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North Adams Council Endorses Cultural District Designation
By Tammy Daniels, iBerkshires Staff
12:26AM / Thursday, July 28, 2016
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Councilors Lisa Blackmer and Eric Buddington check city ordinances in asking that the language of the new changes be cleaned up.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The City Council on Tuesday endorsed the pursuit of a Cultural District designation for a large part of the downtown.

The work on the application began some three years but languished during a change over in staffing. Now being spearheaded by Jennifer  Crowell of the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center and the city's Director of Community Events Suzy Helme, the unanimous approval of the resolution to the Massachusetts Cultural Council completes the application process.

"The MCC is encouraging us to apply for this," said Helme. "It's really just getting North Adams the recognition the city deserves and all the organizations that have been working the past few decades to build a cultural district here."

The designation will help in marketing the city and will include signage and a map detailing the cultural and historical elements of the walkable area. It's also expected to be an asset should the city seek funding for cultural needs. Two public sessions were held in May for input on the plan.

"It's a feather in our cap," said Crowell. "It's just a recognition of us being the great cultural city we know we are."

Julia Dixon of the city's Public Arts Commission, one of the partners in managing the district, said her commission was supportive of the application.

"We are so excited this is happening, not only as a marketing tool and a feather in our cap but it also will promote this city and attract other artists to relocate downtown, it will promote more public art development," she said.

The resolution as read by council President Benjamin Lamb prompted little comment and it passed easily within a few minutes.

"I think this is wonderful and I appreciate the work you've put it into it," said Councilor Kate Merrigan. "When I learned about this and I looked at the list of other communities in Massachusetts that have cultural districts, it seemed ridiculous that we're not on it. ...

"It makes so much sense that we would be because we have such a great concentration of cultural facilities."

Prior to that, the council spent nearly an hour going back and forth on restoring parking meters in the Center Street lot before voting to postpone. It will come back before council on Aug. 9.

The committee had met Monday night, spending more than an hour in discussion at that time before recommending the ordinance change. The issue had been ordinance changes that would eliminate free parking for the first two hours and institute the standard 25 cents an hour up to four hours; remove the non-functioning ticket kiosk; and reinstall metered parking on 69 spots. But many of the same arguments for and against re-metering the lot surfaced again on Tuesday.

Councilor Robert M. Moulton Jr. categorized the meters as "quick fix" for a wider problem, calling again for a more comprehensive parking plan. Councilor Keith Bona reiterated his belief that enforcement — in limiting people from parking all day in the lot without a permit — could be handled without meters. Something had to be done, he said, to make it fairer to people who were paying for permitted parking in the lot.

Several councilors, including Ronald Boucher, said they were willing to vote the ordinance change now since the meters would be part of a planned upgrade of the parking lot. A longer-term look at parking could always be done later, Boucher said. "I will support this in the short term but we really need to look at this."

Councilor Lisa Blackmer said the rush should not be on the council, since the administration has been discussing parking lot upgrades for some time.

"They're clear on what they want to do ... they want to accommodate the construction cycle," she said. "It's been 3 1/2 years and now everyone wants to move forward immediately."

Jeffrey Thomas of Lever and Cloud 85 said parking meters were not a good idea.

"It would certainly hurt our ability to function on Main Street," he said, because mentors and presenters would have to "scrounge" for quarters and have to run out to feed meters or move vehicles. "People come to our co-working spaces to be productive."

He suggested it could cause a hardship for those seeking the social services available on Main Street as well. "It's important to for that free two-hour parking."

Lamb said there were enough questions raised to send it back to committee with the hope Main Street business owners would also tend to give their perspective.

Lamb also refused to allow resident Robert Cardimino to comment during the meeting, saying he had suspended Cardimino's privileges for failing to follow the rules at the June 29 meeting. Cardimino said Lamb was violating his civil rights.

 

Correction: an earlier version of this story said the ordinance was sent to you Public Safety. That idea was raised but not acted on.

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