Widener had already started a delivery business, the Berkshire Valet, and last year launched its MealGopher unit, which delivered meals from area restaurants to boarding school students in Berkshire County and Litchfield County, Connecticut.
Second-home owners have no voting rights in Massachusetts, so their influence in state and local affairs is necessarily limited. They certainly are permitted to attend town meetings and, in most towns, are allowed to speak at the discretion of the moderator.
In 1899, a letter written to the editor of the Pittsfield Evening Eagle: “It is a reign of summer people. These patronizing pleasure seekers fence off our mountains and valleys and forbid natives to place a foot on them.”
