Pittsfield Massachusetts

Pittsfield Considers Raising Smoking Age From 18 to 21

by: Adam Frenier & Martha Escobar

The Pittsfield Board of Health will discuss Wednesday raising the age to buy tobacco in the city to 21. One Pittsfield resident, Donna Tibbits, says she supports the proposal.

“It’s a bad thing to start smoking,” Tibbits says. “It’s horrible all the way around. And if they raise the age to start smoking, maybe by then a lot of peer pressure will be off and kids won’t think they have to smoke to fit in or be cool.”

But Brittany Davis says she isn’t so sure upping the smoking age from 18 to 21 will work.

“People are going to do it anyway,” Davis says. “Whether they have someone go out and buy it for them or not is going to decrease the amount of people who smoke.”

Pittsfield would join about a hundred other Massachusetts communities which have done the same. The Massachusetts State Senate last week passed a bill raising the age to buy tobacco to 21 state-wide. The measure still needs approval from the House and governor.

Mild Winter Causes Woes For Some Businesses

It’s felt like spring has been in the air for a while across western Massachusetts, even though it doesn’t officially start until Sunday. While some have enjoyed the lack of snow and above-normal temperatures, the weather has wreaked havoc on businesses who depend on a cold winter.

Most ski areas in Berkshire County have given up the fight against Mother Nature and closed up shop.

“The season never started. It’s almost that bad.”

That’s how Matt Sawyer of Ski Butternut in Great Barrington summed up ski season. He says the mountain lost about 40 percent of the days it’s usually open. And Sawyer says those lost days came at one of the most profitable times of the season.

“Losing all of December and the first week in January is pretty devastating on any business,” Sawyer says. ” A lot of that is over the holiday period, when the rates are higher because that’s when people have off from school and commitments to their jobs, so it’s been a pretty difficult, very challenging season.”

Ski Butternut wouldn’t release specific numbers related to finances, but it’s clear the mild winter took a bite out of its bottom line.

Another business feeling the pinch: home heating oil companies. Mike Lipton, vice president of Lipton Energy, says he’s been selling less oil because customers just haven’t needed it. Prices were already low. And he says with all that fuel on hand, he had to lower prices a little more, which has hurt both the company and consumers who locked in their rates for the season.

“It’s not what we like to see, people paying the higher price,” Lipton says. “We’ve locked in just like they have, so we’re not making any additional money on it, it’s just sort of bad sentiment from those people.”

One business, of sorts, has actually benefited from the tame winter: municipal government. Last fiscal year, the city of Pittsfield spent nearly $1.3 million on snow and ice removal. So far this year: well under half that.

Gov. Baker: General Electric’s Boston Move, Housatonic Cleanup Separate Issues

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker says General Electric’s cleanup responsibilities on the Housatonic should not be linked to the company’s move to Boston.

General Electric is battling the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the costly cleanup of the Housatonic in Pittsfield , which GE polluted with PCB’s decades ago. Now, lured by up to $120 million in state incentives, GE is moving its headquarters to the Bay State.

Governor Baker tells WGBH that when those discussions began, state officials told GE they were not going to combine the two issues.

“If GE wanted to come and locate in Massachusetts, we’d be perfectly happy to talk about that and talk to the mayor (Marty Walsh of Boston) about that,” Baker says. “But the larger question associated with their dispute and their engagement with the EPA around the cleanup at the Housatonic is a separate issue and should be dealt with separately.”

Baker says he hasn’t “talked much at all” with GE about the Housatonic.

General Electric Differs With EPA On The Next Phase Of The Housatonic River Cleanup

General Electric has shot back at the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to clean up a portion of the Housatonic River.

READ: GE’s filing

In a filing with the EPA, GE says the so-called “Rest of the River” plan is “not a common-sense solution” and violates the terms of the original agreement between the two parties. The company objects to the costly out-of-state disposal of contaminated soil from the banks of the Housatonic and differs over plans to dredge a pond in Lenox.

GE offers solutions it says would accomplish the same as what the EPA proposes, and would also be cheaper.

The “Rest of the River’ plan is the latest phase in cleaning up the Housatonic, which GE polluted with PCB’s when it operated a plant in Pittsfield decades ago.

Tyer Poised To Become New Pittsfield Mayor

In November, Pittsfield City Clerk Linda Tyer was the only challenger in western Massachusetts to defeat an incumbent mayor, when she knocked off Dan Bianchi. She also became the first Pittsfield mayor elected to a four-year term. Tyer will officially take office next week, on Monday, January 4th when she is sworn in. We asked her how she’s been preparing for her new job.

To hear a conversation with Pittsfield Mayor-elect Linda Tyer, click the audio player above.

Neal Hopes Ryan Keeps Tax Reform As A Priority

Springfield Democtratic Congressman Richard Neal says he and the new Republican House Speaker, Paul Ryan, share common ground on at least one issue: tax reform. As members of the ways and means committee, Neal says he worked closely with Ryan on attempts to change the nation’s tax code. now that Ryan is speaker, Neal says he hopes his colleague will stay on the issue.

“We all agree the current tax system in America is under-productive and inefficient,” Neal says. “It has not been reworked since 1986 and the problem is we all agree on tax reform in general, it’s when you get to the specifics that support starts to fall off.”

Ryan, of Wisconsin, was elected speaker late last month. Neal made his comments Monday at an appearance in Pittsfield.