Thursday, July 10, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

Ed Abrahams and Pedro Pachano

Ed Abrahams is a fundraising and management consultant working in New York City for 20 years before moving to Great Barrington 20 years ago. He is vice-chair of the Great Barrington Selectboard, president of the Friends of the GB Libraries, co-chair of the Downtown Great Barrington Cultural District, a cemetery commissioner, a member of the school council of Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School and Monument Valley Regional Middle School, a member of the Great Barrington Economic Development Committee and a former member of the Board of Library Trustees where he served as chair for three years. Ed has served and continues to serve on the boards and advisory boards of many nonprofit organizations. Pedro Pachano attended Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation where he received a Masters in Architecture. He has subsequently worked for New York based Acconci Studio, Eisenman Architects, Diller, Scofidio and Renfro and FXFowle Architects (now FX Collaborative). In 2007 he founded Pachano & Vollert Architects with partner Amparo Vollert with whom he has designed and completed architectural projects in New York, Miami, San Francisco and Bogotá, Colombia. Pachano & Vollert Architecture continues to develop ideas about architecture and urbanism while engaging in innovative energy efficiency and reduction strategies which encompass century old passive traditions to new cutting edge technologies. Since 2016 Pedro has served on both Great Barrington’s Design Advisory Committee and Planning Board. Pedro has taught Architecture at Columbia University, The Cooper Union, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Institute of Technology; is a licensed architect in New York, Massachusetts, Florida; and is NCARB Certified.

written articles

It’s Not That Simple: Are there local solutions to the housing crisis?

In their final installment on housing, Pedro and Ed highlight ideas for town-sponsored housing creation.

It’s Not That Simple: Housing shortage, a review

Pedro and Ed offer a re-cap of the series they began last November.

It’s Not That Simple: Who will build our housing?

This week, local developer and property manager Sam Nickerson joins Pedro and Ed to discuss the many hurdles involved when attempting to build new housing.

It’s Not That Simple: Housing: Can the free market house us all?

A large part of Berkshire property values come from things that are not on the lot. It comes from being part of a functioning community. If we don’t have a community, all the property values come down.

It’s Not That Simple: Housing: What has the town done for us lately?

With the help of Assistant Town Manager/Director of Planning and Development Chris Rembold, Pedro and Ed attempt to find out what Great Barrington has done about housing. It turns out, quite a bit.

It’s Not That Simple: Why can’t my children afford to live here?

Before you say, “not another housing show,” give us a minute to explain. By looking to the past — with the help of this week's guest, historian Bernard Drew — we hope to uncover how we could re-imagine building more housing in the future.

It’s Not That Simple: Town meeting citizen petitions

Pedro and Ed return to the airwaves to explain how to write a petition that has a chance of passing at Town Meeting.

It’s Not That Simple: GB adapts to COVID-19

Great Barrington’s Town Meeting will be held outside, in cars. Yes, a drive-in Annual Town Meeting. We will drive up to the high school, remain in our cars, check in with the Town Clerk at a drive-through station, and park in the parking lot leaving every other space empty.

It’s Not That Simple: The Housatonic River Clean Up, Part 3

"We’ll have to see what happens with the signed settlement. We can’t rest easy just yet. We hope there are not going to be any appeals. We hope EPA moves forward to issue a new permit based on the settlement agreement.” -- Great Barrington Town Manager and Director of Planning & Community Development Chris Rembold

It’s Not That Simple: The Housatonic River cleanup, Part 2

“There is no failsafe technology. In fact, we think the best technology for this level of PCBs is landfilling, because if we use one of these other technologies we might knock it down from 20 ppm to 5 ppm, or even 1 ppm, it still needs to be put somewhere. You still need a landfill.” -- Bryan Olson, director of the Superfund and Emergency Management Division of the Environmental Protection Agency

It’s Not That Simple: The Housatonic River cleanup, Part 1

For more than three decades, the EPA has been negotiating with GE toward a goal of cleaning up the Housatonic River. The Rest of River settlement is the latest attempt at fulfilling that goal.

It’s Not That Simple: Strategic sustainability and livability

“Talking about climate change as a fact or not a fact is a tremendous distraction from what is happening. I’ve stopped using the word ‘change’ and started using ‘crisis’ because that’s more accurate.” -- Jovanina Pagano

It’s Not That Simple:  Be Counted, It IS That Simple

State funding also uses federal census numbers to allocate grants. So having an accurate count of our town’s population is crucial to having programs adequately funded.

It’s Not That Simple: Affordable Housing, Part 2

Forty years ago a full-time job would provide enough to pay for housing. Now someone can be working full-time or even more and still not be able to afford a place to live.

It’s Not That Simple: Who needs affordable housing? We do.

If the solutions were easy, there wouldn’t be problems. This column is a companion to the WSBS-AM radio show, “It’s Not That Simple.”  (Listen...

It’s Not That Simple: Food doesn’t grow in grocery stores

We thought at the beginning of a new year, we should give thanks for the food we eat, and acknowledge the hard work it takes to produce that food.
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The Edge Is Free To Read.

But Not To Produce.