Letter: Breen Has Right Experience for North Adams Council

To the Editor:

Well, I just voted, and I gave my first vote for City Council to Pete Breen. Why, you ask?

No other new candidate has the experience and devotion and has been as generous with their time. Over the past 40 years, Pete has served on many boards and commissions. He has worked for a variety of employers including MCLA, where Pete was a facilitator and instructor for technology and curriculum development and assistant registrar. Pete took that experience over into the town of Adams, where he implemented the town's entire computer system, serving as the town's technology administrator. Pete then went farther south, where he was a member of the adjunct faculty at BCC for four years.

Shifting gears into education, Pete taught computer science at Hoosac Valley for 12 years, while also serving in the district office and as the pupil transportation officer.

David Willette
North Adams, Mass.

Eagle Street Shop Peddles in the Unique and the Utilitarian

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:45AM / Tuesday, May 12, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Kitchenware, historic prints, spiritual accessories, local makers, books, artwork and a range of tchochtkes from around the world.

 

Jared Shockcor's little shop on Eagle Street offers new and thrifted wares from the utilitarian to the unique. 

 

The software engineer's turned the former Hearts Pace Tea Lounge into Mastic, fulfilling a dream of doing something different.

 

"I've always liked retail, particularly like finding weird and unusual things. So last year I became gainfully unemployed and so I decided to try it," he said.

 

He chose to name his shop Mastic after tree resin, an old form of chewing gum. 

 

"It's a tree resin. It's used in cooking. It's a flavoring ingredient, and a lot of Greek cooking, or some Greek cooking particularly, and it's also used in esoterica as an incense. So it seems like a kind of, it was kind of crossing the things that I do," Shockcor said.

 

He felt the name fit because it bridges the two worlds he loves and stocks in the shop: kitchen items and unique items, so it reflects the blend of themes in his store.