Letter to the Editor:

On September 19, the day of the Pittsfield primary elections, the Central Berkshires branch of the League of women Voters hosted a hybrid Community Conversation.

Based on our reading of a chapter of Dr. David Moss’s Democracy: A Case Study, we reviewed the history of the disenfranchisement of Black citizens after the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era, and through the decades after WWII. In particular, we looked at the controversy surrounding Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of nonviolent protests that often provoked violence against him and his supporters. Would you have decided to walk across the Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965, defying the Federal law prohibiting this march? We asked each other.

That march, like many other civil rights demonstrations, took courage and enormous moral conviction. It meant participating in a deliberate act of nonviolent civil disobedience. Over 14,000 arrests were made in only a few years. This is just one of the many details in Dr. Moss’s chapter, through which I learned more than I ever knew growing up in those times.

After the Pittsfield polls closed that same evening, we learned that voter turnout had been under 20% in some precincts and under 14% in others. Over 80% of eligible voters had not exercised their right to have a say in their city’s government. Pittsfield is no different from other Berkshire towns, where voter turnout for local elections is notoriously low.

We were struck with the sharp and disappointing contrast that evening: For decades, citizens fought hard and at great cost, for the right to vote. And now large numbers of people choose not to go to the polls?

Governor Maura Healy is vetoing the budget line item for $2.5 million for civics education. She wants to cut it below last year’s allotment of $2 million to $1.5 million. I have to disagree. If students do not learn the importance of voting in a democracy, we will not be able to sustain this type of government in the future, neither in the Commonwealth nor in the country at large.

Ramelle 

Editor’s note: Ramelle Pulitzer, Chapter President, Central Berkshire County, League of Women Voters

Hi Carole,

My personal preference would be to leave the PCBs in the River Sediment in Woods Pond and to treat them ‘in place’ with microbes. I am also in favor of eventually removing Woods Pond Dam, in stages perhaps, so that when it rains, the river will not back up behind Woods Pond Dam into a lake over the PCBs in the sediment. 

I believe that the numbers that you have provided may be what EPA and GE are planning to excavate, truck through our streets, and then dump in Lee. The only reason for doing it, is to make us think that the problem is solved, so GE and EPA may go ‘merrily’ on their way.

Thanks for your thoughtful email. I have been collecting signatures to get GE/EPA to shift the TRANSPORTATION of PCBs through our towns, from dump trucks to the railroad.

Denny

Carole, I’m very sorry. After I spoke to you about changing the Uke day, Mike said we couldn’t change it until he contacted the other tenants down the hall to see if our playing would disturb their activities. No one outside of our group has come to our meetings so far, and we will announce during our performance at the Senior Center lunch that we meet on Tuesdays and that everyone is welcome. 

Faye Windram

Dear Carole,

I read with such pleasure the account of the chimes being repaired, and then just now of their being played at Mr. Gray’s funeral. I have happy memories of being up in the chime tower as a child. Mr. Gray assigned me a bar to push and he would tap it when that note should be played. I thought I used to climb the tower in the summer whenever I wanted to do this, but my sister thought we only went there with our mother when we were little, not at the age of running around town independently. Maybe both things were true! This would have been in the 1940s. It’s a memory I have treasured all my life. 

Linda (Howard) Zonana

Dear Linda,

Thank you. I hope everyone shares their memories of Stockbridge as you did.

Carole

Hi Carole,

Just a little history to clarify…

In 2002, the Stockbridge Land Trust approached the Laurel Hill Association about preserving the south entrance to town, the old Beacco property. The two organizations pooled monies 50/50 on the $105K purchase, but the deeds went directly from the seller to the LHA, the sole owner. That was the first 50/50 collaboration of the SLT and LHA to preserve entrances to town. There have been three successful ones since: the Four Corners (2012), the West Dale Preserve (2017), and the Kiggen Parcel south of Chestnut (2014). It’s been a productive association! 

I thought it was time to clarify…thanks for helping.

Pat Flinn