Pittsfield Subcommittee Mulls Roadwork, Pavement Plan

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Roadwork was the topic of conversation during Monday's Public Works and Utilities subcommittee meeting.

The panel discussed a request to review the city's pavement management plan and received an update on various roadwork projects from Commissioner of Public Services and Utilities Ricardo Morales.

Councilors at Large Peter White and Earl Persip III believe that a comprehensive review of the pavement management plan is needed to ensure the effectiveness and longevity of the city's infrastructure.

"We thought it was time that there was a comprehensive review of our pavement management plan," White explained. "And having this body involved in it we think is extremely important because you hear from your constituents every day."

They highlighted seven areas for focus:

• Evaluating the criteria and procedures used to prioritize roads for paving each year
• Assessing the feasibility and benefits of chip sealing certain roads as a cost-saving pavement preservation method
• Developing a long-term pavement preservation plan
• Implementing a systematic approach to address issues after road construction maintenance
• Determining an appropriate budget allocation for crack sealing as proactive maintenance
• Establishing a clear schedule and plan for routine line painting
• Developing a comprehensive schedule and plan for street sweeping

White pointed out that chip sealing was discontinued a few years ago and it may be time to revisit that conversation. He and Persip would like to see these items discussed to see if they need to be amended.

"It's a great conversation to have on a regular basis to share what we do, to revisit the process," Morales said.

He walked the councilors through the pavement condition index that the city uses to identify the condition of roads with information that is captured on a three-year rotating basis. A contracted vehicle drives the city and measures the stress level on every paved street to establish a pavement condition score from zero to 100, which is a newly paved road.

Pittsfield's overall PCI is 66, a number that the city works towards increasing as more work is completed.

"What we want to see is next year we have a higher average PCI than last year," Morales said. "That is our goal."

The city has a $25 million backlog, meaning that if it put together that amount of money every Pittsfield road could in theory be fixed. However, instead of looking at it that way, he said it is more productive to spend the right amount of money based on different types of road reconstruction and preventative maintenance.

Ward 5 Councilor Patrick Kavey said he is advocating for more state Chapter 90 road funding, which pays for road paving.

In FY24, the city appropriation was $7.5 million with again $1.3 million in Chapter 90. A total of more than $8.4 million was spent on accepted streets, about $216,000 on in-house work with an additional $108,111 encumbered, and about $749,236 was spent on sidewalks.

Last month, a petition from Ward 4 Councilor James Conant requesting an update on resurfacing, sidewalk reconstruction, preventative maintenance, line painting, streetscape maintenance, and manhole covers was referred to Morales.??

He reported that over the past several weeks, the Highway Division has addressed road defects and potholes during the warmer weather.  An area on South Street received prioritized attention and the requested work has been patched and is expected to last at least until a better repair can be done with asphalt in the spring.

Morales highlighted that the city is partnering with Downtown Pittsfield Inc. and Pittsfield Beautiful for streetscape maintenance in the downtown.

Last year, councilors expressed concerns with overgrown medians and flowerbeds. It was reported that an initiative called Downtown Blooms will address the issue, placing nature-inspired gardens as part of a three-year project.

"We have been working with Downtown Pittsfield Inc. and Pittsfield Beautiful and together we created what is called Downtown Blooms," he said.

"Currently we have a contractor that has cleared out 38 planting beds throughout the North Street area and in the spring, sometime in April depending on the weather, they are going to come back and prep some planting beds for actual plantings to go in by volunteers."

Downtown Blooms and DPI will be responsible for hiring a gardening contractor to take care of the plantings and the city will remain responsible for the funding.

Several projects are in the planning stage and details have not been finalized.

The city has an active contract with LB Corp. that will continue in the spring with about seven miles of road resurfacing.  The Engineering Division is in the process of finalizing the list of streets to be resurfaced for FY25 and the work is expected to be awarded by the end of April. This work will also include crack sealing and fog sealing. 

A contract for sidewalk reconstruction was awarded to J.H. Maxymillian and work is expected to begin in the spring.  The commissioner explained that the intent is to send the contractor to streets and assign work as needed, and is intended to be done in close coordination with city councilors.??

The city has entered into a county bid program for road markings and line painting. The contract includes water-based and thermoplastic paints and a separate contract will be awarded in the next month for a third type of paint.

"We primarily have been using waterborne paint. It is what the county purchasing has. They also have the epoxy paint. It is ten times more expensive so we tend not to go that route in order to be able to do more and that's why this next year they're still going to do the waterborne and the epoxy," Morales explained.

"What we would like to do is get the low VOC paint which is kind of in between and not as expensive as epoxy to be able to have a contractor do that type of work."

Toys for Tots Bringing Presents to Thousands of Kids This Year

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:21PM / Friday, December 05, 2025

Volunteers organize toys by age and gender in the House of Corrections storage facility. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Plenty of toys are on their way to children this holiday season thanks to Toys for Tots.

Christopher Keegan has coordinated the local toy drive for the Berkshire Chapter of the Marine Corps Reserve since 2015 and said he has seen the need rise every year, last year helping more than 6,000 kids.

"This is 11 years I've been doing it, and the need has gone up every year. It's gone up every year, and I anticipate it going up even more this year," Keegan said.

On Thursday, the Berkshire County House of Corrections storage facility was overflowing with toys making it the county's very own Santa's workshop. 

Keegan said Berkshire County always shows up with toys or donations. 

"This county is outstanding when it comes to charity. They rally around stuff. They're very giving, they're very generous, and they've been tremendous in this effort, the toys for pride effort, since I've been doing it, our goal is to honor every request, and we've always reached that goal," he said.

Keegan's team is about 20 to 25 volunteers who sort out toys based on age and gender. This week, the crew started collecting from the 230 or so boxes set out around the county on Oct. 1.

"The two age groups that are probably more difficult — there's a newborn to 2s, boys and girls, and 11 to 14, boys and girls. Those are the two challenging ages where we need to focus our attention on a little bit more," he said.

Toys For Tots has about 30 participating schools and agencies that sign up families and individuals who need help putting gifts under the tree. Keegan takes requests right up until the last minute on Christmas.

"We can go out shopping for Christmas. I had sent my daughter out Christmas Eve morning. Hey, we need X amount of toys and stuff, but the requests are still rolling in from individuals, and I don't say no, we'll make it work however we can," he said.

Community members help to raise money or bring in unopened and unused toys. Capeless Elementary student Thomas St. John recently raised $1,000 selling hot chocolate and used the money to buy toys for the drive.

"It's amazing how much it's grown and how broad it is, how many people who were involved," Keegan said.

On Saturday, Live 95.9 personalities Bryan Slater and Marjo Catalano of "Slater and Marjo in the Morning" will host a Toys for Tots challenge at The Hot Dog Ranch and Proprietor's Lodge. Keegan said they have been very supportive of the drive and that they were able to collect more than 3,000 toys for the drive last year.

Volunteer Debbie Melle has been volunteering with Toys for Tots in the county for about five years and said people really showed up to give this year.

"I absolutely love it. It's what we always say. It's organized chaos, but it's rewarding. And what I actually this year, I'm so surprised, because the amount that the community has given us, and you can see that when you see these pictures, that you've taken, this is probably the most toys we've ever gotten," she said. "So I don't know if people just feel like this is a time to give and they're just going above and beyond, but I'm blown away. This year we can barely walk down the aisles for how much, how many toys are here. It's wonderful."