In 2021, Jennifer Macksey made history in North Adams, Massachusetts by becoming the first woman elected mayor. The former city treasurer, a close ally to longtime mayor and current State Representative John Barrett, won a two-year term against Lynette Bond by just under 200 of the 3,100 votes cast. It was her first time seeking public office. While Macksey had to shoulder her way through a field of four candidates at the start of the 2021 cycle, she faces a much easier path to a second term this year. Macksey’s sole challenger is a familiar opponent: Aprilyn Carsno, a cashier who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2021. Carsno’s self-funded campaign – whose war chest peaked at around $350 – netted her only 26 votes in that year’s preliminary election, which Macksey – who has fundraised over $61,000 since 2021 – won with 802 votes. Before her re-election campaign kickoff at the North Adams American Legion tonight, WAMC spoke with Macksey about the status of her 2021 campaign promises and her pitch to voters for a second two-year term.
MACKSEY: The elevator pitch is, I'm the same person that they elected two years ago. I feel that I've kept my word to being a hard worker, restoring accountability, and most importantly, being the people's mayor and listening and talking to all people within the city. I've made it a focus of mine over the last 18 months to be a good listener, to be visible, and to be the mayor that people feel comfortable coming to. So, I believe that I've achieved that. And quite frankly, I am not done doing the job that I set out to do. The two years have flown by. I'm not really sure where the time has gone, but I'm still really focused on moving North Adams forward, and I think we're taking many positive steps to do that, and I want to continue my work.
WAMC: You ran on a couple of major topics, one being swift motion on infrastructure projects. Talk to me about that- Where do you see your work on infrastructure after two years?
So, during my first year as mayor, I presented a capital project plan to the city council to identify our aging infrastructure, and that plan included a whole slew of different infrastructure projects. When I arrived at city hall, not one project was shovel ready. And I'm pleased to say that we have many projects that are underway and being prepared to be fully engineered. Those projects include the collapse in the fix of the Walnut Street wall, the Galvin Road culvert, the YMCA roof, our city hall roof, we're doing a lead and copper study of our water system, the dreaded Brown Street bridge, we got a grant recently for dam inspections, we're working diligently on the engineering for the bike path, and many, many different street and sidewalk replacement projects. So, we have a lot of engineering underway, which we need to get shovel ready and also ready to apply for grant assistance. We're also exploring the dreaded stormwater remediation plan that kind of snuck up on us, to be honest, during our recent flooding event, and that opened our eyes to a lot of issues that we have within the city. And that is a main focus. But I'm especially excited to start the feasibility study for the Hoosic River flood control project, which will kick off this Friday. We're far away from having the infrastructure we deserve. But slowly bit by bit, we're moving forward to create strategic plans to address it. And that's something that I'm very proud of.
Now, you also focused on accountability and staffing during your debut run two years ago. That's been more complicated. On one level, there's been a lot of staffing turnover in some key city roles, namely that of the city clerk, which is something of a revolving door in North Adams municipal governance. And then of course, the fact that you had to dismiss the permanent police chief and deal with the situation involving the fire chief striking a pedestrian with a municipal vehicle while on duty this summer. So, talk to me about that- What are those challenges around staffing and accountability in some of those major roles?
Well, in those that you have referenced, first of all, Josh, the city clerk does not report to the mayor, the city clerk reports to the city council. So, I am happy to support those efforts, but the day-to-day operation and monitoring of the city clerk is done by the city council. So, I don't really take any responsibility for all of the shifts there. But I will say that I tried to be as supportive as I can to that office and help in any way that I can. As far as the other two issues. I choose not to comment on them. As I said in the issue with Chief [Brent] Lefebvre, it was an unfortunate accident, and I have no further comment regarding Chief [Jason] Wood. I will tell you that one thing that I did speak about on the campaign trail that I kept my word on is hiring a code enforcement officer. In my first few months, we hired a code enforcement officer to help inspection services and work with landlords to ensure that we have safe and adequate housing within the city. A big part of some other gaps in my administration is, we don't have a full-time administrative officer, we don't have a purchasing agent. But those are roles that, with my background and my expertise, I'm able to fill some of that gap in the interim. We are looking for candidates there and we're looking for a person, basically, who can keep up with me. So, the changes that have been made have been made because they needed to, and there are still some gaps within the administration, but I'm looking for the right people to do the right job for the city.
Currently, your only opponent in the race is someone that you defeated in the preliminary by a margin of about 800 votes to 25, meaning that there isn't- It's hard to argue that there is a particularly strong opposition to your reelection bid. How do you interpret that, and how will you show to voters that regardless of the lack of a substantial opponent, you intend to hear them and communicate with them heading into a new term?
Yeah, my approach has always been not really to be focused on the opponent, nut be focused on the job that I look to achieve. I consider this with the residents of North Adams the largest search committee I've ever been in front of. So, I focus on the topics, I focus on my expertise, and I'm really not focused on the person that's running against me. I'm just focused on doing the job that I know I can do well, and that I've proven in the last, basically two years that I know how to do the job, and that there's always room to learn, but I have a solid foundation and I'm ready to do this job every single day. And I pride myself on my resume, and I think people can see that I have a lot of experience not only in municipal government, but in education. And I think I've proven that my experience works well at city hall over the last 18 months.
One uncompleted goal of yours was also to address the Mohawk Theatre in downtown North Adams. It's been a hot potato for decades as the city tries to figure out how to move forward with the long-shuttered building that sits in the heart of the city. You terminated a plan from your predecessor, Tom Bernard, to make a sale earlier in your administration, and that there hasn't been a lot of motion since then. Can you speak to that project?
Well, there has been motion, in a sense that we were able to work with 1Berkshire to receive a grant to restore the marquee. So, I see that as progress. With the whole Mohawk Theatre itself, I'm still very committed to bring life back to that building, but I remain firm that I'm not going to give it away. As I said, we've been working with this grant to restore the marquee, which I think will help us market the whole downtown and really make the Main Street polish. I'll continue to collaborate with everyone who has the best interest of that city landmark in mind, and I think it's important, but I'm not going to be quick to make a decision that could hinder us for the next 30 to 50 years. So, I won't say that the project has been paused. I think that we did a good RFP, we had a lot of people interested. I think it was a lot about timing and the construction, cost of construction, and what it would take to reopen the marquee for the people who were interested at that time. So, we turned our focus to focusing on the marquee, as it is an eyesore. But it will be beautiful once that is restored. And I think that will help us market that building in itself. I haven't given it up, but I'm certainly not going to give it away. And I'm very focused to make sure that we make a sound decision if we were to transfer that property.
I'm interested- Looking back at another moment in your first two years, your decision to file suit against New England Alchemy over their plans to develop an outdoor grow facility for cannabis in North Adams. That's been a windfall for a lot of Berkshire communities. Any regrets about that decision? Or any reflections on that a year later?
You know, not at all Josh. We fought against that, I fought against that because I believe in smart city planning, and I really listened to the neighbors in the residents of those neighborhoods that it would affect, and I felt that it was going to be a negative impact. And I'm very, very, very stern and focused on that we need to have safe, we need to have prospering, we need to have good neighborhoods. And I just felt that that was a bad decision, and I stand by that. And my focus was really about listening to the residents and hearing their concerns, and that's what I did, and that's how I operated in that situation.
Another North Adams project that you resisted was the effort from [Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts] to turn an unused dormitory into emergency shelter. That sort of seemed to lay bare some miscommunication and tension between the city and MCLA, the college. When I spoke to the president of the college, Dr. Jaime Birge, he characterized some of your opposition to fear mongering in the community. I'm interested, what are your thoughts on that? In retrospect, do you stand by that decision?
Absolutely. I still stand by that decision. I fought against the state's plan to establish a homeless shelter at MCLA, not because we don't need one and not because I'm anti-homeless, but because the plans were really too vague and I felt that our city's resources needed to be focused on who live in the community here today. My philosophy was, let's take care of our own existing homeless population first, and I still say that today. If MCLA came to me and said, we're going to open two floors of Berkshire Towers to help local homeless people, I'd be the first person to say let's see what we can do to get this done. I was really focused on that the plans were too vague, and I wanted to take care of our own homeless population first before we brought people in from communities.
I wanted to ask you about the public safety building, another long-standing topic in North Adams. In a lot of ways, you've made the most headway in a very long time for North Adams leaders by simply moving the police department into a temporary headquarters out of that crumbling facility. Where does the rest of that plan stand as you look into a potential second term?
Yeah, so we, during my first term, we obviously moved the police into the temporary headquarters, which was a good move for them. That made us ADA compliant, and it also provided a good work environment for our staff. We recently received a 911 emergency grant, and we've ordered new equipment, so we'll soon be moving dispatch over to the temporary headquarters. While all of that was going on, we conducted a needs assessment to look at what our building needs were for both police, fire, dispatch, as well as emergency planning. And we got an idea of what a building would look like, what the square footage is, what we need to have our own training ground on that facility. So, we kind of got a snapshot of what type of land and what type of building we were looking at. So, the next step is to secure a piece of land, which we're constantly talking about, looking at, analyzing, and then to hire an engineer to design the building. The delay in the design is that we haven't received our public safety earmark of, I believe it was $1.2 million from [former] Governor [Charlie] Baker's administration. So, I'm not giving up on that. I talk constantly with state legislators about the fact that we still need some assistance in that. But we are still working. We're working quietly, because we don't have an exact location quite yet, but we have a better understanding of what we need the building to look like. So, while we moved the police department and we're going to move dispatch, we certainly haven't forgotten the needs of the fire department. We've made some, or are making some small repairs in that building, to get us through the winter. But we're very focused, I'm very focused on bringing the public safety back together under one house.
You ran on a tough on crime message and a commitment to harshly crack down on drug trafficking in North Adams. Can you speak to that? Do you feel like after two years, you've made the impact on that realm that you promised you would when you first ran?
Oh, absolutely. First of all, I have a good working relationship with the district attorney, so we spend a lot of time brainstorming and training our officers on tactics that can be used in the field. I'm very fortunate that I have an excellent detective bureau, and crimes and drugs are being addressed in my administration. I'll continue to have a no tolerance policy. I know that we can't stop all drug sales, but we're certainly going to slow it down. In the last two years, I think we seized close to $500,000 in drugs, 20 guns, and we closed an arson case. If that doesn't send a message that we're taking a hard stand on crime in the city, I don't know what does Josh. We're certainly very focused also on recovery and rehab and making sure those people who fall into those demons can get some help and can get some healing. So, it's two pronged. It's a no tolerance policy on drugs, and then it’s also that we need to help those who are recovering and to get over drug addiction.
Lastly, looking into January 2024 – again, with little organized opposition and what seems like a lot of support within the city – when you think about starting term number two, what is on the punch list, what are the priorities that you have heading into the next year?
Definitely right out of the gate, infrastructure. Everything revolves around infrastructure. We continue to invest in public safety, and we need to really start looking at public services and the equipment needs of public services. Along those lines, we need to keep working on economic development, bringing more businesses into North Adams, making North Adams an affordable place for people to live. And then we need to really focus more on education. We're currently in the midst of a feasibility study for Brayton and Greylock School. Those decisions are going to need to be made soon as to what we're going to do with one of those buildings or renovate one, keep one, what we're going to do there. And we're also looking at grade span schools as we face a declining enrollment here in North Adam. So, everything is really focused on the vitality of North Adams, what do we have to do to position ourselves to be the best we can be today and into tomorrow? And while we do that, we can't forget our youth, we can't forget our middle-aged people, and we can't forget our elderly. So, it's a full plate. It's definitely a full plate. I can't say that one priority is more than another, they all kind of coincide, but definitely a focus on education, infrastructure, and quality life here in North Adams.
