Pittsfield — It was a full house at the Berkshire Athenaeum library as Berkshire County Sheriff Thomas Bowler debated candidate Alf Barbalunga on Monday, August 15. The event, which was streamed live via YouTube and social media, was sponsored by Berkshire Community Television and the website iBerkshires.
Panelists for the event included Berkshire Edge Managing Editor Shaw Israel Izikson, WAMC Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes, and iBerkshires Executive Editor Tammy Daniels.
The moderator for the debate was Pittsfield Community Television Coordinator Of Advancement and Community Production Bob Heck.
More than 100 people attended the event, with one side of the room Bowler supporters, and the other side Barbalunga supporters.
However, it seemed that for this debate the Bowler supporters in the audience outnumbered the Barbalunga supporters.
Over the past two months, candidates Bowler and Barbalunga have exchanged accusations against each other during campaign forums and via press releases.
One of the first questions asked was concerning moving female prisoners from the Berkshire County and House of Correction in Pittsfield.
In 2014, under Sheriff Bowler, female prisoners were moved out from the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction in Pittsfield to the Western Mass Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee.
This move has been a campaign issue, especially in light of the death of an inmate at the center.
“I believe we can bring them back,” Barbalunga said. “The plan would start on January 4. At the end of the day, after talking to many people about this, separate but equal is not equal. That’s the bottom line.”
Bowler said he strongly disagreed and thought that the center is an appropriate place for female inmates.
“Last week I went down to talk to those women [prisoners],” Bowler said. “I found out firsthand about the services that they’re getting and the opportunities that they have. Not one of them said they wanted to come back to Berkshire County. They have freedom of movement. They needed the same equal opportunity as the men. It cannot work here in Berkshire County.”
“This is pretty much a story of a sheriff here that either is not equipped to do the job, or does not want to do the job, or somewhere in-between,” Barbalunga said in response. “I don’t like hearing it. I don’t like the usual rhetoric of ‘Berkshire County is always underserved from Boston because we’re the redheaded stepchild.’ None of this is true. Every single study across the country says women are better when they’re within close proximity to their families.”
When asked about what shortcomings at the Berkshire House of Corrections the candidates would fix, Barbalunga said budgetary fiscal stewardship would be his top priority.
“We have a pretty robust budget, somewhere between $19 and $23 million, and our team definitely would spend that money in a different way,” Barbalunga said. “When it comes down to it at the end of the day, it’s about spending money on the inmates’ rehabilitation. We would definitely bypass some of the other expenditures.”
Later on in the debate, Barbalunga said that “we’re gonna get rid of all ancillary types of activities.”
“I don’t care about boats, I don’t care about snowmobiles, I don’t care about horses, I don’t care about chainsaws, and additional uniforms that are in the warehouse,” Barbalunga said. “I don’t care about any of that. I care about inmate rehabilitation, and I care about my staff being paid accordingly. And I also care about my staff being satisfied and feeling like they haven’t been railroaded for external promotions. That’s what I care about.”
“He talks about chainsaws and snowmobiles, [the sheriff’s office] has an emergency management response team,” Bowler said in response. “This is a community partnership. I have a dispatch center that dispatches to 26 towns and communities in Berkshire County. When a [cell phone] tower goes down, we are responsible for getting to that tower, fixing and maintaining that tower. We had a tower go down in North Adams, our command center was able to go up with our staff who are highly trained and possess a great deal of expertise and communications. They set up the town so [residents] could continue providing EMS fire and police to that area. When a microburst storm goes through the county, people like the cemeteries or others are calling us for help because they can’t get into those areas to do burials.”
Barbalunga went on to say that another priority he would take on would be “a deep dive into cultural diversity inclusiveness.”
“[The sheriff’s office] is not representative of the communities [it serves],” Barbalunga said. “The rank and file employees there are not representative, and it’s a systemic failure.”
“I totally disagree,” Bowler said in response. “We have forged so many community relationships. It’s amazing the number of people or agencies in Berkshire County, who are knocking at our door to be our partners with us, and that doesn’t come lightly. It comes from hard work from the sea of blue that you see in [the audience] here. It’s those individuals there that you’re bashing on a continual basis. These are the individuals that have brought us to three major accredited accreditations from major agencies and corrections.”
“It’s a pretty common theme in this campaign to pivot to make it personal,” Barbalunga said in response. “I haven’t bashed anybody in this room. That’s a fact. What we’re talking about here are issues. That’s it, nothing personal.”
During the debate, each candidate had a chance to ask each other one question.
“My question is if you’ve been someone who wanted to have this position since you were seven or eight years old, how can you be so woefully misinformed about the operations of the jail?” Bowler asked Barbalunga. “The women being ripped out of Berkshire County and taken down to Chicopee.”
Bowler said that he also took issue with Barbalunga’s criticisms of a program of Bowler at its 264 Second Street facility, and claimed that Bowler had a “Taj Mahal plush office” at the Berkshire Eagle building.
“How can you be so woefully misinformed about the operations of the sheriff’s office?” Bowler asked Barbalunga.
“Unfortunately, I suspect that I know more about your operations than you do, and that’s the real issue here,” Barbalunga said.
“There’s a serious deficiency with running [the sheriff’s office] operation. That’s why I’ve been asked to step up and that’s why I’m doing it.”
For his question, Barbalunga continued with his accusations against Bowler and his office.
“Currently, your office has at least two open lawsuits against you and your top-paid employee for sexual discrimination retaliation, one lawsuit from 2018, one from 2020,” Barbalunga said. “Are you aware that the same top paid employee name in both of the lawsuits I just spoke about also has a judgment against him and fellow employees for similar behavior in a 2003 lawsuit out of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, which resulted in medical payments, punitive damages of over a quarter of a million dollars?”
“These are not sexual discrimination cases,” Bowler said. “These are wrongful termination cases, and they are open cases. And I’m not going to discuss them because that litigation is ongoing.”
“You can’t talk about the case from 2003?” Barbalunga asked Bowler. “Is it settled?”
“I don’t know what case you are talking about,” Bowler said.
“Therein lies the problem,” Barbalunga said. “I find it unbelievable that this would not have been disclosed to you when you retained this person on your staff.”
Neither candidate identified by name the employee in question during the debate.
