During the opening public mic portion of the meeting, a board member of the historic home of “Moby Dick” author Herman Melville spoke in support of a $650,000 borrowing plan by Mayor Peter Marchetti to extend the sewer main on Holmes Road.
“Arrowhead is a not-for-profit organization that serves the entire region as well as the city of Pittsfield, both interpreting the history of Berkshire County and the life and work of Herman Melville, American author. We welcome over 5,000 people unique visitors a year, as well as offering programs for schoolchildren, college students, scholars, artists, and creatives and others. And we've recently also extended ourselves into offering event rentals which have brought much needed revenue and additional people to the site and to the city," said Cynthia Brown. “As much as we embrace our mission of interpreting 19th century and 18th century and 20th century American culture and history, we do not find our historic sewer system adds much to that interpretation, and we appreciate the support of the city in bringing the sewer main up the street. We are confident that we can fundraise to connect to that and offer all of our visitors a much-enhanced experience in the future. So, I hope that the council will support the mayor's order.”
Former at-large city councilor and twice failed mayoral candidate Karen Kalinowsky spoke out against the plan.
“When I went to build my house few years back and I asked the city about running sewer up our street, I was told I had to pay for it, from West Housatonic Street up to my house, which is a half mile," she said. "So, I don't know why we're opening it up for others, other than I talked to some people and I heard it was because Arrowhead is having an issue with their septic system. So, are we doing this for a private entity with the taxpayers having to pay for this? But me as a taxpayer, I would have had to pay for it myself. I have nothing against Arrowhead, I understand they are nonprofit, but it’s something that I think should be questioned.”
The council referred the order to the finance subcommittee, which is chaired by at-large councilor Kathy Amuso.
Marchetti explained an almost $49,000 expense from 2023 for the Department of Public Services.
“These invoices go back to the storm of March 14th, 2023," he told the council. "It was the hope of the commissioner and the former administration that MEMA would declare a state of emergency based on the fact that we had a snowstorm that produced 26 inches of snow, and so therefore, it was our hope to be able to have MEMA, through the emergency disaster declaration, pay for those invoices. As you all know, there was no state of emergency that was declared. Add to that the department was missing an administrative assistant for two and a half months during that timeframe of March through May, it slipped through the cracks. And so here we are today.”
Marchetti said it’s clear that the city’s DPS needed to work on its record keeping.
“The banker in me says that we need to do a better job of keeping track of our invoices when they come in, and it's my job to hold department heads responsible for that piece," said the mayor. "I’ve had my conversation with the department head in regards to this and will attempt to ensure that this doesn't happen in the future.”
DPS Commissioner Ricardo Morales missed the meeting due to illness. Amuso said that she had spoken to him earlier.
“Almost every year, something comes before us because department heads didn't put in purchase orders or payments in a timely manner," she said. "So, I asked him, you have to put a process in place, and I understand there's no administrative assistant, but we also have to account what goes on when they're not there and who can do that. So, he said he's putting that in process. We want to make sure everybody does.”
The meeting also saw the 11-member body vote against allowing Verizon New England and Eversource to relocate utility poles on East Street after criticizing the companies’ presentation on the subject as lacking. It ended after a private executive session with the city solicitor over cannabis litigation.
