Markey spoke with WAMC just after a roundtable meeting inside Dottie’s Coffee Lounge in downtown Pittsfield.
“I think that Pittsfield is alive with the sound of economic activity, with a plan that the mayor and all the community leaders are putting together for this city, more housing, better transportation, ensuring that there is a long-term vision for what Pittsfield can have so that it is better than any preceding century," said the senator. "And I just felt very invigorated, excited by the vision.”
It was his third stop in the county of the day, following two events in North Adams at contemporary art museum MASS MoCA and a tour of the city’s decrepit concrete flood control system through which the Hoosic River flows.
“North Adams similarly wants to focus upon housing issues, but it also wants to make sure that MOCA, the museum, is there as a source of economic activity, and what they need is more help to integrate MOCA by coordinating with the handling of the Hoosic River, so that there is a complete and total integration, finally, of the museum with the downtown community so it's invigorating the totality of the economy in North Adams,” he told WAMC.
One attendee at Markey’s sit-down in Pittsfield told WAMC that three major points about Berkshire County’s largest community were impressed upon the senator.
“The first is just the importance of a healthy downtown Pittsfield to the overall economic health and just the quality of life for the Berkshires, and I think that came across in points made by the mayor and others," said Jonathan Butler, President and CEO of 1Berkshire, the region’s economic development agency. “The second point was transportation and just the importance of connecting Pittsfield strategically back to transportation networks in the commonwealth. East-West Rail remains a huge priority for us – or West-East rail, as we like to say out here – and I just wanted to make sure that was emphasized in this conversation, so I was pleased that that came across. And then the third thing, and probably the one with the biggest exclamation point, is housing. We were able to dig into housing a little bit and emphasize that we have needs across the entire housing spectrum here in the Berkshires, from homelessness and housing insecurity to affordable housing and market rate housing. It's affecting our quality of life, it's affecting our employers, and if we want a brighter future in the Berkshires, we have to address it on a large scale.”
Berkshire United Way President and CEO Tom Bernard, formerly the mayor of North Adams, told WAMC he hopes the senator appreciated the collaborative nature of Berkshire County’s nonprofit sector.
“We work together with 1Berkshire, we work with Berkshire Regional Planning, with Berkshire Black Economic Council, and when we talk about issues like housing or the needs in the community or economic development, the sense that we all do have a stake in this,” he said.
Mayor Peter Marchetti led Markey and a cadre of elected officials around downtown following the meeting at Dottie’s to offer real-life examples of Pittsfield’s economic development efforts.
“We were having a conversation with him of the importance of small business and the needs of small business, and one of them is housing," Marchetti told WAMC. "So, we were trying to communicate jobs, economic development, housing, our partnership with our state delegation, and the governor, lieutenant governor.”
Markey stopped at the almost century old Carr Hardware and Dolc'e Rose Beauty Supply, which opened earlier this year with the support of the Berkshire Black Economic Council. AJ Enchill, founder and president of the nonprofit dedicated to supporting Black entrepreneurship, told WAMC what he hoped to communicate to Markey.
“The importance of the investment that Senator Markey, Senator Warren have made in downtown Pittsfield, more importantly, Berkshire Black Economic Council," he said. "This investment will support our schematic design and us really getting toward providing creative solutions to our local economy and growing Black businesses, Brown businesses, minority owned businesses and the like, because there hasn't been that investment, but now there has and it's time to really use this opportunity to grow and scale existing businesses, accelerated businesses, so they can be part of Pittsfield’s new future.”
Pittsfield gave the council $700,000 of the $40 million in federal pandemic relief money it received through 2021’s American Rescue Plan Act.
Markey’s Berkshire trip continued to Great Barrington, where he officially endorsed fellow Democrat Leigh Davis in her race for the 3rd Berkshire State House seat against independent Marybeth Mitts.
