Great Barrington MA

Let’s Buy A Farm

Mickey Friedman
December 17, 2011

If there’s one thing I learned from hearing “Oklahoma” eight million times it’s that the cowboys and the farmers should be friends. We’re short of cowboys and growing short of farmers around these parts. Which is all the more reason to help those farmers we’ve got left.

Shaw Farm From Seekonk Road - Photo: David Scribner

It’s really not the fault of our farmers that they’re forced to consider selling or leasing their land to others. For solar farms or real estate developments. We’ve allowed the corporatization of farming to overtake the small farms that for so many years were a critical part of life in New England. In the 40 years I’ve been here I’ve seen one small dairy farm after another disappear.

My conservative friends never tire of proclaiming the evils of government, and the army of corrupt bureaucrats who over- and incompetently regulate us. Yet they have remained silent as corporations gained one unfair advantage after another with lower taxes, taxes they don’t pay, and enormous government subsidies. Real and fair competition, the bedrock of Adam Smith’s theory of capitalism, has long disappeared.

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A Hamlet For Us All

By Mickey Friedman
September 23, 2011

Eminent Déjà Vu Domain. I remember those words. Something about a dump for Great Barrington. Eminent Domain. Paying less than the land was worth. And then a court case and paying a whole lot more for our dump.

So it was a bit weird seeing those words in print. Now one of the most wonderful things about small towns is big people. Not so much big as in tall but big as in being felt. One person who has an impact on what we do and how we do it. Ed McCormick is one of those big people. He is sometimes everywhere. Putting out fires. Traffic-controlling town meeting. Planning for disasters and helping during disasters.

Nick Kelley and Ed McCormick at Great Barrington Selectman's Meeting - Photo: David Scribner

And lawyering. If you attend a Selectman’s Meeting you’ll often see Ed McCormick representing one of the parties. Sometimes if the meeting goes long, you’ll see him representing several different parties.

Right now he’s in the middle of several big things happening in town. He represents Gary O’Brien in his dispute with the Town’s Building Inspector over how Mr. O’Brien is using the property at 11 Rogers Road for his landscaping business. And Ed McCormick is also representing Stephen Muss, a developer from Florida — Florida, the southern state, not the Berkshire County town. Mr. Muss has a vision and a desire to transform our hamlet of Housatonic – Housatonic the town, not the river. And Mr. McCormick represents the man who was going to buy the old firehouse.

Few people have contributed as much as Mr. McCormick. But it was in the course of representing Mr. Muss that he suggested we – we being the taxpayers and citizens of Great Barrington – consider using Eminent Domain to take Nick Kelley’s mill. Nick Kelley has a mill in Housatonic and Mr. Muss’s vision and desire to transform the hamlet of Housatonic very much includes transforming Nick Kelley’s mill.

 

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Other Sides of Al Schwartz

Al Schwartz - Photo Courtesy of Leslie Haywood Ceanga

 

Leslie Haywood Ceanga was kind enough to share four of her favorite photos of Al Schwartz with the readers of Red Crow News.

We’ve received reminiscences from several readers over the last few days.  You can read some of them on the left side of this page:  “Recent Reader  Comments.”

It’s taken a bit of time to create a way for you to comment.   And we welcome your judicious comments on any of the articles we publish.

If you’d like to add your thoughts, please use the Contact Red Crow box on the bottom of the left sidebar.  We, of course, want to keep conversations civil and productive.   Which means there will be new debates in the offices of Red Crow as we try to figure out exactly what that means.

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Feeling Stupid

By Mickey Friedman
September 9, 2011

GREAT BARRINGTON, MA — I don’t like feeling stupid. Of course, there have been times when I’ve been really stupid. Like all those times I didn’t do my homework, and sat there the next day relying on the odds I wouldn’t be called on.

A summer Saturday with innovative parking and "Call of Duty" street-crossing. (Photo: Mickey Friedman)

Which often backfired and resulted in my shrugging or stammering or sadly admitting that I didn’t have the foggiest idea what my teacher was talking about.

Well I’ve been feeling stupid all over again.

This summer I expanded my bench sitting. Moving from the bench in front of Fuel down the street to the bench in front of Tune Street, or across the street to the bench in front of the Gypsy Joynt Café. Both benches offer new vistas, a new look on life.

What they also illuminate is the never-ending adventure we call “Crossing The Street” in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It’s a poor man’s paint ball or computer-less “Call of Duty.” It costs nothing to play but if you play it poorly you can die or end up in the hospital. Usually I’m a spectator but sometimes I too have to play.

READ MORE >>

Goodnight, Al Schwartz, and Goodbye

By Mickey Friedman
September  7, 2011

Al Schwartz - Photo Courtesy of Donald Victor

GREAT BARRINGTON, MA — Tuesday night is poker night. How appropriate that I learned from my friend Bijan of Al Schwartz’s passing on poker night, Tuesday September 6. I only played a few times with Al. His was a higher stakes game than I was comfortable with.

Real-life history, unlike the classroom variety,  is three-dimensional, messy and vibrant. For me, there is no Great Barrington history that doesn’t feature Al Schwartz.  And yet nary a mention on the Mahaiwe Theater website. Very hard to believe. For more than 20 years, seven days a week, Al Schwartz was the Mahaiwe.

I’m told Al died in his sleep. Good for you, Al. Al worked hard and deserves a rest.  Wherever he is, you better believe the programming just got a hell of a lot better.  And the place a whole lot more interesting.

Here is a piece I wrote in 1994 about Al & The Mahaiwe. He returned for a second stint to work at the theater he loved so much. But, unfortunately, the new management laid Al off at the end of 2008 because of budget cuts.  Below that is a letter I wrote to the editor of the Berkshire Eagle.

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The Rising: A Fishable, Swimmable Rising Pond

By Mickey Friedman
August 12, 2011

GE sees Rising Pond and sees a PCB dump. I see Rising Pond and I see a gem, the cornerstone of a renewed and restored Housatonic, Massachusetts.

I see people fishing on the banks, and community picnics. I see families swimming. Summer nights and fireworks.

Rising Pond - Photo: Mickey Friedman

 

GE’s 2010 Corrective Measures Study (CMS) offers a range of cleanup alternatives for the Rest of the Housatonic River. The 1200 page CMS is not easy to navigate. They’ve divided the river into various reaches: 5a, 5b, 5c from the confluence of the East and West Branches to Woods Pond, then Reach 6 for Woods Ponds, Reach 7 down to Rising Pond, which is Reach 8, while Reach 9 goes to the Connecticut border.
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Of TV, Torchwood, and Lauren Ambrose

July 14, 2011
Camille LeCrow

First off, I have to say I’m exceedingly grateful that the Starz network has opted to give us back “Torchwood,” and thrilled that Great Barrington’s own Lauren Ambrose has joined the cast. I am one of those American viewers of BBC America who happened to appreciate the opportunity to get to know Cardiff, so I’ll let you know how I feel about Starz’s decision to have them rendered to the U.S. of A.

Lauren Ambrose joins "Torchwood: Miracle Day"

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about – which is true of most of my editors at Red Crow who vigorously eschew the wonders and pleasures of television – “Torchwood” was/is a BBC spin-off from “Dr. Who.”

With Captain Jack Harkness, who couldn’t die, leading a team to track down and deal with all things unexplainable and alien and threatening the British Empire, “Torchwood” was set in Cardiff, Wales, and while not thoroughly appreciated by critics, found a loyal audience of people rightly concerned about the alien threat. They’re out there, you know.

Anyway, as with most television series, characters live and die, and actors come and go.

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Scribner on the Great Barrington Library: Of Books, Boards, and Battles

By David Scribner
July 5, 2011

When a political fray becomes nasty, petty, brutish and unkind – to rephrase Thomas Hobbes — the better part of valor, sometimes, is to withdraw gracefully from the field of battle.

That is the tact Great Barrington’s Director of Libraries Anne Just has taken, announcing her retirement as of August, in the wake of the dust-up between the new leadership of the Library Board of Trustees, bent on reasserting its authority over library personnel, and Town Manager Kevin O’Donnell whose post the charter designates as the supervisor of town departments, the library being one of them.

Karin Beebe, President of Library Board of Trustees at Selectmen's Meeting. Her husband, George Beebe, is seated nearby.

When Karin Beebe last month became president of the Board of Library Trustees – a rank that had before her ascension been called chairman – she informed the Board of Selectmen at a June 13 selectmen’s meeting that the Library Trustees intended to assume the authority for the hiring and firing of the library director.

In response, the selectmen reminded her that it would take a vote of the annual Town Meeting and an arduous review, plus an act of the state Legislature, to modify the town charter in order to resolve the differences between the Library Trustees’ charter and the town’s.

This matter could have been framed as an advocacy for an independent library system, a nonpartisan bastion of recorded wisdom governed by an elected board of trustees, insulated from the influences of town politics in order to protect the integrity of the library’s collection.

Unfortunately, such high-mindedness has not yet to become a factor in the discussion. So far, it is simply an argument about the exercise of power and who’s entitled to it, based upon an inconsistency between the library’s and the town’s charters. READ MORE >>

Time to Take The Tourists

By Mickey Friedman
July 3, 2011

Editor’s Note: We at Red Crow want to make it clear how much some of us like cats. And remind you of our Poetic License when we say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Which sounds so much more evocative than “there’s more than one way to tell a story.”

But I, er, we can already see I’m, uh, we’re in trouble, so let’s add an educational component to this note. Did you know the first recorded use of the aforementioned cat expression has been traced to John Ray’s collection of English proverbs in 1678, several years before the incorporation of the UK Cat Liberation League (UKCLL)? And if you want to blame someone more local, there’salways Mark Twain, who in 1889′s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” wrote: “She was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat.”

The point is that a few days ago Bill Shein gave us his always unique and perspicacious perspective on Lenoxology, a phrase so often on the lips of Berkshirites, high-brow and humble. Today, we hear from Mickey Friedman, who has obviously thought long and hard about the story beneath the story:

———

Let’s face it: Great Barrington, we opened the door for them. You can’t really blame them. Times are tough. With two years of downtown redevelopment coming up, it’s time for the other towns to try and take our tourists.

Before $70,000 and Smidley, Crump & Crump.

What did you expect, GB? Did you think Lenox was going to fold its tourist tent? Did you expect Lee to walk away? Downtown Hartsville to throw in the towel?

It’s a fantastic opportunity. Two summers of excavation then re-paving, dump trucks, and cars stuck in traffic past the Fairgrounds to the south and Barrington Brewery to the north.

A chance to find another reason besides a fantastic bassoon solo to lure folks to the Land of Lenox. An opportunity for Lee to get them to American Eagle Outfitters at the Outlet Stores.

You open the door; the odds are someone’s going to bust through.

And it’s probably because the stakes are so high that Lenox is willing to throw $70,000 into the pot. READ MORE >>

O’Brien Ordered to Shut Down Roger Road Operation

By David Scribner
June 29, 2011

GREAT BARRINGTON – Building Inspector Edwin May, with the newly energized backing of the Great Barrington Board of Selectmen, has ordered the controversial O’Brien construction and landscaping business situated in a residential zone off Blue Hill Road to shut down, declaring that the property is not being used as a tree farm.

“In a letter to Town Counsel from your attorney,” May wrote in his cease-and-desist order, “it was stated that future use of the property by your company would be primarily for commercial agricultural/horticultural nursery use. However, the primary use of the property is not for agriculture or horticulture. It is for a landscaper’s yard. As noted above, the use of the property as a landscaper’s yard is not permitted.”

The building inspector has issued a second cease-and-desist order. Click the image to read the letter.

As a result of May’s directive, it may soon be a lot quieter for the residents of Blue Hill Road. But it took determination on the part of the embattled building inspector to get the law upheld. At one point, May said, his boss, Town Manager Kevin O’Donnell, threatened to fire him if he didn’t stop his enforcement campaign, and he had to overcome the influence of O’Brien’s attorney, Edward McCormick. READ MORE >>

Pixley to VA Hospital

By David Scribner
June 28, 2011

David A. Pixley, the Great Barrington resident who last week allegedly set fire to two downtown buildings and had prepared to set ablaze five others and three vehicles, will now be receiving treatment for a chronic psychological condition at a Veterans Affairs hospital outside Northampton.

In a court hearing Monday, Judge Bethzaida Sanabria-Vega remanded the 62-year-old Great Barrington native for treatment at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds, where he will be confined to a lock-down unit.

David Pixley during his arraignment - Photo: David Scribner

Pixley has so far not been in a condition where he can enter a plea – or have a plea entered for him – on the 10 counts of arson and attempted arson.

His son, attorney David Pixley of Pittsfield, noted that his father, who served in Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, from 1969 through 1975, and had reached the rank of sergeant, had received an honorable discharge for a psychological disability. He was stationed on Okinawa, where he was a maintenance expert, and did not see combat duty.

A week before his arrest last Wednesday night, Pixley had spent eight weeks in Jones II, the psychological treatment ward of Berkshire Medical Center. It was at that facility that he had received, prior to his release, a new regimen of medicine for his condition, according to court assigned physician, Dr. Roger Goldin, director for forensic services. It was that change of medicine to treat a bipolar disorder, Goldin said, that exacerbated Pixley’s unstable mental state.

Pixley was a regular customer at Fuel Coffee House on Main Street in Great Barrrington where he was described by patrons as a quiet, unassuming artist who had planned to exhibit his work in the coffee shop gallery.

Suspect Arraigned in GB Arson Case

by Red Crow News Staff
June 23, 2011

David Pixley being arraigned Thursday afternoon, June 23, 2011

GREAT BARRINGTON — David Pixley, 62, of 20 Hollenbeck Ave., Great Barrington was charged today with 10 criminal counts — two of arson, five of “attempting to burn buildings,” and three of “attempting to burn vehicles.” Held since last night on $50,000 bail, after his arraignment he was sent to the Berkshire House of Correction in Pittsfield until Monday, when another hearing on his case will be held to determine his competency.

Red Crow’s David Scribner attended today’s arraignment hearing in Great Barrington. Here is his report:

The Commonwealth provided probable cause for holding David Pixley until Monday, when police officers can testify.

It is alleged that Pixley was seen behind TD North bank last night, carrying a tire and a bag with flammable liquid. He was allegedly dressed in the same manner as the man captured by surveillance cameras on Tuesday night, setting or preparing to set fires in the rear of several stores, including Barrington Outfitters and the Gypsy Joynt.

Pixley allegedly ran and the police gave chase, eventually ending up at Pixley’s apartment at 20 Hollenbeck, several blocks from the downtown area. And that’s where they arrested him about 2:00 a.m.

It turns out that he was recognized by one of the officers, Victor Zucco, who at one time had lived in Pixley’s apartment building.

David Pixley’s son informed us that his father had recently had his medication for bipolar disorder changed to an experimental medicine. This change was prescribed at the Jones III mental-health facility in Pittsfield, where the younger Pixley had picked up his father on June 16.

 

David Pixley, left, and his son David

He said he believed his father’s behavior could be attributed to the change in medicine and dosage.

At the arraignment before Judge Michael Mulcahy in Southern Berkshire District Court, David Pixley was represented by attorney Rick LeBlanc.

 

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RED CROW NEWS

An online newsmagazine based in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, Red Crow News covers what's happening and what we hope will happen.

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