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Bernard Explains North Adams Hydrants Plan, Concerns About In-Person Education

 North Adams Mayor Tom Bernard speaks with WAMC inside his city hall office.
Josh Landes
/
WAMC
North Adams, Massachusetts Mayor Tom Bernard speaking with WAMC in 2019.

North Adams, Massachusetts Mayor Tom Bernard is presenting a new plan to deal with broken fire hydrants to the city council Tuesday night. It comes after two  recent fires underscored safety infrastructure problems. Bernard spoke with WAMC about the plan, as well as his opposition to the state’s plan to return to in-person education this spring.

BERNARD: We've hired a new employee to fill an open position in the water department. We've got staff out, inspecting cleaning hydrants throughout the city and then bagging the hydrants that are inoperative. So we're making visible the scope of the issue. We're also making sure that our lists are up to date as we do this. So, verifying GPS locations, identifying hydrants that aren't on the list, identifying hydrants that are misidentified either as in or out of service. You know, we've been able to add some to the in service list, even as we have been identifying some that need to be added to the out of service list, and making sure that we're getting this to the fire department and dispatch so that their records are up to date. And then setting a priority for hydrant replacement. And to fund part of that hydrant replacement, I will be going to the city council at tomorrow's meeting with a written order to borrow $300,000, which, based on estimates would let us replace anywhere from 50 to 60 hydrants to start tackling the problem as we as we continue with long term planning.

Now there's about 100 hydrants facing some kind of inoperable state at this point. Would there be a subsequent future spending plan to address the rest of them?

So that would be built into our into our long term capital plan, which we're looking at, you know, the commitment was to do about 10 a year. So we'll make sure that we're sticking to that commitment and funding that commitment in the budget as we go forward. So the goal of the immediate step is to identify those areas of greatest vulnerability and close gaps where we can as we move toward, you know, addressing the full scope of the problem.

I want to turn to your comments on the state's reopening of schools plan. You put out a press release expressing some skepticism about this initiative from Massachusetts. Walk me through it, what are your reservations?

I want to take a step back and say the the underlying premise that we want to get as many students as possible back into our schools for in learning person as quickly and as safely as possible is something that there's no argument on. So the concerns are about the the timing and the process. And the, what I felt was a lack of clarity about what is happening, particularly here in Western Massachusetts. Again, you know, if you read the coverage from last week's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting, the word that every news story in the immediate aftermath of that vote used the word force. And I have a real concern that that's what we're looking at, is, we're looking at something that is coercive rather than than collaborative. So it doesn't take into account local context, it doesn't take into account building condition, it doesn't take into account, you know, how many teachers already are on a leave plan, or a remote teaching plan. It doesn't take into account the success that we've had with pool testing with the sort of mitigation strategies that everybody's following. You know, wearing a mask, practicing social distancing and limiting classroom capacities. And, you know, the big unknown is the timing and availability of vaccine to support this and to give our educators a level of comfort, that their that their safety is being prioritized. And again, you know, the state date for starting vaccination, booking vaccine appointments, is March 11, but there's no guarantee that there will be supply to meet that demand. So trying to then rush toward an early April date without addressing all of these factors just really concerns me and to do it in a way that does feel coercive is is really concerning.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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