Bianchi reflects on his first year

PITTSFIELD – Mayor Daniel L. Bianchi is feeling optimistic about his city going into 2013.

First elected in 2011, Mayor Bianchi recently completed his first year in office.

“This year was meeting with an awful lot of people, a lot of organizations, giving people the opportunity to get to know me,” said the mayor, when asked his thoughts on his first year. “[I] never said no to anyone who came in. We just talked to hundreds and hundreds of people.”

Mayor Bianchi was surprised by that number.

“I guess the surprising thing is the number of people who really wanna see their mayor and know their mayor,” he said. “I’m appreciative of the fact that…anybody’s problem…you should never minimize it.”

Mayor Bianchi said these meetings helped give him a better sense of the importance of different issues to his constituency and the business community.

“I think we’re planning for the future,” said the mayor, when asked whether he thought the city was better off now than it was a year ago. “I think we have a better vision for…economic development for the future. … I think we have done some real good work and put people in position to be able to plan for economic development.”

When asked about his proudest achievement last year, Mayor Bianchi said it was getting on the right rack relative to economic development initiatives. In particular, he noted the expansion of the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority (PEDA) board from seven to 11 members.

“Nuclea [Biotechnologies] is a great first start,” he said when asked about the company’s decision to re-locate a computer cluster to William Stanley Business Park, which is located on the former GE campus, administered by PEDA.

“I’m looking at that as a pathway to the broader life science industry,” he added.

Mayor Bianchi said he would like to see Nuclea be the first of many life sciences companies that sets up shop at the business park. He went on to say that his administration is currently talking with the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public state entity, to expand their presence into Pittsfield and to release funding that would create a Life Sciences Center at William Stanley Business Park.

“It is my dream that someday it’ll be a very significant [life sciences] presence, in that so much of life science is based in agriculture,” said the mayor. “What better place than The Berkshires than to have an agricultural-based life sciences initiative. I think that we’re positioned, geographically and philosophically, to really grow economically.”

Mayor Bianchi also touched on public safety.

“One of the big things that…I talked about early on is we’re not going to be a community that’s going to be defined by a crime statistic,” said the mayor, who pointed to his administration’s creation of an aggressive neighborhood watch program and the re-establishment of the Police Advisory Committee.

When asked about his biggest disappointment in his first year, Mayor Bianchi said that it was coming into office and finding that the planning for the new Career Technical and Vocational High School was far behind where he’d like to see it.

“It was disappointing but it is also an opportunity to make sure that we get it right,” said the mayor.

The mayor said either renovating or replacing Taconic High School would be a major step in the city’s economic development picture, because he saw it becoming a 21st century vocational school.

“We want to create a new high school with today’s vocational technical programs and design a building around those programs,” said Mayor Bianchi. “I want it to be a 21st century vocational high school, with 21st century vocational programs.

“It is not going to be…your father’s vocational program; it’s going to be a vocational program that is going to probably send 70 percent of its graduates…on to higher education, to higher training, to college.”

Looking forward

When asked what he was most eager to work on in 2013, the mayor said he wanted to improve public safety and the city’s public safety infrastructure. He also said he wanted to improve on the city’s educational foundation, not just with a new high school, but also with the citizens initiative to get at least 90 percent of Pittsfield’s children reading at a grade three level by the time they hit grade three.

“I think that that will help us to rebuild the foundation of our community,” said Mayor Bianchi.

The mayor also praised programs like the El Sistema Kids 4 Harmony music program, which he credited with being both culturally enriching and academically fortifying to the children participating in it.

“Eventually you’re going to reconfigure the foundation of our educational system here so that someday we will not have to be spending millions and millions of dollars on remedial programs but on enrichment programs,” said the mayor.

The mayor has also taken it upon himself to visit the city’s small businesses on a weekly basis, and plans on continuing to do so, in order to better understand what their goals are and what Pittsfield can do to help them.

“I really want to make sure that the existing small businesses here in the community have what they need to be able to grow,” said Mayor Bianchi.

The mayor also said that the state government had been responsive to Pittsfield’s needs during his first year.

“The state looks at the city as a good investment,” said the mayor.

“I think we have a real strong arts scene, and I really am hopeful that we will continue,” said Mayor Bianchi, when asked about arts in the city of Pittsfield, noting the participation of city hall in the upcoming 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival. “The arts enrich our lives.”

When asked if there was anything he wanted to say to the people of Pittsfield, he made an appeal to the city’s youth.

“One of the goals that I think should be the goal of the mayor’s office is to cultivate the leaders of tomorrow,” said Mayor Bianchi. “I’m always looking for young people in organizations that will serve on a board or a commission or a task forth…regardless of what it is. I want to tap into the passion of young people here in our community to be involved with their community.”

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on January 24, 2013. Filed under Community News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry