The council meeting was the first after the start of the fiscal year 2023 budget review. Last week, the body preliminarily approved fiscal plans for nine city departments, including the almost $12 million police department budget — an increase of over 3.5% from last year.
“I was quite shocked, actually, after four years of being on the council and going through the budget process, to read in the paper that the police budget had been passed on the first night of budget debates," said former Ward 1 city councilor Helen Moon, who ended her tenure last year. She was often the lone voice on the council calling for more oversight and deeper inspection of the police department budget.
“It's never, in my experience, been so upfront in the schedule," Moon continued. "And so I know that there are many people in the community that were really disappointed to not be a part of that conversation, to not join you in this council chamber to discuss that.”
She suggested the council should make sure it’s in touch with the community before barreling through the 2023 budget.
“Congresswoman Ayanna Presley says that those closest to the pain should be closest to the power," said Moon. "I think that when the council, the administration, leaders in the community make decisions for justice- There's this idea that justice trickles down. But justice does not trickle down. Justice needs to start from the bottom up. It needs to start with the people that have been most impacted by violence, by poverty, by oppression, to be part of that conversation and part of that solution.”
But it wasn’t all negative feedback on the budget process during the open mic portion of the meeting.
“I would like to thank the counselors who pushed and advocated for the additional funds to be added to the co-responder line item within the police budget and also for adding the position of a licensed social worker to work with the mayor and the chief to help rollout more programs and help the ones that are already in place to give our community the mental health support it needs and deserves," said Pittsfielder Tonya Frazier.
She has been a vocal critic of the city’s response to mental health emergencies following the police killing of 22-year-old Miguel Estrella on March 25th. An internal report on the incident by the Pittsfield Police Department supported Officer Nicholas Sondrini’s decision to shoot Estrella to death during a mental health crisis. It also retroactively said Estrella was not technically a “person in crisis” despite contradictory accounts from other official narratives as well as witnesses, friends, and family. At a “Justice For Miguel” rally in April, his mother Marisol – interpreted by Anaelisa Jacobsen – put the sense of injustice in simple terms.
“He asked for help and he didn't get help," said Estrella. "I want an answer. He was a youth like, so many of our youth, who just asked for help. He was in crisis. And instead he was met with violence. I'm one of so many mothers who's been through this, and we're not going to do this again.”
An independent investigation by the Berkshire District Attorney is ongoing. The killing has led to increased scrutiny of policing practices and spending from community members, both on the streets of Pittsfield and in city council chambers.
“A petition has been put in by the President [Peter] Marchetti, Councilor [Pete] White, Councilor [Kevin] Sherman and myself requesting the state and federal delegation to assist with finding additional funding and resources to improve the mental health services in Pittsfield," said Frazier. "We need their help to expand on services that are already in place to get more clinicians at the Brien Center and get them the pay that they deserve for the work that they do. We need more staff at the hospital in the crisis triage, in the Jones unit, and Mcgee.”
The Thomas Mcgee Substance Abuse center is located on the campus of the county’s largest hospital – Berkshire Medical Center – in downtown Pittsfield. The Edward A. Jones Memorial Building houses the facility’s mental health units.
“In this community, we hear loud and clear and many of us feel loud and clear from people that we know that the mental health services that we have in Pittsfield are not adequate. We need more funding, and we need more resources," said White. “We need to make sure that when agencies are hiring their staff, their staff is being paid at a level that will keep them here, that will attract new staff, and that we can have consistency in the mental health care that is provided here and that with more funding and more resources from our state and federal delegation, more alternatives can be enacted beyond the Brien Center’s crisis team. We need more services at the hospital. We need more than just what the city can provide with our budget with any amount of reallocating our own funds.”
“This is a huge issue in the city that crosses all boundaries. It is not exclusive to one area, one demographic. All of us have been touched by it," said Sherman. “We're trying to put our money where our mouth is in our last budget meeting in regards to responders, in regards to a mental health professional within the city walls. The state, however, controls much of what happens in regards to the mental health services throughout the state and throughout our city, and we need the help of our delegation.”
WAMC reached out to the delegation for reaction to the petition.
“First, I think it's a really good sign that people are recognizing, people in city government are recognizing what would be helpful in the future, what would be useful, as all of us, as a community, try to think about, how do we make this a safe place for everyone," said State Representative Paul Mark, who represents Pittsfield on Beacon Hill along with fellow State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier and State Senator Adam Hinds. All are Democrats. Hinds is running for lieutenant governor, while Mark is running to replace him in the state senate.
“What I like about seeing this is that it actually fits in line with a lot of work we've been doing in the legislature for the past couple of sessions," said Mark. "And some work I've been trying to assist on, specifically this session, in terms of coming up with maybe an alternative to the traditional police model when we're looking for a crisis, a crisis that needs to be addressed, but needs to be addressed differently. And we in the legislature, we've been looking at alternative models from around the country. There's programs in Oregon that we've seen, there's a bill that I helped write the first draft of they're calling ACES, which is Alternative Community Response System and we're looking to get funding for that to try to allow more communities in Massachusetts to be able to set up these programs that set up this alternative response program. So to see this from the city government is very encouraging.”
In Washington, Congressman Richard Neal of the 1st district represents Pittsfield.
