Great Barrington — Tonight’s Democratic candidates forum at the Mahaiwe Theater hit upon all Berkshire County’s big issues: economic development, school transportation funding, population decline, the opioid epidemic, affordable housing, a deficiency of high speed internet, and environmental issues like pipelines and the Housatonic River cleanup.
Rinaldo Del Gallo, Andrea Harrington and Adam Hinds touched on how each of Berkshires’ troubles were interrelated. But it was Del Gallo who kept returning to the idea that if only we could tax the wealthiest Americans more, we could solve it all in one swoop.
But with the demise of Bernie Sanders’ presidential aspirations comes the reality check that getting at that wealth won’t be easy.
The candidates, all vying for Sen. Benjamin Downing’s (D-Pittsfield) seat, weighed in on questions from The Berkshire Record News Editor Terry Cowgill and Edge Editor David Scribner, as the September 8 democratic primary closes in. Around 150 people came to hear the candidates speak at the forum, sponsored by the Great Barrington Town Democratic Committee, Ballot Box Tees, the Berkshire Record and The Berkshire Edge. Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) introduced the candidates, saying “I respect anyone who’s willing to put their name on the ballot.”
Beth Carlson of Ballot Box Tees introducing the candidates forum. Photo: Heather Bellow
With a high poverty rate and economic decline of all sorts, candidates did point to broadband access as a key to lifting the Berkshires out of its doldrums.
Harrington, an attorney, characterized the lack of high-speed Internet as “unbelievable; it’s like not having electricity. It is the most fundamental aspect of economic development, a number one priority,” she noted, and went on to pledge that she’d work with the MBI (Massachusetts Broadband Institute) and the towns. “I will push MBI…they can be very difficult to work with,” she added.
“It is unacceptable that it’s taken this long,” Hinds said, adding that the lack of broadband has created a “digital divide” that has affected the real estate market and “the ability of children to do homework.” He said it had to be “affordable,” and that towns should be able to decide how they want to do it.
“I see perpetual failure,” Del Gallo said. “Just have the government build [a network], like rural electricity. We need to accept that the private sector has been unable to do this.”
Again, Del Gallo, an attorney, said the solution is to tax the wealthy.
Del Gallo said this was also the way to fund the schools in rural districts that got hooked into regionalizing the schools in the 1960s with promises of full transportation funding. But districts in the Berkshires haven’t gotten fully funded since 2001, the lack of which has led to all kinds of budget trauma that every year threatens teaching and programs.
“If we don’t get at the top one-percent of money we’re never going to be able to fund education,” Del Gallo said.
Harrington, who lives in Richmond and has two young children in the public schools said she would “advocate loudly for an increase…by working with the rural caucus.”
Hinds, a former United Nations negotiator who worked in the Middle East, is the son of public school teacher, and was endorsed by the Massachusetts Teachers Association because in part, he said, “I prioritized school funding.” He said it isn’t right that schools operational budgets suffer from this deficiency.
Both Hinds and Harrington said they had already “proudly” pledged not to take donations from lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry, and that means companies like fracked gas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan and National Grid. Del Gallo said he would also make that pledge.
“People who support Kinder Morgan have not had fundraisers for me,” Harrington said.
And Hinds said he wanted a lift on the solar net meter cap that is preventing growth here, and going for “a net zero Berkshires.”
Del Gallo, a Pittsfield native who started a local branch of the Fatherhood Coalition and initiated a plastic bag ban in Pittsfield, said government needs to step up and fund more green energy. He also said he wanted to see a “carbon tax.”
The crowd at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center for the Democratic candidates forum. More than 150 attended the event, making it the best attended so far of the debates between these candidates. Photo: Heather Bellow
All three candidates want the state to lift restrictions – net metering caps – on how much solar energy can be added to the electricity grid.
Del Gallo occasionally used his few minutes to poke at the other candidates. Neither took the bait.
The three went on to answer questions about the county’s population decline, and how the way to fix it is to put an infrastructure in place that will attract higher wage employers.
“We basically have two Berkshire Counties,” Harrington said of a county divided down an economic line of people who must make their living here, and those who have earning sources elsewhere, like New York.
That brought up questions about what specifically can be done about the close to 40-percent rate of students at Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School who qualify for free or reduced price lunches.
All three said a $15 dollar minimum wage was one concrete solution. Harrington ticked off a list of labor groups that have endorsed her, and said both she and her husband pay $15 per hour. Harrington and her husband also own Public Market in West Stockbridge.
And here again Del Gallo went on the attack, accusing Hinds of being wishy-washy about his commitment to a $15 minimum wage. Hinds, who works for Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, said he was “realistic” when he said that minimum wage must be raised “incrementally” to $15.
“Minimum wage here is a poverty wage,” Hinds said. “Below the poverty line.”
All three candidates are opposed to the General Electric Company’s latest idea that to save $250 million in out-of-state shipping costs, they will dump their PCB (polychlorinated byphenal) waste from the Housatonic River into three dumps in South County. One of those proposed sites is in Housatonic, where real estate agents now find they must disclose this possibility to home buyers.
It’s one thing to be against local PCB dumps, but the candidates were asked how they might stop it since GE has just moved its headquarters to Boston after the city and Gov. Charlie Baker administration held out their hands to the company.
Harrington said that was going to a “major fight” over what could be a “disaster for human health and the economy. People will be scared to come here.”
Del Gallo said a lawsuit was in order over this “evil bargain” that is “giving the shaft to us out here in the Berkshires.” He further said he was in favor of bioremediation to clean the chemicals from river sediment.
Hinds said this is where his skill as a negotiator in the Middle East will serve him. He said he would work with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Environmental Protection and Attorney General Maura Healey’s office.
Cowgill asked the candidates who they voted for in the Democratic primary and why.
Neither Hinds nor Harrington would answer, only to say that both had been inspired by Hillary Clinton in different ways, and that the key was to move on and make sure Republican nominee Donald Trump doesn’t win.
“Obviously Donald Trump is a jerk,” Del Gallo said, not missing this opportunity to give Harrington and Hinds another jab for not answering the question, and noting that he was an out-and-out Bernie Sanders supporter.
On the subject of a growing Berkshires revolt against standardized testing in public schools, Hinds said the tests “test very little more than the socioeconomic status of those taking the tests.”
And Harrington said that the fact parents want to opt their children out of taking them “is a sad statement on the state of education” in Massachusetts.
Del Gallo said he wasn’t against testing but wants to remove the “high stakes nature” of it.
But in any conversation about how to improve the Berkshires it always circles back to how to get more money here. Harrington said it was better paying jobs and attracting more high-tech firms from Boston. Hinds said the art and culture has pulled many millions into the county, and again, a better infrastructure was needed to support that, particularly broadband. And Del Gallo said “high wage white collar industrial jobs” needed to be brought back to this area.
All three candidates thought improvements to commuter rail, especially service to and from New York City, would benefit the Berkshires.
Harrington said “overtures” needed to be made to Connecticut, which dropped interest after former Gov. Deval Patrick funded the Massachusetts part of the line which extends from Pittsfield to Danbury, Connecticut. She said she would work to try to get Connecticut back into the game, noting that rail to New York was a way to catch and keep “millennials.”
Hinds said rail to New York was imperative, next to broadband, and said he would again use his negotiation skills to work on Connecticut.
Del Gallo said it was simply useless to talk about high speed rail without the money to pay for it, and said that if only we could “tax the wealthy,” these systemic issues would dissolve.
All three candidates said they supported a treatment model of dealing with what is now a criminal approach to the Berkshires’ opioid epidemic. Harrington supports a drug court, which would shunt offenders into a treatment based system rather than throw them in prison.
Hinds said he’s already working in these trenches in Pittsfield. He got endorsed by the Opioid Task Force and North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright. Hinds wants to see “prevention, harm reduction,” the expansion of overdose drug Narcan, and wants insurance companies to pay for one month of treatment rather than two weeks.
Each candidate was asked what one thing they would like to accomplish as state senator.
Harrington said it was “universal pre-kindergarten,” given studies that show the beneficial effects on children. Hinds said he wanted school funding reform. “It’s unacceptable that year after year we have to struggle educating our kids,” Hinds said.
And while Del Gallo did have a specific reform in mind: “Tuition-free and debt-free universities.” He said if he had his way, he wants to be “able to extract money from the very very wealthy — it’s what prevents everything else…you have to be able to finance it.”
Harrington said as the daughter of “teen parents,” she was going to be unstoppable. “I’m not going to Boston to represent a bunch of politicians.”
And Hinds said he had some real experience under his belt working in troubled spots “from Baghdad to the Berkshires.”