PLANET VALENTI

Our Opinion: The Eagle editorial board endorses Thomas Bowler for Berkshire County sheriff

Managing the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction, along with its workforce. Supervising and caring for an inmate population with evolving needs. Maintaining critical community connections as an agent of public safety, criminal rehabilitation and outreach.

Thomas Bowler: ‘I want this to be a stronger, safer community’
Any one of those tasks is not just tough but relevant to the quality of life and correctional success for our entire county. All are part of the job of leading the Berkshire Sheriff’s Office. Experience is a crucial advantage in all those roles, and we see value in Berkshire Sheriff Thomas Bowler’s 12 years’ worth.

On the campaign trail, Sheriff Bowler has touted his record.

Indeed, there is much one can point to over his two terms: healthy emphasis on education and workforce training for inmates; expanded services addressing root causes of crime like mental health crisis, addiction and trauma; collaborations with other organizations that simultaneously allow inmates to derive purpose and build skills in ways that positively impact their community.

These developments under Sheriff Bowler’s watch indicate a strengthening of the mission and performance of the Sheriff’s Office and jail that are worth noting — and continuing.

Alfred E. ‘Alf’ Barbalunga: Current sheriff’s office ‘flawed on multiple levels’
Alfred E. ‘Alf’ Barbalunga: Current sheriff’s office ‘flawed on multiple levels’
The challenger in this race points a more critical finger at the incumbent’s record. Alfred E. “Alf” Barbalunga, chief probation officer of the Southern Berkshire District Court, has sought to portray the current sheriff’s administration as ineffective, fiscally irresponsible and less than transparent.

Efficacy and transparency of public offices and officials are top of mind for us, too, but we have found Mr. Barbalunga’s attacks — on the trail, during debates and on social media — to be more scattershot than substantial. For example, it’s certainly in-bounds to critique the size of some executive salaries and argue to spend the budget differently; it’s another thing entirely for Mr. Barbalunga to level shadowy charges of corruption and nepotism with little to no evidence supporting these allegations. The tenor of this race has been meaner than we had expected or hoped. In our view, that has stemmed in large part from Mr. Barbalunga’s tendency to rely more on innuendo than fact.

To Mr. Barbalunga’s credit, the most substantive plank of his platform underscores a worthy consideration: Where should we house Berkshire women inmates? The county’s women in pretrial detention and serving jail sentences — there are currently just over a dozen — are sent to the Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee. That facility gives women inmates more freedom of movement and program availability at the expense of being farther away from their families and legal counsel. Bringing women back to the Berkshire jail would close that distance, but the dearth of regional providers would hamstring the provision of key services that help inmates reenter society and resist recidivism.

Sheriff candidate Alf Barbalunga says reopening the female pod at the Berkshire jail won’t be that hard. Here’s how he’ll do it
Sheriff candidate Alf Barbalunga says reopening the female pod at the Berkshire jail won’t be that hard. Here’s how he’ll do it
Mr. Barbalunga believes Berkshire women inmates should be brought back to the county jail. Sheriff Bowler believes the Chicopee facility provides women with the quality services that could not be provided locally without incurring significant expense. While we don’t presume to have the right and definitive answer to this complicated question, Mr. Barbalunga gets credit for raising awareness and discussion of an issue worth further examination.

Still, Mr. Barbalunga’s framing on this has been troubling.

In order to generate press around the core issue of his campaign, Mr. Barbalunga last month prominently raised the case of a Pittsfield woman who died while at the Chicopee jail. Again relying heavily on innuendo to muddy the waters on a sensitive issue, Mr. Barbalunga said the death was part of “a pattern of what happens to Berkshire residents who find themselves in state or county jails” — despite the fact that Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi said a medical examiner ruled the inmate’s death was the result of natural causes related to a preexisting condition.

A Pittsfield woman’s death at the Chicopee regional jail becomes campaign issue in sheriff’s race
A Pittsfield woman’s death at the Chicopee regional jail becomes campaign issue in sheriff’s race
Sheriff Cocchi, who oversees the Chicopee jail, issued a sharp rebuke of Mr. Barbalunga’s misleading statement, calling it “disgusting that someone would attempt to use a family’s sadness and circumstances for personal and political gain.” The late woman’s father seemed to agree when he told The Eagle that Mr. Barbalunga, who did not publicly name the woman, did not contact him before or after making his daughter’s death a focal point in the Berkshire sheriff race: “I really didn’t like him using my daughter as a stepping stone in his campaign” — a sentiment we certainly understand.

This wasn’t the only instance of Mr. Barbalunga bringing more heat than light to this issue. During a meeting with The Eagle editorial board, Mr. Barbalunga claimed one reason Berkshire women should not be sent to the Chicopee jail is that family visitors are “strip-searched.” When members of the editorial board expressed disbelief, he merely replied “fact-check me.” However, Mr. Barbalunga later admitted his remark was completely false after consulting with a state Department of Corrections official — a step he should have taken before throwing out such a claim on the record. Such sloppiness with the facts on an issue he highlights as important signals a lack of seriousness and a disregard for basic truth that is unfortunately becoming all too common in politics. It is not up to what is ethically required of the county’s highest corrections office.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Bowler has largely stuck to marshalling the facts, though most of them are available right on his resume. Initiatives kick-started during his tenure elegantly address real community needs like nutritional insecurity while letting incarcerated folks build life skills, from the Second Street Second Chances medically tailored meals program to the jail’s pioneering aquaponics program for inmates. His management skills have been tested in tough times — from keeping inmates COVID-free for 19 months in the thick of a viral pandemic to his team’s ability to step up when municipalities need an assist from the Sheriff’s Office and its resources.

And, crucially, he’s demonstrated he can change his mind on weighty issues if the facts and the situation call for it. Previously, the sheriff opposed giving anti-addiction drugs to inmates struggling with substance-abuse disorder. Meeting with families hit hard by the opioid epidemic, however, made him reconsider the jail’s former abstinence-only approach. Now, Berkshire inmates have access to medically assisted treatments like suboxone and buprenorphine that reduce opiate cravings and give inmates an evidence-based leg up on the road to recovery.

All of that makes it believable when Sheriff Bowler says he’s still passionate about doing this job because he has the experience, he cares for these inmates and he loves this community. Those are three good reasons to return him to the Sheriff’s Office.

“Writ large, we are changing the trajectory of this county” -Harrington

Not the best choice of metaphor.

They were not discussing this at softball –

Civil liberties are:

The freedom of speech
The right to a fair trial and a jury of someone’s peers
No illegal search and seizure by law enforcement
The right to remain silent
The right to not testify against yourself
The right to assemble and protest
The right to privacy
The freedom of the press

The Right to a Fair Trial is granted by the Sixth Amendment. This civil liberty ensures that someone will be able to be tried fairly by a court of law. It provides the opportunity for someone to appear before a jury of their peers that will not be biased against them, as well as the right to a speedy trial. For example, if someone receives a speeding ticket and they do not believe they were speeding, they do have a right to a fair trial, and they also have a right to know who their accusers are. During a fair trial, a jury or judge will weigh the evidence for or against the accused person. The right to a Fair Trial also means that someone has the right to have an attorney represent them, whether or not the person can afford to pay for the attorney.

Civil liberties protect citizens from governmental tyranny.

This pretty much wrote itself thanks to DA Harrington and her “sloppy” “woeful” and “unethical” behavior. Kudos to the Eagle.

Our Opinion: The Eagle editorial board endorses Timothy Shugrue for Berkshire district attorney

When Berkshire voters go to the polls to decide who should run the District Attorney’s Office, they’ll have a stark choice: an incumbent who has spent four years viewing herself as the county’s minister of justice as opposed to being a careful and competent chief prosecutor vs. a seasoned challenger with considerably more trial experience and a clearer understanding that the county’s top law enforcement official has responsibilities to every segment of our community. The latter is the obvious choice to bring some effective leadership to a DA’s Office that we and others have consistently noted is sorely lacking it. For that reason, The Eagle editorial board is endorsing attorney Timothy Shugrue for Berkshire district attorney.
Mr. Shugrue’s legal resume is lengthy, featuring familiarity with both sides of the courtroom — prosecution and defense. What’s more, his multifaceted background in prosecutors’ offices, private practice and co-founding the nonprofit Berkshire County Kids’ Place gives him a wide regional network of leaders in law and advocacy. Mr. Shugrue has received some weighty endorsements from people who understand the workings of the District Attorney’s office (some of which have appeared on these pages in the form of letters and op-eds), while District Attorney Andrea Harrington has boasted of being endorsed by high-profile but far-flung figures who show little or no direct knowledge of the issues emanating from the Berkshire DA’s office. More importantly, Mr. Shugrue’s extensive experience equips him for the task of building and maintaining an effective Berkshire DA’s Office capable of consistently accomplishing its crucial mission of seeking out justice on behalf of the people of Berkshire County.
A similar task fell to District Attorney Harrington when she assumed her office, because she chose to clean house of many dedicated staffers who worked for her predecessor and were deemed insufficiently loyal to the new leader. She has failed to meet this task, and we are not alone in being troubled by the resultant high staff turnover and reliance on outside prosecutors in key cases. Unfortunately, her ill-advised choice set a trend of sloppy mistakes and poor discretion.
This critique is not just ours. Consider the accounts of the DA’s job performance and leadership style from those who were once prominent supporters.
“Her office’s performance on the nuts and bolts of its prosecutions has been woeful,” wrote former federal prosecutor John Pucci, who donated to and backed District Attorney Harrington’s 2018 campaign.
“The office runs like a campaign. It is a culture of making sure that Andrea gets reelected in 2022,” said Helen Moon, who managed the 2018 campaign and then served as director of special projects in the DA’s Office until her abrupt departure in 2020.
“Leadership meetings focused as much on enemies and the press as on the difficult challenges the office faced in accomplishing its mission. … Harrington simply does not have the necessary skills and experience for the job and she has demonstrated little, if any, interest in acquiring them,” wrote Jeanne Kempthorne, whom District Attorney Harrington hired as her chief of appeals and public records officer. Sadly, Ms. Kempthorne felt obligated to resign in early 2020 when the DA blocked the release of public records in a politically fraught case. That courageous resignation earned Ms. Kempthorne the New England First Amendment Coalition’s Orfield Citizenship Award.

CRIME
Judge faults Berkshire DA’s handling of case involving foster child’s death and dismisses charges against Adams couple
These accounts from within the DA’s Office are telling, but similar signs of questionable priorities and prosecutorial dysfunction have been all too readily visible from the outside, as well. Legal organizations across the state rightly ripped District Attorney Harrington’s egregiously misguided attempt last year to oust a District Court judge over rulings she didn’t like. Earlier this year, a Superior Court judge dismissed the indictment of an Adams foster couple on negligent manslaughter charges in the death of an infant in their care, issuing a rare rebuke of the DA’s handling of the case as “not the standard of conduct the court expects from the Commonwealth in grand jury proceedings.”
District Attorney Harrington dismisses substantive criticism out of hand as simply slings and arrows aimed at a reform agent. Claiming the title of reformer to deflect real concerns about the performance of an office with a monopoly on prosecuting public justice gives a bad name to the important work of implementing sensible criminal justice reform. Worse, it undermines reform by associating it with the sloppy and unethical behavior.
Yet ignoring all the evidence cited above, District Attorney Harrington told The Eagle editorial board that “based on any metric, my office has excelled.” Curiously, though, the district attorney declined to answer questions about individual cases that her office has prosecuted, including ones that are concluded. If the DA’s Office is excelling at its primary duty, why refuse to talk about it in detail on the record? And what does that say about the DA’s pronounced commitment to transparency?
Mr. Shugrue, for his part, seems to recognize the need for more transparency and, above all, competence from the county’s top prosecutor. He said he would resume public releases detailing all Superior Court rulings — a regular practice during previous administrations that District Attorney Harrington ceased. If elected, we’ll hold him to that. Beyond such relatively simple measures to upgrade the office’s transparency and competency, Mr. Shugrue also recognizes the nitty-gritty work and complex realities behind the news conferences and press releases that a quality DA’s Office must confront. That means actually using the great discretion granted to district attorneys to actively balance justice and compassion, not just dismiss certain low-level offenses to match a sloganeering blanket policy. And it means putting together, training and leading a roster of assistant DAs, victim advocates and other staff that can inspire the sort of trust in the county’s top law enforcement office that has been eroded among some in the Berkshire community.
Mr. Shugrue is ready, willing and qualified for that job. He is considerably more qualified and experienced in the courtroom than the incumbent DA was when she first ran or, for that matter, than she is now after one term. Courtroom experience is essential to the task of evaluating cases and training younger assistants, and Mr. Shugrue promises to build the “best law office in Berkshire County” to serve the entire community.
Given District Attorney Harrington’s widely recognized poor performance, we enthusiastically support Timothy Shugrue for Berkshire district attorney.

They sent out another cyber virus a few weeks ago.

Things are running s l o w w

Apparently they know the outcome of civil liberty complaints is more grant money, so they keep doing it.

Watch, I’ll report a cyber crime today & next week you’ll all be mandated to wear masks again.

Virus/Virus…. the people will never know the difference.

She said she’s going to win.

Justice should win, not Andrea Harrington.

What an awesome day for Senator Warrent to visit North Adams. I wonder if anyone showed her the Berkshire Eagle editorial? I wonder if she will be clued in to Harrington’s idiotic fuc$kery.

I feel helpless. Justice has committed a big abuse of power. I feel terrible, with a sour taste of the destroyed heart, because I’m ignored by society,” she said in Spanish. “Where is justice? I have been forgotten because I don’t have the resources. Because I’m a mother of color. Because I’m an immigrant of color.
– Ms Estrella

Sure Maura Healy can find room for her as the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Director or something.

Wrong Way is having a rally at Amici in West Stockbridge.
No donation is necessary to go because they need bodies. Most of their “rallys” are attended by only a handful of people.
Barely anyone wants to be around Andrea, let alone pay to be there. A good 70% of people have to be paid to support her and be around her.

I would like to know how the Pittsfield schools deal with admitting illegal immigrant children. Birth certificate required? Vaccines (polio, mmr etc) required? Kids tested for TB?
How are my kids protected from the illnesses & diseases carried by migrants from central America and other nations? How much are ESL classes costing taxpayers?

Berkshire Eagle
Letter: Why I’m voting to reelect Harrington as Berkshire DA

To the editor: I am voting to reelect Andrea Harrington for district attorney on Sept. 6.
As a community, we cannot allow her opponent to move us backward and erase the progress made under DA Harrington’s leadership. Over the last four years, DA Harrington has stayed true to her values and has remained consistent in her messaging and her actions. She has produced real results, including eliminating the cash bail system, which disproportionately impacts people of color and fuels racism in our criminal justice system, as well as prioritizing treatment over incarceration for those struggling with substance use disorder who commit nonviolent crimes.

She has created progressive programs including a hate crime unit, a domestic and sexual violence task force, and expanded child abuse unit. I would much prefer to stick to Andrea’s strengths and accomplishments rather than disparage her opponent. However, Mr. Shugrue’s wildly unpredictable, erratic behavior throughout this election has been an embarrassment to witness — the inconsistencies, the confirmed lies, the smear campaign he is running. How can we trust someone who willingly engages with a local blogger (I use that term loosely) who has an extensive, well-known history of making racist, sexist, misogynistic and xenophobic comments?

How can this person possibly improve transparency and strengthen relationships between the community and law enforcement? I’m not sure how one can support a candidate who intentionally misled voters about his remarks on “broken windows” policing, a failed policy that has devastated communities of color and those with substance use disorder. We deserve better. Does experience matter? Absolutely. But to quote DA Harrington from the recent debate with her opponent, “there are very experienced lawyers on the Supreme Court who have reached the pinnacle of their careers and yet make decisions to take away the rights of women to reproductive health care.” Having experience does not mean you are going to fulfill the vision and values of the people of Berkshire County. Please join me in voting to reelect our District Attorney Andrea Harrington on Sept. 6. Vote for transparency, vote for progress, vote for Andrea.
Meghan Kirby, Lenox