Page 27 - Wayne Wilkinson News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

  Offices up for election are mayor for two years; nine City Council seats, also for two-year terms; three School Committee seats for four-year terms and one for three years; and two McCann School Committee seats for four years.   This will only be the second time in 36 years that the mayoral race will not have an incumbent on the ballot — and both of those elections were in the past four years.   Mayor Thomas Bernard announced the day after his state of the city address in February that he would not be seeking a third term and would instead be focusing his efforts on the agenda he...

  The process had begun more than a year ago but was put on hold during the pandemic and the departure of the the former administrative officer who had done the initial legwork.     "You know something takes X number of hours, even if you put it at the lowest paid person in the department or you come up with an average  ... I think that something takes an hour of somebody's time, then the fee should minimally reflect the amount of time it takes to do the inspection process the paperwork," she said. "People forget about that. When they walk out and still then have to come back and bun...

NORTH ADAMS — Mayor Tom Bernard will ask the North Adams City Council to approve borrowing $300,000 to replace hydrants. As of Tuesday, the Water Department had identified 55 inoperative hydrants, out of 339 documented in the survey and more than 600 total across the city. “Given the fact that we’re at all-time lows of borrowing, I think now is the time to borrow,” said Councilor Lisa Blackmer. “This is smart borrowing.” By hiring an external contractor, Bernard said he expects repairs to cost $5,000 to $6,000 per hydrant, about twice the cost of using city staf...

North Adams Committee Recommends Against Hydrant Ordinance The General Government Committee is recommending a proposed ordinance creating a fire hydrant division be filed, saying it raised a number of complicated issues and legalities, and was best addressed by the policies and procedures of the departments involved. "We're not voting on hydrants tonight, we're voting on whether to put in a new department in order to maintain hydrants," said member Wayne Wilkinson. "I see no need for that. We have a plan from the mayor which I fully support. When he brings it to council I'll certainly vote on...

The Monday night vote was unanimous among the seven councilors present. King accepted the job Tuesday. A 25-year veteran of education in Massachusetts and New York, King worked for more than five years in the North Adams Public Schools system, where she helped start the E3 Academy. When she worked for North Adams Public Schools, Cathleen King helped develop curriculum for the E3 Academy. COURTESY OF THE EPSTEIN HILLEL SCHOOL Despite her lack of municipal experience, King pointed to her work with a broad spectrum of parents and teachers as proof that she cou...