Richard J. Alcombright*
Candidate For City Council - North Adams NORTH ADAMS - Richard Alcombright likes keeping his eye on the numbers.
The McCann Technical School graduate looks forward to budget season, when he can crunch numbers for the two boards he serves on - the City Council and McCann School Committee.
Alcombright, 53, is vice president of retail banking at Hoosac Bank on Main Street, where he's worked for 35 years. He graduated from the former St. Joseph's College in Bennington, Vt.
"I like to think the thing I bring to the council is fiscal oversight," said Alcombright, who's running for his fourth term. "What's challenging is the balancing act."
That's because the state is sending less and the city's fixed costs are rising, he said. He also wants to make sure the school system is properly funded.
"The mayor has been aggressive in not filling positions to keep taxes low. There probably needs to be a real addressing of that," he said.
"Maybe things aren't done as efficently with a reduced staff, maybe things are," he said, adding that residents had come to him with concerns about public safety department's ability to respond. On the other hand, the Fire Department did a great job on back-to-back fires not long ago, he said.
"I think we need to take a step back and look at that. Typically what
that means is higher taxes," Alcombright said, so it has to be carefully reviewed.
He's supportive of the city's move to buy the Notre Dame property and Clark Biscuit building to facilitate development but is leery of it owning too much property. "If we have staffing issues, we don't want property maintenance issues to complicate at that.
"But I do think that when we're taking these types of properties, it's a good move. We don't want to buy too many churches. In this case, I think it was a good gamble," he said.
Having worked so long on Main Street, he remembers when it was "a mall at Christmas." But now the downtown has a couple of things going against it - fewer people and a lack of services in terms of stores and professional offices. "No real impetus for people to come to the downtown," said Alcombright, saying the city needs to foster people moving into the downtown.
While the Notre Dame and Clark Biscuit projects, along with current condominium offerings on Main Street, may take care of housing, the city should look into developing physical links between Massachusetts Museum of Conteporary Art and Main Street, he said.
"Having a greenway or heritage walk, maybe marking with maple leaves. We need to find ways to push people into downtown," said Alcombright, adding that most of Main Street's customers work in the downtown.
"We don't need signage on Main Street - we need signage outside of Main Street," he continued. "People who live here know where Main Street is, they know what's on Main Street - if you're coming in on Route 8 or Route 2, you have no clue there's a downtown."
But advertising takes resources. He said a downtown group had tried to do advertising campaigns through cable access but the effort petered out. "It's not an easy fix, there's no one right solution," he said.
He thinks schools are "the heart and soul of city," and lauded the city's teachers and educators for the improvements in scores over recent years. Adequate yearly progress numbers determined by the state are up and more and more of high school juniors are passing the state MCAS tests on the first try.
"There are so many good things that are happening in our school system,
we need to keep that momentum going," said Alcombright.
If re-elected, he'd like to tackle issues with substandard housing created by "those few slumlords" in the city. He noted one neighborhood on Hall Street had beautifully kept up homes - right next to an rental eyesore.
"I'd like to see a commission kind of formed that would talk to
prospective landlords prior to a sale, before they become a problem, and
layout certain things that need to be done with the property they're
buying," he said. "We have to create a commitment to the community - not to the building they're buying - but to the community."
He doesn't want to make buying investment property so onerous that it shuts down the market, but he wants prospective landlords know the city is serious about code enforcement and maintenance. "The bad ones maybe won't want to bother but good ones will."
Alcombright doesn't want to see strip malls on Curran Highway but cheers "good quality big box stuff" like that proposed for the North Adams Plaza. "It will attract people to come here and help keep the momentum going with private development."
While the art community has become an important part of the city, "we can't be dependent on one segment. We need to be more regional in our thinking." Alcombright sees that as thinking along the lines "if it's good for North Berkshire it's good for North Adams."
He said the city has a lot to offer with its higher education piece, health care facilities and growing technical economic base. "There are a lot of jobs for the unskilled but we need jobs for the skilled ... We need to train people to do those jobs."
The city native and his wife live on Williams Street; they have four children.
Alcombright was appointed to the council in 2000 to fill the seat left by his late father, Daniel Alcombright. He said what he brings to the council is genetic - the common sense his dad bequeathed him.
"I'm here, I've always been here and I won't let you down," he said. |
