BY DAN VALENTI

Pittsfield politics 2025 municipal election slate of candidates….

https://www.iberkshires.com/story/79904/Pittsfield-Won-t-Have-a-Preliminary-Election.html

Where are the DETAILS?

The “Devil is the DETAILS”!

The proposal omits the specifics on how the city will deal with the homeless residents.

“The SIN of OMISSION”!

Jon Melle

“Pittsfield debates homelessness ordinance as City Council vote nears”
By Maryjane Williams, The Berkshire Eagle, August 6, 2025

PITTSFIELD — As the City Council prepares to vote on a controversial ordinance banning sheltering in public spaces, community advocates, business owners and local officials are trying to find common ground in a debate that has sharply divided the city.

The monthslong debate over how to address homelessness in Pittsfield has dominated downtown conversations since Mayor Peter Marchetti proposed an ordinance banning sleeping and or setting up temporary shelters on all public property. Last week, the City Council’s Ordinance and Rules Committee narrowly advanced the revised measure in a 3-2 vote.

Supporters of the ordinance say it’s intended to address complaints from downtown business and property owners about people sleeping in doorways, defecating in public, stealing and leaving trash behind.

Critics, however, say the ordinance criminalizes poverty and homelessness without addressing root causes. Many also say they were shut out of early discussions, intensifying frustrations around how the measure was crafted and presented.

Last week, just days before the City Council is set to vote on Aug. 12, a coalition of housing advocates brought together city leaders, business owners, and members of the homeless community for a community meeting at St. Stephen’s Church. Organized by the Homes Not Handcuffs Coalition, the gathering focused on listening, storytelling, and exploring alternative solutions.

“The focus was on sort of reintroducing ourselves to each other, as needed partners, as people who live, work, play in Pittsfield,” said Kaamar Taliaferro, the Berkshire NAACP Political Action Committee Chair, of the meeting. “We have to repair the harm that was caused by how this conversation was started.”

Michael Hitchcock, co-director of Roots & Dreams and Mustard Seeds, emphasized the need for collaboration and deeper understanding before enacting policies.

“We’re not ready to make a policy without talking,” Hitchcock said. “It’s not like we’re saying, you have to do it the way we’re saying — we’re saying, let’s talk about [the] real issues you have with the homeless people. And let’s find out which of those issues are really from homeless people and which are just from poor people who live nearby.”

While the ordinance loomed large, Thursday’s meeting centered more on sharing personal stories and exploring alternative solutions to homelessness than on debating the ordinance itself.

Councilor Kenneth Warren, who attended the meeting, said it was a step toward “at least building the ability to talk with each other.”

“Although now we’re coming to near the end [of the debate], I think there’s going to be a lot of discussion at the next meeting to try to do something,” he said.

Members of the coalition — comprised of Berkshire Interfaith Organizing, Berkshire Stone Wall Community Action, Cathedral of the Beloved, Roots & Dreams and Mustard Seeds and Wild Flower Alliance — led groups discussing social connections, mobile hygiene stations, Housing First policies and more.

The Housing First model recognizes stable housing as a fundamental human right and a foundation for addressing other challenges, aiming to end homelessness by providing immediate, permanent housing without requiring conditions such as sobriety or participation in treatment.

“If Pittsfield could adopt a Housing First model, that would be remarkable,” said Councilor Rhonda Serre. “But we aren’t the first city to try to do this, and it’s a very challenging, heavy lift, and we just have to make sure that everybody is ready to step forward with it before we do it.”

Councilors Warren, Serre, and Pete White said the meeting helped build more personal connections with the community, allowing for one-on-one talks and a better understanding of individual perspectives, and hope similar conversations continue.

Despite the positive feedback, all three councilors said they still support moving the ordinance forward — as well as looking to implement the discussed solutions in the future, either on a private or municipal level.

“I’m glad there are community members working toward what they think other solutions could be, but I think even if we implemented every idea that was presented during that meeting, I’m still in favor of this ordinance,” White said. “We’ve listened to the community, we’ve looked for other solutions. I don’t think that passing or not passing this ordinance should stop us from having communication that could make this situation for anyone better in Pittsfield.”

However, each councilor has a different vision for how the ordinance should take shape.

“I know the bill, as the mayor has rewritten it, does not criminalize homelessness, but it does still come at homelessness from a punitive perspective, and that’s what I’d like to see change,” Serre said. “I would like to see it address homelessness as an opportunity.”

The most recent version of the ordinance no longer includes a previously proposed three-day camping limit on private property and provides violators with the option to complete community service — at $25 per hour — in lieu of paying a fine. It also removes language that directly criminalized homeless individuals, eliminates a clause that would have penalized those who provided supplies to people camping, and shifts enforcement authority to the Board of Health.

Since most of the discussion has focused on behavior along North Street, Councilor Warren said he plans to also propose removing the word “parks” from the ordinance and narrowing its scope to the downtown Creative District.

“I want to see how this works in the downtown area, which is where we’re having the most concerns by people,” Warren said. “And then we can always narrow it, or increase it, if we needed to … This lets everybody know it’s a limited, limited, limited attempt to deal with a small concern.”

While they hope to keep building dialogue and working toward shared solutions, advocates are still pushing back against the ordinance.

On Tuesday afternoon, community members gathered in Park Square to protest the proposal, aiming to show that opposition extends beyond a small, vocal group and to encourage more residents to contact the mayor and City Council.

“This just came to my attention,” said Nancy Brooks, a member of the First Baptist Church in Pittsfield, standing alongside members of the Berkshire Democratic Brigades. “I feel that [the ordinance] is unjust and unfair … we should be doing more for [the homeless], not making it harder.”

Alongside concerns that the ordinance targets the city’s homeless, opponents also questioned whether offering community service instead of fines could raise constitutional issues.

“If you have a disability, or there’s any other reason why you can’t pay or can’t do the work, there’s no hearing structure,” said Sean Manion with Berkshire Interfaith Organizing. “To contest it, and I can either pay or do the community service that’s coerced labor, and unless that’s punishment for a crime, if you know the 13th Amendment, that’s unconstitutional.”

Protesters said they hope the City Council will return the ordinance to the Ordinance and Rules Committee and take time to consider alternative approaches.

“I’m hopeful that with more of those efforts on all sides, that eventually nobody feels like they need the ordinance to help everyone in Pittsfield,” Sophie Tannenbaum with the Wildflower Alliance said. “Nothing that anyone could say would convince me that [criminalizing poverty] is a separate issue from an ordinance that basically empowers those with institutional tools of violence against those whose voices are historically and intentionally silenced.”

This is the village idiot that Marxist Mele supports…..

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/08/07/democrat-massachusetts-gov-maura-healey-threatens-redistricting-despite-no-republicans-representing-gerrymandered-state/

This message is for Ciara Batory and all the other new school board hopefuls. It’s time to DOGE the Bitchfield Pubic Scohol System and flush out the waste.

A public school in CA, cut funding for extracurricular activities. Two seniors at the school, began the DOGE process of looking at the school budget and guess what?

They found fraud, waste, and abuse. In California no less….

Amy Reichert on X: “When a public high school foundation in California took a whopping 25% cut of student club funds, seniors Liam Tian & Kevin Wang DOGE’d them. Their principal blasted them in a school-wide email. Now an audit confirms fraud, waste & abuse. Absolute legends. https://t.co/DD8Z5RwmTq” / X

Could you imagine the fraud, waste, and abuse, that originates out of the Mercer Building?

How many other $100k year employees are stashed at Mercer who didn’t hold their staffs accountable and ran the school like an old 80’s T and A movie would DOGE find?

I’m betting a few.

It’s time to DOGE the Bitchfield Pubic Scohol District. It’s our money, not theirs.

Things are so bad at the Pittsfield Library that a social worker is being hired to deal with the patrons. The Mayor actually had the idea to hire a library social worker.

Will it’s time for the Berkshire Pigeons annual Go Fund Me. They’re calling it a local journalism Fund. It’s to “help keep independent journalism thriving”. That’s like saying the City of Pittsfield is being run efficiently. They are not journalists and definitely not independent. Their paper is Liberal rag lock step with the Democratic Party. They have no Journalist, just activists. Too bad they can’t be bipartisan and deliver both sides of a story. Good riddance.

The Peace President – President Trump!
Trump administration has brokered 6 peace deals between May 2025 – Aug. 2025;
1) Armenia & Azerbaijan, 2) India & Pakistan, 3) Rwanda & Congo, 4) Cambodia & Thailand, 5) Serbia & Kosovo, and 6) Israel & Iran.
In addition to brokering the above peace deals, the U.S. has “ signed a massive trade deal with the E.U., compelled NATO to increase defense spending, and reduced illegal border crossings by 95%.”
Details in attached article.
Won’t hear this on mainstream news!

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/media-downplays-trumps-six-peace-deals-despite-warring/

I hope that the Pittsfield City Council votes DOWN the cruel Mayor’s punitive proposal for an encampment ban on public property that gives the homeless residents no other alternatives.