afford not to do this" because the city needs schools that people want their children to attend.

"I know that every financial decision we make is tough but we have to figure this out. If the roof on your house were crumbling in, you'd have to figure it out and that's where we're at and we can't afford to wait any longer," she said.

"We can't afford for the sake of the children going to our schools, for the sake of our city that we want to see grow so we have to build a city where people want to go."

Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso, who served on the School Building Needs Commission for about 18 years, pointed out that the panel identified a need to address Conte in 2008.

Curtis addressed questions about the fate of Conte if the build were to happen, explaining that it could be kept as an active space for community use, house the Eagle Academy or the Adult Learning Center, or house the central offices.

School attendance zones are a point of discussion for the entire school district and for this project.

"At one time I think we had 36 school buildings and now we have essentially 12 and then it would go down again but in a thoughtful way," Curtis said.

Currently, eight attendance zones designate where a student will go to elementary school. Part of the vision is to collapse those zones into three with hopes of building a plan that incorporates partner schools in each attendance zone.

"I think that going from eight schools to three would be easier to maintain and I think it would make more sense but in order to get there we will have to build these buildings and we will have to spend money," Kavey said, hoping that the city would receive the 80 percent reimbursement it is vying for.

This plan for West Street, which is subject to change, has the potential to house grades pre-kindergarten to first grade in one school and Grades 2 to 4 in another with both having their own identities and administrations. 

The districtwide vision for middle school students is to divide all students into a grade five and six school and a grade seven and eight school to ensure equity.

"The vagueness of what that looks like is worrisome to some folks that I have talked to," Lampiasi said.

Curtis emphasized that these changes would have to be voted on by the School Committee and include public input.

"We've talked about it conceptually just to illustrate a possible grade span allocation," he said. "No decisions have been made at all by the School Committee, even the grade-span proposals."

School Committee Chair William Cameron said it is civic duty of the committee and council to move forward with the SOI.
 
He explained that when seven of the city's schools were renovated in the late 1990s, the community schools were only 25 years old and Crosby was 35 years old.  The commonwealth did not deem them to be sorely in need of renovation or replacement.
 
"Now 25 years later, Crosby is physically decrepit and an eyesore. It houses students ages three to 11 in a facility meant for use by teenagers,"
 
"Conte and Morningside opened in the mid-1970s. They were built as then state-of-the-art schools featuring large elongated rectangles of open instructional space. Over almost half a century, these physical arrangements have proven to be inadequate for teaching core academic skills effectively to students, many of whom need extra services and a distraction-free environment if they are to realize their full academic potential."
 
He said  the proposal addresses a serious problem in the "economically poorest, most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse area" of the city.
 
Cameron added that these facilities have been deemed unsatisfactory and need to be replaced as part of the project to reimagine how the city can best meet the educational needs of its students.  He said it is the local government's job to move this project forward to ensure that children learn in an environment that is conducive to their thriving academically.
 
"The process of meeting this responsibility needs to begin here tonight," he said.
 
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