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North Adams Votes to Create Ad Hoc Committee for City Code Review

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council approved the creation of an ad hoc committee to review the codification process and make recommendations. 
 
The city has embarked on a recodification process that over the next two years will complete a review to find contradictory ordinances and regulations and outdated materials and language, ensure new ordinances have been properly recorded, and make the code cleaner and more transparent. 
 
The total cost of the work will be $19,540 and is being undertaken by vendor General Code, which has maintained the city's code for 40 years. 
 
The last time the code was updated was 61 years in 1964.
 
The committee will be comprised of three councilors, the city clerk and a representative of the administration appointed by the president. The mayor will also select members of her administrative team to act as advisers. 
 
Councilor Lisa Blackmer questioned why Council President Bryan Sapienza brought the committee forward as an order. 
 
"When we had other ad hoc, we haven't normally presented an order in my memory, but I could be misremembering," she said. 
 
Councilor Keith Bona agreed, "we don't have to do it as an order so, but you are putting three councilors on there."
 
He wondered if it would be better to make it General Government-plus, since any ordinance changes would go back before that committee. 
 
Sapienza said the ad hoc committee could recommend changes directly to the council. He also did not want to have quorum of any council committees on the ad hoc panel. 
 
 "I want this committee to act almost like an official committee," he said. I thought it better to do it this way."
 
The vote was unanimous with Councilor Peter Breen absent. Sapienza asked councilors to indicate if they were interested and he would make the appointments at the next meeting. 
 
In other business, Blackmer brought forward missing language from the Smart Growth ordinance passed in 2021.
 
"Somewhere along the way, a page was missed and I'm not sure if it was the discussion or the publishing and voting," she said. "So we just need to basically look at this, have a joint public hearing with the Planning Board on the page of missing ordinance language, and then publish that and then pass to a second reading. ...
 
"This question kind of came up as they were codifying and so I just want to fix it and move on."
 
The order was referred to the Planning Board to set a joint hearing. 
 
• A public hearing on National Grid installing a joint utility pole on Union Street was scheduled for the next meeting.
 
Councilor Wayne Wilkinson lodged a complaint about not being able to see the mayor or others using the microphone on the other side of Council Chambers because of the Meeting Owl cameras' placement between the tables. He is seated at the far end of the table on the south side. 
 
"Maybe it's because I'm short. Do they have to be there?" he said, adding that maybe the council was prejudiced against short people. ...  right now, this is not tenable. I cannot see the mayor. I cannot see. Maybe I should get a booster chair."
 
Sapienza responded "whatever works for you" and Wilkinson said he'd bring one in if the situation wasn't rectified. 
 
The council president said he'd have IT experiment to see if the cameras, which record the meeting for social media, can be shifted. Bona, who is seated at the other end of the table, offered to switch seats if possible. The councilors draw their seating positions each January. 
 
"I can see everything from this location, and I won't need a booster seat," he said. 
 
Sapienza and Wilkinson were going to discuss the issue further.
 

Tags: ad hoc committee,   city code,   

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Main & Mill: A Vibrant New Restaurant on Main Street

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — You can now enjoy another eatery on Main Street by well-known restaurant siblings Colleen and Sean Taylor.

Their restaurant Main & Mill opened for the first time Tuesday, bringing their vision of creating something vibrant and new to downtown North Adams.

"We have created Main & Mill to be part of our day. It's very seasonal ingredients, thoughtful cooking, beauty, beautiful presentation and dishes. And we really wanted to be part of the community, the downtown area, and start a vibrant area on this end, which has been shuttered for a while," said Colleen.

The building is owned by Ginko on Main Street LLC, which has granted 20 years exclusive possession of the property to Latent Builds as the developer. Jack and Suzy Wadsworth, behind Ginko, are development partners with Karla Rothstein and Salvatore Perry of Latent.

The bank closed in early 2021 and was purchased by Ginko late that year. Plans for the property unveiled three years ago envisioned a restaurant, retail, a park and rooftop bar. 

Colleen saw potential and said she initially wanted the building when it first went up for sale. Being good friends with Rothstein and Perry, she helped them design the kitchen and the bar before learning in March that she could lease it as a restaurant space, something she told them would be a great idea.

She said one of the most important things about the restaurant was the collaboration between Rothstein, Perry, and the Wadsworths, who put a lot of time and energy into the building.

"If Sean and I had done it, we would not be able to do what the collaboration supported. The collaboration of the three of us being able to really have that kind of money to put in down here. The design that the architecture firm that Carla and Sal own is stunning," she said. "The time and effort, everyone came together to do this in a really trusting manner."

The two wanted the restaurant to be an all-day venture, so people could eat at any point throughout the day, all week long.

"We wanted it to be open for coffee and socialization in the morning where people can meet, have their cup of coffee, have a quiche, a vegetarian quiche, or croissant or yogurt. Something intentional with their coffee," she said. "Then move into a lunchtime for the downtown business or anybody, and then go into supper, dinner, with drinks later into the evening. So have it really be open all day long, so that there wasn't a void on any particular day."

They also wanted to do something different than the other restaurants they owned.

"We didn't want to mimic any other restaurant in town. We wanted to bring something that was inspiring, something that had some familiar things that people would see, and other things that we would bring to them for them to experience," she said.

As a woman business owner, Colleen said she wanted to bring a female chef into the kitchen. 

Colleen brought on Chef Anna DeRose, who she said puts twists on a lot of her dishes.

"So we have a creme brulee, but our creme brulee is topped with marshmallow," she said. "Our creme brulee is like almost two desserts in one. It's a s'mores creme brulee. So you could have a s'mores, and you could have a creme brulee - but when you put both of them together, fireworks go off."

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