North Adams Council OKs Software Borrowing

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:33AM / Wednesday, September 11, 2024Print Story | Email Story

Kathy Arabia speaks about the work of the AYJ Fund at Tuesday's City Council meeting with her husband, Joe, and Mayor Jennifer Macksey.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council in a brief meeting on Monday gave final authorization on the purchase of new software for the city's financial systems.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey also read the annual proclamation in recognition of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

The council had authorized by roll call vote at the end of August the borrowing of $536,562 to purchase new financial software package, Municipal Uniform Information System, or MUNIS.

The mayor said it will include the treasure/collector, accounts payable, general receipts, the assessing package, compass, as well as a citizen portal to report problems or made requests to departments.

The software will allow for more efficient processing and streamlined reporting to the state for both the city and school department. Future add-ons can include permitting, the mayor said at the August meeting.

"One of my first jobs was to implement our current financial software known as KBS," said Macksey, who joined the city's finance department in 1995. "KBS has been discontinued, in a sense, and it's no longer supported. It's 29 years old ... It has served us well. It has been a good tool, but it is time for us to modernize."

The borrowing will cover all of the the setup, the software, the training and one year of annual subscription. The annual fee after that is about $109,000, which is comparable to KBS and the Springbook software that the city has been using as a bridge.

She is hoping for a January start and said the short-term borrowing could be shifted to a long-term borrowing or paid out as debt in the budget since some debt will be falling off.

The city's former auditor, David Fierro, has been using and loving it in his new position in Williamstown so he has been piloting it in a way, said Macksey.

Councilor Peter Breen said at the August meeting that he had recommended MUNIS for the town of Adams in 2004 and it has worked well for them.

"So my feeling is, we've been putting a Band-Aid on this for a bit. And it's kind of time to move on it," she said. "The key is to get our house in order in the sense of our system that we rely on everyday, KBS, is on life support."

The council unanimously on Tuesday night gave final approval for the borrowing. A two-thirds vote was required.

The mayor, wearing the color gold to honor Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, read a proclamation stating "every baby, every child, deserves the opportunity to grow up and live a healthy, happy life, yet cancer continues to rob families of this fundamental right, causing tremendous hardship for all those affected."

The document encourages local organizations and community members in North Adams to join the fight "by supporting events, initiatives and fundraising efforts and wearing gold, the color of Childhood Cancer Awareness as a symbol of solidarity with the young warriors fighting this disease."

A proclamation has been read each year in support of the month and the AYJ Fund, founded 10 years ago by Kathy and Joseph Arabia in honor of their daughter Anna Yan Ji Arabia.

The fund has committed $1.3 million to research and helped in hosting the first conferences on gliomatosis cerebri, the brain cancer that Anna fought against for three years of her young life.

The fund has also helped numerous local children and their families who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis through its programs.

"It's work that is very inspirational for us to see the progress that the researchers are working on to make a difference," said Kathy Arabia. "We visited with some of them last week at Dana-Farber [Cancer Institute], and the work they're doing is tremendous, but at the same time, there are more and more children with cancer that we're connecting with."

Arabia said the fund's Smiles program has connected with more than 5,000 children and noted the support the fund has received from the mayors, the City Council and community over the years.

In other business:

• General Government Committee Chair Ashley Shade reported that a new communication has been received from city solicitor in relation to a proposed draft amending the city's cannabis ordinance. She said a meeting with be scheduled with the mayor and the solicitor with anticipation the ordinance will be presented to council at the second meeting in September.

• The council confirmed the reappointment of Nicholas Rigger to serve as a member of the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, for a term to expire Oct. 1, 2027.

At the last meeting, the council confirmed the appointments of Tori Wilhelm and Leigh Uqdah to the library board of trustees and Gabrielle Thomas to the Youth Commission, all with terms expiring Aug. 27, 2027; and Paul Moriarty to the Traffic Commission to fill a term ending Jan. 10, 2025, vacated by Paul King.

Tags: cancer support, software,

Why the Massachusetts Art Community Is Worth Continued Investment

By James BirgeGuest Column
10:41AM / Tuesday, April 21, 2026

How do we quantify the value of art on society and culture? Even eye-popping figures, like the $100 million estimate for the jewels stolen from the Louvre, or the record auction last fall that saw a piece by Gustav Klimt sell for more than $236 million can't fully account for the value of the history, stories, and emotions behind the creations themselves. But beyond that, there is a measurable financial, cultural and social benefit of the arts that is often taken for granted.

Closer to home, arts and cultural production in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts totals nearly $30 billion annually, representing more than 4 percent of the state's economic output, according to the Mass Cultural Council. All told, more than 130,000 jobs are spread across the commonwealth creating a vibrant and thriving artistic community for us all to enjoy.

Despite the obvious impact, these figures are under threat. A recent survey by MassCreative compiled recent federal cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and identified 63 grants canceled and $4.2 million in grant funding rescinded across New England so far this year.

The dollars, of course, are important. But they also only scratch the surface on what they bring to the community. Today, we risk losing part of the culture and identity many now take for granted.

While others choose to look past these less tangible, but just as vital benefits, we're doing the opposite. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts is all in to ensure the next generation retains their access to works of art, while also being empowered to create themselves.

Last fall, MCLA officially broke ground on the new Campagna Kleefeld Center for Creativity in the Arts, which will serve as a new hub for the campus and the local community for arts programming. When complete in fall of 2027, our students will benefit, but so will all of Berkshire County and artists in the surrounding area.

This exciting new facility is just one of the many forthcomings our region can enjoy in the coming years. Just a few miles away, anticipation builds for the Fall 2027 anticipated opening for the Williams College Museum of Art. Years in the making, the museum likewise grows from an enduring commitment to the arts, both in curriculum and in practice. Exciting times are also underway for the Clark Art Institute with the construction of a new facility to house a collection of 331 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works. Their wing is scheduled for completion in 2028. And listeners will no doubt enjoy the sounds and melodies from Mass MoCA Records, the latest endeavor to foster creativity and artistic pursuits through music launched in October as well. Of course, many are also awaiting the reopening of the Berkshire Museum anticipated this summer, after a tremendous renovation process to rejuvenate the experience for visitors.

So much time, energy, and yes, dollars, have already been invested in taking these facilities from ideas and sketches and making them reality. But they represent much more than new buildings. They represent new opportunities to cultivate and accelerate the thriving arts community in Massachusetts and the northern Berkshires.

Art, regardless of the medium, is a reflection of who we are, where we've been, and what we aspire to be. It can be inspired by hopes or fears and chronicle collective triumphs as well as tribulations. The goal of art is not only to document history, but to inspire those positioned to change it and to feel something new or even to provoke us to revisit our own assumptions or misconceptions.

As unfathomable of a number as $30 billion can seem, boiling down the impact to any number inherently discounts the unknowable downstream effects our graduates will bring to the community and the broader world after they leave our institutions. Likewise, rescinding $4.2 million now removes a huge chunk of that growth potential.

Justification for making these investments today when simply boiled down to dollars and cents still places us on solid ground strictly from a financial perspective that forgoes all of the intangible, but no less valuable, benefits as well.

The arts are still worth our support. And our community will be richer for it.

James Birge, PhD, is president of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams.

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