Former Pittsfield, Massachusetts mayor Gerald Doyle has died, according to city hall.
Doyle served two terms from 1998 to 2002. Current city council president Peter Marchetti, who knew Doyle personally and professionally, described him as hard-working and forceful in his beliefs. He said Doyle’s legacy would likely be his efforts to hold General Electric responsible for decades of polluting the Housatonic River throughout the mid-20th Century.
“I know there’s various different people with a difference of opinions, but I think the GE settlement and having the GE economic fund was a step in the right direction for a city that had just lost its major employer," Marchetti told WAMC.
General Electric’s consent decree to clean up the river in Pittsfield was finalized in 2000.
Doyle, who died Sunday, was 62.
