Pittsfield Receiving $500K State Grant for Pontoosuc Lake Park Redesign

PITTSFIELD, Mass. —The state has fully funded a grant request for the revisioning of Pontoosuc Lake Park, a well-loved gem for sightseeing and recreation.  

The $500,000 boost is being matched by city funds, totaling $1 million, and construction is expected to begin next summer.

"I am happy to report here this evening publicly that the grant application that we submitted this summer to the Executive Office of Energy Environmental Affairs to the park grant program was funded fully at the $500,000 level. So that means we now have a project to completely redesign Pontoosuc Lake Park," Park, Open Space, and Natural Resource Program Manager James McGrath said to Parks Commission on Tuesday.

"What that means is that we will be entering into a contract with the commonwealth shortly to have the grant project. There's $500,000 that they've offered the project, the City Council at their capital budget hearing for FY24 authorized a $500,000 match to this grant so there's now a million dollars that we have to execute a project at Pontoosuc Lake year one, which we're in right now which goes through June 30 of 2024, is the design year."

The project agreement, which is required as part of the grant, was endorsed by the commission.

The city completed a master plan for the park in 2020 and in 2021, began a public engagement process to hear what residents value about the park. The location’s "iconic" white pine trees were highlighted as a positive attribute and accessibility as an area that could be improved.

Last year, plans for the park were released for the public feedback.

Berkshire Design Group has been hired to undertake a survey and a complete design of the park and McGrath said there will be an abundance of involvement from the commission, neighborhood, and other stakeholders.

The invasive species was detected in Laurel Lake and its outflow in the Housatonic River in Lee/Lenox in 2009. Since then, the city has actively worked with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to proactively monitor and bring awareness to proper boating care to help prevent the spread of zebra mussels from one waterbody to another.

He said the city is working to figure out what this all means.

Community Preservation Act funds were allocated last year for a boat wash station at the lake to prevent the invasion by the species. This discovery could lead the project to be scrapped and funds put into a different type of station at another location, though the city has to engage in conversations with the state to fully assess the situation.

The presence of zebra mussel eDNA reverses the scenario from protection to containment.

"We will do everything we can to make certain that Onota Lake is not the place where other lakes are finding their infestation is coming from," McGrath said.

"We will do everything we can to make certain that Onota Lake is open for recreation but that those that are using the lake aren't going to cross-contaminate another water body. That's the last thing we need to happen."

Lenox Class of 2024 'a Really Good Bunch of Kids'

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
08:43PM / Sunday, June 09, 2024

Valedictorian Genevieve Collins tells her classmates that they have had a bountiful harvest in what they had experienced at Lenox Memorial. See more photos here. 

LENOX, Mass. — The Lenox Memorial High School class of 2024 will be remembered as "a really good bunch of kids."

 

Superintendent William Collins said they earned the label early on — it's followed them from kindergarten through high school. 

 

"There was something special about the chemistry and history of individuals comprising the class of 2024," he told the family and friends in the Shed at Tanglewood for graduation ceremonies. I need not remind you that this is a class that began high school during the pandemic, a fate undeserved by anyone. It is a testament to their resiliency. They not only returned to in-person instruction but they made up the lost time. They've done a lot."

 

Collins called the 61 graduates on the Tanglewood stage "doers, achievers and accomplishers, highly intelligent and exceedingly kind."

 

He noted that the pursuit of happiness was held as equal to life and liberty in the Declaration of Independence. And rarely is the shortest line between two points the fastest road to happiness. A study on common factors of happiness, he said, found that rather than material wealth, "having a happy, connected friends for a wide social network, we are more likely to bring about enduring happiness."

 

"Circuitous routes are the best routes, serendipity by its very nature lives where we don't expect a pleasant surprises lie waiting unseen and unforeseen around the next bend on paths that we've never expected or intended to do," he said. 

 

Don't be afraid to ask for help, Collins said, make friends, or a friend. Know that Lenox Memorial is a better place because of the class, he said, "we know that you will carry a piece of us with you whether you stay in Lenox or travel halfway around the globe."