The Berkshire Edge LLC is a locally owned, regional publication. Our goal is to provide – regularly and in depth – content that truly reflects the life, interests and aspirations of this unusually rich and vibrant community.
Guided by respected journalistic standards, the principle of fairness, the quest for truth, a commitment to social, economic and environmental justice, and an abiding admiration for the independent spirit of the Berkshires, The Berkshire Edge offers in-depth local news reports and features, perspectives on the arts, wide-ranging commentary, and a comprehensive calendar of events – all written, illustrated, and, in some cases performed, with wit, intelligence, insight and humor.
This week we talk about:
- Industrial weed factory
https://theberkshireedge.com/industrial-weed-facility-faces-headwinds-at-selectmens-hearing/
A big industrial sized cannabis production complex is before the voters in New Marlborough, Mass. At a public hearing Monday on whether to grant a special permit for the proposed project, 200 residents jammed town hall to protest.
- Now you see it now you don’t
https://theberkshireedge.com/now-you-see-it-now-you-dont/
The one–story former Laramee Cleaners building on Bridge Street was demolished Tuesday to make way for the $14.5 million Powerhouse Square development that will house a new 14,500 square foot Berkshire Coop Market, plus office, retail spaces, and 22 condominiums.
- Midwives to back in business
Community Health Programs and Fairview Hospital have partnered to establish a program to return midwives to the OB-GYN services offered by CHP…
- Cable monopoly draws criticism
https://theberkshireedge.com/cable-problems-continue-as-charterspectrum-monopoly-rips-off-customers/
The chair of the Five Town Cable Advisory Committee, Alice Miller, has charged that Charter / Spectrum is ripping off its customers by providing inferior service for higher fees.
- On the lighter side, toll booths, new and old
https://theberkshireedge.com/armchair-travel-along-old-toll-roads/
Our Berkshire historian Bernard Drew reminds us of the legacy of tollbooths, now that they are disappearing from the Mass Pike, being replaced by surveillance gantries. In the past, tollbooths were common, and their sites are still visible today – after 200 or so years.
- Young people telling truth to power
https://theberkshireedge.com/truth-be-told-again/
A columnist, documentary filmmaker Bobby Houston, reminds us that the ongoing outrage of youth against the NRA and that organization’s influence on lawmakers, that allows assault weapons to come into the hands of disturbed and angry individuals, resulting in massacres at U.S. schools, is not the first time youth have campaigned against injustice. He points to the 1963 civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that prompted police violence against young activists. And he suggests – perhaps naively — that just as those demonstrations led to the integration of schools and public services, so, too, these marches and walkouts against gun violence may result in restrictions on the availability of assault weapons.
- Long awaited innovation center to take shape in Pittsfield
https://theberkshireedge.com/long-awaited-berkshire-innovation-center-to-break-ground-this-summer/
The $13.8 million Berkshire Innovation Center will break ground this summer at the William Stanley Business Park in Pittsfield, where young entrepreneurs will be trained and nurtured, through student internships, and where technology manufacturers will have access to research and state-of-the-art equipment.
- New president at Williams College
And finally, we should mention that Williams College has named a new president, its 18th: Maud Mandel, a professor of history and Judaic studies at Brown University.