BRPC Honors Retiring Local Leaders with Kusik Award
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Two outgoing leaders were recognized with Kusik Awards at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's annual meeting.
Ellen Kennedy, Berkshire Community College's retiring president, and Jane Winn, retired executive director of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team, were recognized for outstanding contributions to Berkshire County.
Meg Bandarra of Unpaved Trails for All and Rene Wood, of Sheffield, also received the award to applause at The Proprietor's Lodge last week.
It is named in honor of the late Charles Kusik of Richmond who, for over three decades, placed his imprint on the zoning bylaws of nearly every town in Berkshire County.
Kennedy said Berkshire Community College is hardwired to meet the economic and educational needs of Berkshire County, "just as so many of you are hardwired to meet your community's needs in land use, housing planning, and environmental stewardship."
"After 46 years of calling the Berkshires home, I remain grateful every day that so much of what we love about this place, the landscape, the scale, the sense of community, endures because of thoughtful planning, stewardship, and care," she said.
"That endurance is no accident. It is the result of generations of people like you, like and like Charles Kusik, who believe that local effort and civic responsibility could quite literally shape the land we live on."
Winn hopes that in the next 5-10 years, Berkshire County can work together to make the area an even more wonderful place to work, live, and retire.
"In considering my priorities in the Berkshires for the next five to 10 years, I'm always really sad that even though the Berkshires have a much lower population now than when I was growing up here, we have so much development built out. We have nature all around us, but we don't value that nature highly enough," she said.
Winn's priorities include connecting habitats for wildlife and connecting investor-owned utilities to the electric grid.
"Finally, owning a second home is a huge privilege," she added. We need an empty homes tax similar to what they have done in Vancouver. Any address that doesn't have a voter or full-time renter living there should pay higher taxes," she added.
"I've heard people say second homeowners use less services, but I don't think that's the point. Those homes waste resources when nobody's in there, and take up really important housing that could be used instead for housing people who live and work here."
The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's $8.6 million budget for fiscal year 2025 was about $1.7 million more than the previous year, and Executive Director Thomas Matusko was proud to report that it had worked in every Berkshire municipality. BRPC has close to 170 different contracts and 50 employees.
He outlined several BRPC initiatives in community planning, community development and housing, data and information services, economic development, environmental and energy planning, public health, and transportation planning.
"Our values include quality information, not lies, engaging different and diverse voices, not silencing people, balancing competing interests, respecting partnerships, and integrity," Matusko said.
"Those are our values. Bringing true to those values, we will continue to be able to provide high-quality services to the people and municipalities in Berkshire County."
BRPC's Community Planning program assessed community housing needs in Monterey, New Marlborough, and West Stockbridge, and prepared a Housing Production Plan for Egremont. Lanesborough was assisted in developing its first comprehensive plan, and Open Space and Recreation Plans were completed for Cheshire, Lee, Monterey, New Marlborough, and North Adams.
"Community Development work focused on three primary areas: administration of Community Development Block Grant Programs, management of the Home Modification Loan Program (HMLP), and implementation of accessibility projects. The FY22/23 Sheffield CDBG Housing Rehabilitation Program used over $807,000 to rehabilitate 14 homes for low- to moderate-income households in Sheffield," Matusko reported in his notes on the annual report.
"The FY24 Becket-Dalton CDBG Housing Rehabilitation Program began utilizing over $809,000 to rehabilitate 11 homes for low- to moderate-income households in Becket and Dalton. BRPC closed on nine HMLP loans for accessibility improvements to their homes. BRPC assisted Lanesborough in implementing ADA accessibility improvements."
A video from Gov Maura Healey kicked off the evening.
"The Berkshires are such an important part of who we are as a state, and I want you to know that we see you, we value you, and we will do everything we can to ensure your success," she said.
"Thanks for everything you do."
Keynote speaker Fredrick Rutberg, former publisher of the Berkshire Eagle, was a judge before purchasing New England Newspapers in 2016, along with three other investors. He said he had a ringside seat on what deindustrialization did to the community, "how it eviscerated us, culturally, economically, socially, and it was pretty sad."
When he came here in 1972, 11,000 people worked for General Electric, and 60,000 people were living in Pittsfield, compared to about 43,000 today.
"I thought if the paper could shine a light on all the positive things that are happening in our community, we might be a catalyst to attracting the kind of investment that is necessary to sow the seeds of some kind of nascent recovery in manufacturing that could hopefully help build a blue collar and working-class economy here that got really got the teeth knocked out of it," Rutberg said.
He explained that the previous owners unintentionally ran what was essentially a crime sheet after cutting other areas of the paper.
"And so when we were lucky enough to take ownership of paper, the only instructions I could give to the news was less crime on the front page, please," he said.
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