It was two days after Independence Day, but there was a firework display of sorts between Berkshire County Sheriff Tom Bowler and candidate Alf Barbalumga at a virtual forum on Wednesday, July 6.
The virtual forum, which was held via Zoom, was sponsored by the NAACP Berkshire County Branch, the state’s ACLU, and the League of Women Voters.
More than 100 residents from throughout Berkshire County attended the virtual event, which started with a presentation from ACLU Community Outreach Strategist Olivia Santoro.
Santoro said that the organization recently took a poll of registered voters in Berkshire County. The poll showed that only 10 percent of registered voters could correctly identify Bowler as the current Berkshire County Sheriff.
“As you can see, there’s a lot of room here to educate voters about sheriffs and the role that they play,” Santoro said.
Bowler, a lifelong resident of Pittsfield, started his law enforcement career in 1985 with the city’s police department. He was elected as Berkshire County Sheriff in November 2010.
Barbalumga, who said he is a lifelong resident of Berkshire County, has been involved in public safety corrections and law enforcement for 31 years.
At times during the forum, NAACP Political Action Committee Chairman and moderator Helen Moon seemed flustered while moderating the forum as she tried to hold candidates to a three-minute time limit and directly answer questions posed by the audience.
Meg Bossong, a former commissioner on the Berkshire County Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, asked the candidates about their plans to better serve women who are part of the incarcerated population in the Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee.
In 2014, under Sheriff Bowler, female prisoners were moved out from the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction in Pittsfield to the center in Chicopee.
“What we have heard in commission hearings is that the housing of women prisoners in Chicopee has led to a great deal of hardship for the prisoners and their families, especially in terms of family separations and people’s ability to visit the prisoners,” Bossong said. “The explanation that has been given for the relocation is that there is a lot more programming and facilities in the Chicopee facility. But the feedback from the people that we spoke with is that, on the prisoner’s return to the community, there are very few services available for them.”
Bowler said that, over the past two years, services to incarcerated prisoners had been enhanced.
“We do understand that there has been hardship at times for these individuals and their families,” Bowler said. “A lot of the individuals that have been incarcerated are homeless, and they also have substance abuse disorders. They are dealing with a whole host of issues with their addiction or mental health issues as well. I will stand by what I have said before that the services that these individuals are receiving at the Chicopee Center are far greater and far more than what we have [in Pittsfield].”
Barbalumga fully disagreed with Bowler.
“I’m going to be basic about this, we absolutely sold out in 2014,” Barbalumga said. “They were shipped down. You can imagine what it looks like when families have a two-and-a-half to three-hour round trip. Their families, due to demographics, economic disadvantages, and racial disparities, can’t visit them. We don’t have any public transportation that’s worthwhile in Western Massachusetts.”
Barbalumga added that one of his goals if he was elected, would be to return female prisoners to the Pittsfield facility.
The next question for the candidates was whether or not either of them would cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when it came to immigration law enforcement.
Barbalumga did not seem to directly answer the question.
“We had specific trial court guidelines, so were state employees about what we get a lot to do with a federal ICE situation,” he said. “It’s kind of like a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ And there are currently federal lawsuits and state lawsuits about that. What I would say is this, I fully believe we should maximize [the Pittsfield] facility, it has absolutely been underutilized.”
Barbalumga added that he would not endorse having federal inmates or detainees in the Pittsfield facility.
“Just a reminder to answer the question that has been asked,” Moon said as she cut Barbalunga off as he was answering.
Moon then posed the same question to Sheriff Bowler.
“We don’t work with ICE now and we don’t plan to in the future,” Bowler said. “If an individual is incarcerated here and has been charged, but he also has charges from ICE on him, before that individual goes to court, we will notify ICE that the individual may be released from court. It’s [ICE’s] responsibility to apprehend the prisoner and detain them. We do not hold detainees here for ICE.”
During the forum, Barbalunga said that the sheriff’s office under Bowler has overspent its budget.
An audience member asked Barbalunga what Bowler had overspent on during his time in office.
In response, Barbalunga said that Bowler developed a program at the department’s office at 264 Second Street that is “an absolute disaster.”
Barbalunga did not specify the program, but he said that it started in 2014 or 2015.
“What happens is that you build the empire, you hire six to eight employees, and you produce no product whatsoever,” he said. “What happens is that the grant [for the program] runs out and no individuals are using the program. What happens is that some people lose their jobs, but you absorb some of the ones politically into the house of corrections. Now your budget increases for payroll and it’s a tool that’s been used in perpetuity, but Tom’s done a great job accelerating it.”
Currently, the building is used for the department’s Second Chances program.
However, Barbalunga said that, if elected, he would “return the building to the community”.
Barbalunga added that Bowler had a “Taj Mahal plush office” until last year in the Berkshire Eagle building.
Bowler interrupted Barbalunga and said that “Barbalunga is factually wrong on so many issues,” but was muted by Moon and not allowed to continue his response.
An audience member questioned if the candidates had any community outreach plans for the Latino community in the Berkshires, due to its increasing population.
Barbalunga said that, if elected, he plans to start an outreach program to recruit employees.
“The executive leadership team at the House of Corrections has zero Latino, zero Black, and two women,” Barbalunga said. “That’s inappropriate. We’re going to basically run a farm system like a Single-A, Double-A, or Triple-A [minor league baseball team] to get these young people to give them something that inspires them. Let me say right now, there’s some men and women inside [the facility] that have been bypassed for promotions, time after time after time on these promotional exams, which are these verbal exams, which really are arbitrary and capricious because you can score one…”
“I’m going to stop you,” Moon said. “I’m going to be very strict about this. Please answer the question itself. That is it.”
In response to the question, Bowler said that the facility currently has nine Hispanic employees.
Bowler then spoke about female recruits before being cut off by Moon because “that is no longer answering the question about your outreach for the Latin community in Berkshire County.”
Bowler was not given the chance to further answer the question by Moon.
This year’s state primary election is on Tuesday, September 6.
The state election is on Tuesday, November 8.
To register online to vote in both elections go to the state’s online voter application website.
Meeting video captured by Shaw Israel Izikson for The Berkshire Edge.
