Though it’s received nowhere as much attention as the four-way primary battle for the state Senate seat formerly held by Stan Rosenberg, a choice awaits Democratic voters in the Berkshire-based Senate district that covers part of Franklin County.
Voters in the Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden District face a choice between first-term incumbent Adam G. Hinds of Pittsfield and Thomas P. Wickham of Lee.
There is no Republican candidate, so the Sept. 4 primary will decide the outcome in the 52-community district that includes nine Franklin County towns: Ashfield, Buckland, Charlemont, Conway, Hawley, Heath, Monroe, Rowe and Shelburne.
Hinds, 51, is a Buckland native and Mohawk Trail Regional High School graduate who worked as a negotiator for the United Nations for nearly a decade before becoming executive director of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and founding director of Pittsfield Community Connection.
His first Senate term was marked by adoption of the Rural Sparsity Aid bill as a $1.5 million budget line item to recognize the additional costs faced by small, rural districts, as well inclusion in the state’s environmental bond of $800,000 to map mountain biking trails in the four western counties.
“We’ve made serious progress putting together an agenda for Western Mass,” said Hinds. “I want to be part of it, making sure that every town has internet and its transportation needs are met, making sure that rural schools are taken care of, making sure we have jobs so people stay in the area. Given that list, the big one we’re setting ourselves up for is a rural jobs component and how do we attract outside investment in our area? That’s got to become a real priority.”
In the Senate, he’s co-chaired the Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development Committee and was vice Senate chair of the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee, while also serving on the Ways and Means, Intergovernmental Affairs, Higher Education and Housing committees, along with those on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery, on Civic Engagement and on Municipalities and Regional Government.
“The whole objective for the last year has been based on addressing the concerning trends we have in the county — our population decline and the impact it has on municipal budgets and education budgets, and the fact that we often have health outcomes below the rest of the state, educational attainment below the rest of the state,” Hinds said in announcing his re-election bid last spring. “We’ve been very deliberate in saying, what do we need to do to turn that corner? Because there is a lot of promise here, and we are well located, and we have a lot that is going right. But on those trends, we have to do something.”
Hinds received Art/Learning’s 2018 Legislative Leadership Award in June.
Wickham, 58, is a carpenter with his own business, and has been a Lee selectman for five years. A third-generation Lee resident who attended Lee High School, he was on the Lee Planning Board for 10 years and eight years on the Lee Energy Committee, while also serving for nine years as a delegate and alternative on the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, involved in its regional issues and regional development panels.
“Combined, my years of service to our area has given me a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing our community as we look towards the future,” said Wickham.
After switching to run as a selectman and planning board as an independent and then as a Republican, Wickham said he switched back to being a Democrat about three years ago.
“When I get curious, I look at everything,” he said. “I try to come up with the best of all of them. We all need to work together to get this done.”
He added, “I care about people, and the middle class and what’s left of the middle class. I’ve always really been in public service, and I think I could do some good.”
He says Hinds has done “an adequate job” in his first elected position, and while calling the incumbent “a progressive,” said, “That’s my only real difference with Adam Hinds. I consider myself a moderate and realist. I’d want to make sure there’s funding for things we want to do and not keep raising taxes on us.”
Wickham, who was first spurred to run for his town Planning Board 11 years ago when he saw his property tax bill rise, says he’d like to serve on the “energy committee” – the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy.
“I think Ben Downing (Hinds’s predecessor) was a great senator, and there was no way I would have beat him. I think I have a chance against Adam Hinds by running on my experience, being involved in town government for the last 11 years …. I look forward to the challenge.”
Among his ideas are instituting an “empty chair program” that allows qualifying students to attend community colleges to fill vacancies, as well as a relaxation of sprinkler control requirements to enable reuse of portions of vacant buildings.