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.

Colegrove Summer Program Capped With North Adams Recreation

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
06:22AM / Saturday, August 01, 2026

Mayor Jennnifer Macksey speaks with Drury intern Cypress Smith and artist Robert Fitzgerald at the summer program at Colegrove Park Elementary School. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — There were squeals of laughter as children did their best to fly planes by some of the city's most iconic structures. 

 

The planes were paper, the buildings cardboard and Main Street was a hallway at Colegrove Park Elementary School, but the setup represented nearly two weeks of creative research and design by the pupils in the public schools' 21st Century Summer Program. 

 

Local artist Robert Fitzgerald has been doing for summer camp five years, working with Grades 3 through 6.

 

"This has been an incredible summer," he said Thursday as children showed off their masterpieces to Mayor Jennifer Macksey. 

 

"The idea really grew out of a project we did last year, which was ... [Grade 4 teacher] Emma Marino had an airplane competition, and so the students we had been working with cardboard in the art room. So we built a city to surround the runway. 

 

"This year, when I asked her if she was going to do it, I said, 'Let's build North Adams.'"

 

He asked the students what was important and unique in North Adams, laughing that, of course, a lot of them went to fast food places.