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It was a weekend Pittsfield drivers won’t soon forget. And here’s why

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It was a weekend Pittsfield drivers won’t soon forget. And here’s why








Snow Roads

A plow makes a go on North Road in Pittsfield Saturday after the storm. 

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PITTSFIELD — When a storm approached final Friday, Joad Bowman, a accomplice of three downtown institutions in Pittsfield, despatched employees residence early so they may race the snow.

On Tuesday, prospects who stopped in at a type of companies, LuLu’s Tiny Grocery, had been nonetheless speaking about final weekend’s frightful street circumstances — proof {that a} subject that’s now slated to come back earlier than the Metropolis Council stays on folks’s minds.

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Public Utilities Commissioner Ricardo Morales stated Monday that street cleanup efforts had been hampered, first, by the surprising quantity of snow that fell Friday after which by plunging temperatures that foiled the usage of regular ice-melting strategies.

Because of this, drivers in Pittsfield spent the weekend sliding round on ice-choked streets, main the Metropolis Council president to obtain extra complaints than ever earlier than about a problem in his 20 years on the panel.

Two councilors stated Monday that Morales will current a postmortem on final weekend’s expertise to the Metropolis Council — and recommend steps the town would possibly take to forestall a replay.







Snow Roads 2

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A girl crosses site visitors on Columbus Avenue close to the hearth station Saturday, after the current storm to buy groceries. 




Pittsfield police reported 69 minor motorized vehicle accidents between 4:15 p.m. Friday and three:51 p.m. Sunday. Across the metropolis Tuesday, folks had been nonetheless primed to speak about their weekend of white-knuckle driving.

Betty Baumert says she is used to traversing the town’s snow-slicked roads in her four-wheel drive Jeep. However by the top of the lengthy vacation weekend, with frozen precipitation nonetheless clinging to some streets, Baumert’s nerves had been shot.

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“Three days of it, I couldn’t take it. It was actually harmful, it was,” stated Baumert of street circumstances in Pittsfield.

The worst of the dangerous driving got here late Friday, when the storm swept into the area and created what Baumert described as white-out circumstances that stymied her journey to Lenox for a vacation dinner. She stated she watched a car spin out in entrance of her. She managed to keep away from a collision herself.

Days after a surprise blizzard, Pittsfield roads remained treacherous. Skip the 'blame game,' one councilor says

A site visitors mishap on South Road stopped site visitors for greater than an hour, making a scary scenario for drivers, she stated.

Street circumstances appeared to abate for her when she reached the neighboring city, the place she seen the roads had been salted. “After I bought to Lenox I might put my guard down,” Baumert stated.

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The roads in Pittsfield had been nonetheless slippery and scary to navigate on Saturday, Christmas Eve. That day, Pittsfield police reported 36 accidents.

Baumert understands the storm was a nasty one, however believes the town ought to have deployed extra plows.

Morales says that snow fell so quick Friday that crews couldn’t sustain, particularly with roads filled with rush hour commuters. He famous that in contrast to the state, the town doesn’t pre-treat roads magnesium chloride, which lowers the melting level of water to forestall build-ups of ice. The falling snow turned packed and become ice.

Although crews started distributing a mix of sand and rock salt, the snow had hardened to the purpose the place it resisted elimination by plows.

“Plowing doesn’t do something,” Morales stated Monday. “It’s hard-packed snow on ice on prime of the street. There’s nothing you are able to do to scrape it up. What must be achieved is breaking it, and that breaks down with supplies. With these chemical compounds the easiest way to make use of it’s pretreating earlier than it types.”

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A traveler’s lament







Pam Downing speaks

Pam Downing recounts her expertise on the roads in Pittsfield on Tuesday from her retail job at Dory & Ginger on North Road.

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“The Pittsfield roads had been terrible,” stated metropolis resident Pam Downing. She traveled out of city on Saturday. By the point she was coming residence, many Pittsfield roads had been nonetheless stippled with hardened snow and slicked with ice.

“It was nonetheless fairly bumpy,” she stated, including that it was like driving on a “washer board.”

Given the power of the storm, Haley Salzarulo borrowed her boyfriend’s Ford Escape for the weekend, trusting its hefty body over her personal Subaru Impreza sedan.

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Haley Salzarulo speaks

Haley Salzarulo of Pittsfield recounts driving over the vacation weekend from her job at Phoenix Theater in Pittsfield on Tuesday. Whereas Salzarulo needed to borrow a Ford Escape to get round as a result of she wasn’t in a position to navigate the roads along with her Subaru Impreza.


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SUV however, Salzarulo stated the driving circumstances in Pittsfield had been “very dangerous,” particularly on among the facet streets on the west facet of the town the place she lives — and the place her car nearly bought caught within the snow.

A number of days have handed because the storm, however Salzarulo stated Tuesday that many Pittsfield streets nonetheless hadn’t been utterly cleared of snow.

“Even nonetheless at the moment I seen that it’s nonetheless fairly dangerous, particularly on smaller streets,” stated Salzarulo. “It’s shocking.”

Lately, Bowman, the downtown enterprise proprietor, stated he finds he’s “slightly extra forgiving” of metropolis officers whose job it’s to plan for and reply to conditions like storms.

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When requested what he considered the town’s winter street upkeep, he cited the miles of roads that have to be handled in Pittsfield, all with restricted monetary sources.

“I believe they’re doing higher than lots of people give them credit score for,” he stated.







Road surface on North Street in Pittsfield

By Tuesday, essentially the most traveled half North Road in Pittsfield was clear, nonetheless facet streets had been nonetheless snow lined.

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Massachusetts

Driver captured after wild police chase on I-190, Route 12 in Sterling, Massachusetts

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Driver captured after wild police chase on I-190, Route 12 in Sterling, Massachusetts


Cars nearly collide on highway in Massachusetts police chase

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Cars nearly collide on highway in Massachusetts police chase

14:14

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STERLING – A dramatic, high speed police chase in central Massachusetts came to a peaceful end Monday morning when the driver surrendered to officers.

As seen live via helicopter on CBS News Boston, police were pursuing an SUV on Interstate 190 south in Sterling around 11 a.m. when the car nearly collided with another vehicle, then suddenly pulled into the median, swung around into a U-turn and took off on the opposite side of the highway.

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At one point during the chase, the driver cut through the median and did a U-turn onto I-190 north.

CBS Boston


After driving in the northbound lanes for a few miles, with police keeping their distance from the SUV, the driver got off the highway at exit 14 and continued onto Route 12.

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Several minutes later, the SUV pulled over to the side of the road near Sterling’s border with West Boylston. Moments later, the car was surrounded by four police cruisers. The driver got out with his hands up, was immediately handcuffed and taken away.

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The chase ended when the driver pulled over and surrendered to police on Route 12 near the border of Sterling and West Boylston, Massaachusetts.

CBS Boston


The driver has not been identified yet and there’s no word as to why police were pursuing him or the SUV.

There have been no reports of any injuries.

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No other information is available at this point in the investigation.



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Massachusetts aims to reduce emergency shelter costs to $350 million per year

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Massachusetts aims to reduce emergency shelter costs to 0 million per year


The Healey administration is aiming to eventually limit shelter costs to $350 million per year compared to the more than $1 billion dollars spent this fiscal year.

Governor Healey announced her plan on Friday that would bring significant changes over the next 19 months.

It includes winding down the use of 56 hotels and motels across the state and cutting down the shelter stay limit from nine months to six months.

Those steps will come with increased resources for finding long-term housing.

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Healey is proposing that the rental stipend families can receive under state’s HomeBASE program increase from $15,000 per family per year to $25,000 per family per year.

“The landlord gets payments from HomeBASE. As a family’s income increases, the goal is to get their income so they’re no longer dependent on HomeBASE,” said Jeff Thielman, President and CEO of the International Institute of New England.

The state intends to slash the 7,500-family limit across shelter system to below 3,500.

“To make the Governor’s plan work, the shelter system and all of us who work in it, have to work faster than we are right now,” said Thielman.

The plans to further limit shelter stays would need the approval of lawmakers.

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If approved, families considered more capable of supporting themselves could potentially face 30-day shelter limits.

“I think moving to a six-month limit is going to be tricky,” said Thielman. “There is a shortage of available units all across the state.”

Thielman said most of the migrant families his organization is working with in the shelter system have been temporarily paroled into the country for humanitarian reasons.

He said many have applied for or have received temporary protective status.

President-elect Trump has said he plans to end those legal entry programs.

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“It’s highly unlikely that President Trump will have the ability to revoke someone’s lawful status,” said Thielman.

Trump has said that the more than one million migrants who are in the U.S. under Humanitarian Parole will be subject to deportations.

While Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, it has eight sanctuary cities.

Mayors in those communities and Governor Healey have all said that they will not target people based on their immigration status.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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Massachusetts

Will Marblehead, Beverly teacher strikes end tonight?

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Will Marblehead, Beverly teacher strikes end tonight?


Students in Gloucester, Massachusetts, will be back in class Monday, but contract negotiations continue in Beverly and Marblehead.

The deadline is imminent for teachers and their school committees to reach an agreement that will see students return to school to start the week. If they fail to finally put an end to this strike, a third party will take over talks.

Since teacher strikes are illegal in Massachusetts, unions in both of those North Shore communities are facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

An Essex Superior Court judge agreed to waive those fines Friday if an agreement could be reached by 6 p.m. Sunday. Otherwise, both districts will begin the Department of Labor’s fact-finding process. That’s the next step when a state mediator can’t help both sides come to an agreement on a contract.

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Teachers say that takes longer, and students could miss an additional four to six days of school.

The Marblehead Education Association bargaining team said Sunday evening that it is continuing to work on reaching an agreement on a new contract with the school committee, noting that the two parties have been exchanging proposals throughout the day.

The MEA said while it is committed to reaching an agreement that can reopen Marblehead Public Schools Monday, a settlement could not be reached by 6 p.m., per the court order issued Thursday.

“The MEA continues to demand that the School Committee end its pursuit of legal charges against individual educators related to the strike,” a statement read. “The MEA furthermore stresses the importance of reaching an agreement on return-to-work provisions that ensure no educators will be subject to retaliation for participating in the strike.”

In Beverly, the chair of the school committee said for two days they have had “an improved, serious and fair offer on the table” for teachers and paraprofessionals that includes “significant wage increases and paid family leave.”

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Rachael Abell said she believes that the only way to achieve a solution at this point is through face-to-face discussion between school committee leaders and Beverly Teachers Association co-presidents Julia Brotherton and Andrea Sherman.

Abell later said BTA leadership had accepted their offer at 5 p.m. to meet in person to try to break the impasse and reach an agreement to end the strike, adding that she was encouraged by this step and that the two sides are exchanging new ideas and are in active discussions.

“As a show of further good faith,” the school committee agreed to continue negotiations and wait a bit longer to call school for Monday.

“If we do not have a tentative agreement soon, we will unfortunately be forced to call school for tomorrow and will decide then whether to continue with mediation,” Abell said. “If significant progress is not made soon, the School Committee intends to abide by the court order, end mediation and begin the state fact-finding process immediately.”

In a brief update around 7:30 p.m., Brotherton and Sherman, co-presidents of the BTA, said they had just sent some counterproposals over to management.

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“We’re really hoping that those counterproposals will get the job done and that we can open schools tomorrow and be back at work with our students,” Brotherton said.

She noted that the proposal that the BTA has on the table right now costs $1 million less than the proposal that management has given them, but a sticking point appears to be that “management doesn’t seem to want to pay paraprofessionals a living wage and we are committed to that.”

“We can be here all night and we’d like to be,” Sherman said of ongoing bargaining. “Our number one goal is to be back in school as soon as possible, so we will stay until the deal is done if they will stay.”

Students in Gloucester will be back in school Monday after educators were on strike for two weeks; strikes continue in Beverly and Marblehead.

The strikes have kept thousands of students across the three communities north of Boston at home and will force schools to hold classes during vacations and weekends to meet the required 180 days of classroom learning required by state law — a situation that any snow days could make worse.

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Gov. Maura Healey Saturday called it “unacceptable” that students have missed over two weeks of school.

“It’s hurting our young people, parents and families above all else. Students need to be back in school on Monday,” the governor said. “I have spoken to all parties, and I believe they are at a place where they should be able to reach an agreement this weekend, and they should do so. If they don’t reach that agreement, they should ensure that students can return to the classroom on Monday while these negotiations continue.”

Healey reiterated that the parties must continue to negotiate throughout the weekend, saying that she and the lieutenant governor have been and will continue to request updates.

“Our young people need to be back in school,” she said.

An Essex County Superior Court judge said there would be no fines Friday if teachers end their strikes by Sunday evening.

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Both sides in both towns have continuously pointed fingers at one another, while families and students are caught in the middle. Parents organized a candlelight vigil in support of teachers in Beverly Sunday evening.

Kimberley Coelho, a member of the Beverly School Committee, spoke out on social media Saturday saying some of her own colleagues seem more focused on breaking the teachers spirits than finding common ground.

In her Facebook post, Coelho called the process “disgusting,” saying in part, “What is abundantly clear is some do not want to settle a contract. Instead, feel more concerned about breaking the union’s spirits and dividing our community. I feel the legal advice of our counsel is wrong and only delays reopening schools.”

We have not yet heard of any deal being reached in either town. We are expecting to hear from officials Sunday night.

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