Pittsfield, Massachusetts Ward 5 city councilor Patrick Kavey is running for a third term this year. The 30-year-old has spent the past four years representing the southwestern quadrant of Berkshire County’s largest community. While he ran unopposed in 2021, Kavey will face challenger Ocean Sutton in this year’s campaign. Pittsfield’s preliminary election is set for September 19th, with the general on November 7th. A major leadership shakeup is inevitable for Pittsfield, with current city council president Peter Marchetti running for mayor against former councilor John Krol as Linda Tyer prepares to step down after eight years. Kavey sat down with WAMC to explain why he’s asking voters to once again return him to city hall.
KAVEY: Because we're not done yet. So, when I originally ran, I ran on education, I ran on co-op programs with our vocational high school and local business. And we still have three vocational shops that don't have a co-op partner, or I guess they do now, because two of them are partnering with the city. So, we have to solidify that relationship, finish that work, among other things.
WAMC: When you look over your tenure so far, what examples of your leadership do you think best encapsulate what you've brought to the Pittsfield City Council?
Zoom. Do you remember Zoom in the beginning of COVID? So, my very first term, three months in, we all know what happened. So, we had to adapt as a government and provide people the same services they were used to, just in a very different way. And I think my age and creativity really helped manage that situation well.
Over the last few years, what would you identify as the biggest issue the council has deliberated on? And how do you think it plays into this year's election?
I think there are many issues. The one that I think about the most has to do with our infrastructure and our roads. So, we hear about potholes all the time, we hear about how we're not necessarily keeping up in specific neighborhoods, how our bridges are failing. So that for me is a top priority. But there are quite a few issues going on right now within the city. We're talking trash collection, we're talking policing and mental health, we're talking downtown, we're talking parking, how to make our downtown vibrant again after experiencing a global pandemic, how to make it more pedestrian friendly and friendly for people on bicycles, whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing. I support bike lanes. I think we can clean up what we've done in downtown a little bit. But there's a long, long list.
From your perspective, how stable is this iteration of the council? You've now seen a couple of big changes come through- Heading into this election. Where do you feel like the current body of incumbents is at?
I think we're going to see a very new council. I think it'll have a lot of new faces. But overall, even though we disagree a lot, and even though we go back and forth and have some interesting discussions that might look a little unsettling to people in the public, we have a pretty good group. And I think, as long as people continue to be involved and people who run really love this community the way that some of us do who are running again, we'll be in good hands.
What do you think you've learned about both Ward 5 and Pittsfield at large over your years of service so far?
I've learned that there's no right or wrong answer to a lot of situations, there's a lot of gray area. So, for example, when you're taking a vote, if you like 60% of what's in front of you, vote in favor of it and then work on that other 40% later on. It's not as cut and dry as sometimes we think an issue is. It's a lot more complex, and some of the issues we're dealing with take a lot of work. So, it takes time to accomplish some of the things we're trying to within the city.
Now, this year also marks a major transition in the city's leadership in that eight-year mayor Linda Tyer is not seeking a third four-year term. There are two major candidates in the race, city council President Peter Marchetti and former city councilor John Krol. What issues do you think needs to be at the top of this conversation as Pittsfield goes about electing a new top executive?
So, I'm excited. I'm excited to work with either one of them. I think a lot of what Mayor Tyer’s worked on in the past will continue to come to fruition in the next year or so, two years. A lot of the work in government that you accomplish today, you don't see the fruits of your labor of until later on. So, I think we'll see a lot of that, and I think either one of those candidates will do well working off of what she did, but also bringing kind of their own flair to it. Like we were discussing earlier: Infrastructure, downtown, what our downtown is going to look like, how it works the best for the people in our community, how we can make it more accessible to different members of our community. I think we'll see a lot of discussion on trash. I mean, Casella, the waste facility station still isn't open. It will be, but it's not yet. So, I think that'll be a discussion as to whether we want to do pay-as-you-throw, whether we need to regulate it more, or whether we need to keep it the way that it is. I think we'll see a lot of discussions around policing and around mental health. I think we'll see a lot of discussions around education, and Taconic going fully vocational, Pittsfield High being the academic high school, potentially consolidating schools- I think there's a there's a lot, there's a lot on our plate to work on.
At this time, are you endorsing either of those two candidates?
I am not, no. No. So, I know them both. I am excited to work with either one of them, I'm excited to see how their campaigns evolve, and I hope that they may run positive, insightful campaigns and I hope we have we have a good election season.
Any last words for Kavey For Ward 5 2023?
Again, like I said in the beginning, we're not done yet. So, we need to finish a lot of our roadwork- So, Barker Road Bridge, Melbourne Bridge. We need to continue working on these co-op programs. So, with our electrical and carpentry students, I'm trying to work with our commissioner on getting a new garage built at city yards that they will be building for us. With downtown, I mean, we all have our feelings about the bike lanes. So, I think we can continue to have those discussions and improve them. And I still believe as I did when I first ran for office, when we lift people up in our community, we all do better. So, I think us having more discussion as a community, more input from our residents, we can't go wrong, and I look forward to continuing to represent the voices in Ward 5 and working throughout the city.
