Mayor Marchetti Debuts 'One Pittsfield' TV Show
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Mayor Peter Marchetti launched his bi-weekly television program on Monday with an overview of the administration's first few weeks.
"One Pittsfield," aired on Pittsfield Community Television, is one of the ways Marchetti has planned to communicate with the public and demystify the inner workings of the city.
"When you walk into the mayor's office, I can't guarantee that I'm sitting at my desk doing absolutely nothing that you can walk into my office, but my staff has done a great job in the first three weeks of ensuring that everybody who wants an appointment can get an appointment whether it be right at that very given moment or within a couple of days," he said.
"And so I think it's imperative again to emphasize my desire of being open and being out and lunch hours are spent walking downtown Pittsfield to be able to connect and be involved with people and so I think that's really kind of a fascinating time."
Marchetti went over the first council meeting of the term, which was described as "pretty uneventful for the most part," and the upcoming meeting on Tuesday.
In a split vote, the council supported a petition from Councilor at Large Kathy Amuso requesting the presentation of a budget that is "close to level-funded."
While the mayor supports looking at ways to reduce costs, he felt it was too early to begin conversations about a level-funded budget before conducting efficiency studies of all of the departments as well as policies and procedures.
"There seem to be some folks that took the back and forth between myself and members of the council as something that Mayor Marchetti is not interested in trying to save the taxpayers money. Let's correct the record: That is not a true statement," he said. "Throughout the campaign and my inaugural address, we talked about looking for ways of reducing costs or raising revenues for the city and so I just thought it was too early to be put into that position to be able to make those choices.
"I also think that if that's the direction that we're going to take — and we are going to attempt to be as level-funded as we can — there is the possibility that services may need to be cut."
He said any cuts shouldn't be something that happens behind closed doors but part of a greater conversation with the council.
"And so as I begin my process in the next week or two of starting to build a budget, we are going to be asking ourselves the questions 'not what have we always done and how do we do it' but what can we do differently. We're going to ask ourselves, what are our priorities? And I think that I'm pretty well in touch with what our priorities are," Marchetti explained.
"When it snows we want our road plowed. When we get to the wonderful spring pothole season, we want our potholes filled. We want our trash collected. We want our police to respond in a time that is reasonable. We want fire to respond in a time that's reasonable. We want schools that produce a quality education. So all of those pieces will be part of defining what our priorities are and defining how we want to move forward as a community.
"Are there ways that we can make reductions? Sure we can but are they to the level that we may need?"
Amuso also submitted a petition to establish a committee that reviews the needs of the downtown. Marchetti pointed out that he has made a commitment to work with the downtown businesses and stakeholders and has already begun that process with a meeting set in early February.
This will include members of Downtown Pittsfield Inc. and residents who play a role in the area.
"I don't want that meeting to be criticism after criticism after criticism. I think we all recognize the fact that our downtown needs some attention. I think we can look at our downtown and just say from an aesthetic point, it needs some work," the mayor said.
"We need to ensure that as we enter this spring, our downtown looks beautiful and we already have a plan with Downtown Blooms to begin that process so we need to ensure that come April 1, we are holding up our end of the bargain and doing those pieces."
Downtown Blooms is a collaboration between the city, Downtown Pittsfield Inc., Pittsfield Beautiful, the Downtown Pittsfield Cultural Association, MassDevelopment's Transformative Development Initiative, Selbert Perkins Design, and Boston-based landscape designer Jennifer O'Donnell.
Nature-inspired gardens will be implemented downtown as part of a three-year project beginning this season.
Marchetti has also vowed to create a mental health task force to address one of the most pressing issues in the community. He said the city needs some additional police presence with mental health personnel.
"And lastly, we need to make a commitment to hold folks accountable for their actions in downtown. So if someone is just hanging in downtown, there's nothing wrong with that but if people are doing illegal activities while they're hanging in downtown, we need to take steps to move them along and get the unwanted behaviors off North Street," he said.
"We need to recognize the difference between aggressive panhandling and panhandling and currently panhandling is legal and there's not much we can do but if a panhandler is assaulting or there's an altercation that's a different story and folks should immediately call 911 and a police officer will respond and take care of the issue."
As the city moves forward, he wants to look at solutions and not rehash past problems because "we know where we have fallen down and we know where we need to go forward."
Councilor at Large Earl Persip III has submitted a petition requesting the use of $1 million in free cash for infrastructure work that needs to be completed. Marchetti is not sure if free cash is the right appropriation for that.
"We know that we have tons of infrastructure problems and our free cash was certified at $8.1 million back in December. At the last City Council meeting, we also transferred about $500,000 of that money to the opioid trust ... so we have about $7.6 million of free cash," the mayor said.
"As I alluded to earlier, we'll be looking to make an appropriation to do roadwork with that. In my guess, at this stage of the game, it's probably $2.5 million worth of road work that we will be putting forward and so you'll quickly see that we're down to about the $5 million mark."
Marchetti would like to explore using free cash differently such as using it to replace some first responder vehicles to avoid borrowing and paying debt service.
"I think the conversation about infrastructure needs to be a holistic approach and not a Band-Aid approach step by step," he said. "But we will take the proposal from Councilor Persip and put it into some consideration."
The mayor said the television program may not always be shot in the corner office, as he would like to take viewers on the road to different city facilities. City staff will also be brought on show who is working to solve municipal problems.
"We've been working," Marchetti said. "And I can't wait to run into you in town."
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