TheOnlineBeacon.com
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Volume 88 • Issue 1
Mohawk Theater Proposal Delayed
At urging of Barrett, councilors, RFP debate referred to committee BY JAKE VITALI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
PHOTO BY JAKE VITALI
State Representative John Barrett III came to the city council meeting on Tuesday night to express that he would like to see the council refer the mayor’s proposal to issue a Request for Proposals on the Mohawk Theater to committee.
Back to the Table
Faculty union enters latest round of contract negotiations BY JAKE VITALI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Two months into 2019, faculty and librarians represented through Massachusetts State College Association (MSCA) remain without a funded Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). On Feb. 20, MSCA’s board of directors, which is formed by chapter presidents and directors, met with the Council of Presidents (COP), a committee consisting of the nine state college system presidents, to begin bargaining. The core of the issue at play is course equivalencies, which Graziana Ramsden, professor of modern languages and MCLA MSCA chapter president, describes as payment for high impact practices. “One of the things that we asked at bargaining last year was for colleagues who teach labs, or those ‘high impact practices’ that we call, for example, independent study, practica for education, radio practicum, to be paid on a one-to-one scale,” Ramsden said. According to Section XII of the current CBA, these modes of instruction, which are one credit hour in theory, are not paid as such and vary depending on the practice. Faculty members currently receive
0.17 credit hours for every one student in Cooperative Education, one credit hour for up to three students in fieldwork supervision and internships, 0.25 credit hours for one student in Independent and Directed Study, one credit hour for up to two students under Student Teaching Supervision, 0.5 credit hours for one student in Honors Thesis Supervision, and one credit for one student in Graduate Thesis Supervision. “We want faculty to be paid fairly for the work that we do,” Ramsden said, highlighting that doing so provides an incentive for faculty members to take on the additional workload. The return to bargaining was first requested by the COP after the state comptroller’s office estimated that the contract was approximately $7.5 million above MSCA’s and COP’s estimations. The Framingham State University student newspaper, The Gatepost, reported earlier this month that the Board of Higher Education (BHE) was only authorized a 2 percent labor increase per contract. Bargainers interpreted this as a 2 percent salary increase, which was granted in the new CBA. Due to the project cost of the contract, the state’s refusal to fund it, and what
CONTRACT, Page 4
North Adams City Council voted 6-3 Tuesday to refer the mayor’s request to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Mohawk Theater on Main Street to the Community Development committee. State Rep. John Barrett III spoke during the Hearing of Visitors section at the beginning of the meeting on the vote to grant Mayor Tom Bernard permission to move forward with the RFP. Barrett urged the council to send the decision to Community Development before making a final decision, pointing to work that was done on the theater during his administration. “There was a plan in place, they say there’s no plans,” Barrett said. “The restoration of the marquee happened, I believe, the same weekend we opened Mass MoCA to the city. We proved to the people of the city that we were building our future, not our past.”
Barrett commented on the work done at Western Gateway Heritage State Park while he was in office, and pointed out that he continued with the work started during Richard Lamb’s administration. “It’s like me saying that we’ll stop the building of the Heritage Park when I came into office because the Lamb administration started it; that didn’t happen, we built upon it and we learned from it,” Barrett said. “I want to see that marquee lit up again,” said Barrett, who was mayor during the sign’s first restoration project. While Barrett laid out a hopeful vision of the theater, Building Inspector William Meranti presented a different vision. “In general, the building has been, for lack of a better term, mothballed,” Meranti said. Meranti pointed toward a new roof that was put over the marquee last year because of rain making its way
MOHAWK, Page 4
Winds Reach 70 mph
PHOTO BY KENNY OLCHOWSKI
Students held onto their hats and clenched tight to loose belongings Monday as strong wind gusts swept through campus and northern Berkshire County. The strong winds approached the hurricane status of 74 mph and brought down powerlines, trees, billboards and even people. In addition, there were multiple power outages reported throughout the county, prompting school closures. See story, page 4.