Lenox — The two candidates vying for State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli’s seat in the upcoming November general election faced off with each other at a candidates forum on Wednesday, September 25, at Kimball Farms. Over 60 people attended the forum, mostly residents of the nonprofit retirement community.
Great Barrington Selectboard Vice Chair and Democratic nominee Leigh Davis, who defeated fellow Democratic candidates Patrick White and Jamie Minacci in a primary on September 3, and Lenox Select Board member Marybeth Mitts are contending for Pignatelli’s seat in the State House of Representatives in November’s general election.
The forum was moderated by Kimball Farms resident Mary O’Brien.
Before the event, O’Brien said that Davis won a coin toss to determine which candidate would speak first at the event. Davis, who brought up her personal history, also spoke about why she is running for the seat being vacated by State Rep. Pignatelli. “Affordability is something that we can all relate to,” Davis told the audience. “Whether it is affordable housing, healthcare, or just ensuring that we have food on the table, or ensuring that our grandkids can follow in our footsteps. Sustainability is also important, because we need to know what we can do now to ensure that our future generations are looked after. Sustainability is huge, and it can be social, economic, or environmental. What can we do to ensure that?”
Mitts, who also mentioned her own personal history, spoke at length about her political career. “Throughout all of my time here in Lennox, being on the school committee, and being on the Select Board, I’ve been in touch with all of the issues in Berkshire County,” Mitts said. “Many of you might remember the uphill battle I faced as the chairwoman of the Affordable Housing Trust, trying to get a piece of land that the town owned transferred to a developer to build new affordable units in Lenox. That was defeated at a town meeting because, at that point in time [in May 2019] a 66 percent supermajority [of town meeting voters] was required to make that transfer. [Then-Governor] Charlie Baker changed [the required number of votes to pass] the following year to make it just a simple majority.”
Mitts was referring to a proposal back in 2019 for the town to convey a six-acre piece of town-owned land, the Sawmill Brook property, to a developer in order to create 41 affordable-housing units and nine market-rate apartments.
“However, I am a very tenacious person here in Lenox,” Mitts said. “I continued to work with the developer to ask them to please find their own land so we won’t have to deal with a land transfer. Now we’ve broken ground on 65 units [of affordable housing] next to the Courtyard by Marriott. Those units will be market rate and available to anyone in the community. Fifty of those units will be available to people who are earning less than 60 percent of the area median income. This will hopefully bring in families, workers, young workers, and families that only need two bedrooms to make their lives work. I’m very proud [of the project], and it took six years to make that happen, but it was largely driven by my tenacity to get this project built.”
Audience members were permitted to ask the candidates questions during the forum. One of the questions posed to Mitts was whether or not her serving as an independent state representative would benefit the 3rd Berkshire District or if it would bring disadvantages.
In response, Mitts referenced an article previously published on The Berkshire Edge on September 12. “I had intended to run as a Democrat, but I missed the deadline because I didn’t know there was a deadline to declare your candidacy prior to the presidential primary,” she explained . “When I went to get the papers, I went to the City Hall in Pittsfield and wrote down that I’m a Democrat. I made sure that I was a Democrat through the Secretary of State’s website. When I went in, got the papers, I went outside and started to read the papers in my car, and I saw that the deadline to enroll was a week before the presidential primary. There’s a tiny little date underneath the line [on the form].”
Mitts explained that she then decided that she was going to run as an unenrolled candidate. “I walked back into the CIty Hall and said that I was unenrolled on February 24, so what do I need to do?” she recounted. “They said that I needed different [forms]. They took [the first forms] back and gave me new papers. I knew it would be a bit of an uphill battle running as an independent because I knew I would not have the Democratic Party machine behind me.”
“I am running on my record, and I’m standing on my record of what I’ve done here in the town of Lenox and in the Berkshires,” Mitts added. “Be that as it may, I can get to the State House as an independent and be a voice of accomplishment and a voice of getting things done. I’m as frustrated as any citizen is with the lack of legislation that gets passed in the state and the gridlock that continues to mire us in things not happening.”
“One of the key points of being a legislator is being aware of deadlines,” Davis said in response. “When you are a legislator, you have to hit deadlines. You have deadlines for earmarks, you have deadlines for bills. You want to be on top of things. To register to run as a candidate, that’s a deadline that people should be aware of.”
Davis argued that electing an unenrolled representative to the State House would put Berkshire County at a disadvantage. “We are already at a disadvantage in western Massachusetts and the Berkshires because we are fighting for a voice,” Davis said. “We have a Democratic majority in the State House.”
Davis then referenced State Rep. Susannah Whipps (U – 2nd Franklin District), currently the only unenrolled state representative, as a “caucus of one.” “When you send someone to Beacon Hill to represent you, you know you want to have a strong delegation behind you,” Davis explained. “The Berkshire delegation are all Democrats. When I received a phone call from [Governor] Maura Healey, that was a Democrat speaking to a Democrat. It doesn’t mean that people who are not enrolled as a Democrat [have] no voice. The candidate is here to represent everyone, but when you have seniority that is so important on Beacon Hill, and when you have legislators behind you and pulling for you, and when you know that being on committees will make a difference when it comes for the Berkshires to have a voice, [being a Democrat] actually means something. You don’t want to start off on the wrong foot and be a caucus of one.”
