NORTH ADAMS — The board that governs the North Adams Housing Authority may soon be one seat closer to full strength.
With three of the five seats on the authority’s Board of Commissioners currently filled, Mayor Jennifer Macksey’s choice of Meredith Starr, which must be approved by City Council, could bring the board to 80 percent capacity.
North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey plans to appoint Northern Berkshire Community Coalition Youth Prevention Coordinator Meredith Starr to a long vacant Housing Authority Board of Commissioners seat.
For more than a year, the Mayor’s seat has sat empty, as has the Governor’s. A spokesperson for the Governor said earlier this month that Gov. Maura Healey’s administration is working to fill the seat.
Mayor Jennifer Macksey said Wednesday she intends to appoint Starr, who is the youth prevention coordinator for the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition. The City Council is expected to vote on Starr’s appointment at Tuesday’s meeting.
“The Mayor sees me as being a voice for people who are living in the high rise and some of the other developments, and making sure their needs are being met, and they’re being heard,” Starr said. “That’s going to be my primary role, making sure people feel comfortable to come to us with concerns and needs they think need to be addressed.”
Macksey met Starr through Starr’s husband, a North Adams firefighter, after the two moved to North Adams about two years ago.
“A lot of the work she does coincides with some of the needs of our elderly population,” Macksey said. “She is a very smart, articulate woman with a caring and compassionate personality. I thought that was good for the Housing Authority, especially when listening to and talking with tenants.”
Starr said a lot of her work concerns substance use prevention, and focuses not only on young people but families as well.
“It’s all public health-related, and what ties into that is safe housing,” Starr said. “That’s important in any sort of public health, especially substance use prevention — making sure these families have a safe house to live in is the base, all the other needs can be met when you start from there.”
Macksey said the reason for the long vacancy is would-be candidates for the board were uneasy being under a microscope.
“We have good people in this community who want to serve, but they don’t want to go to a meeting, try and help, and get criticized on Facebook or social media,” Macksey said.
“It’s hard to find people who want to serve the community who are a good fit for the mission of the board,” Macksey added. “What’s taken so long has really been finding the right person.”
In recent months, an informal group of housing authority tenants and people close to them have pushed for the city and the Governor to fill the vacancies. Asked whether any locals have lobbied for any candidate in particular, the Governor’s office declined to comment.
The North Adams Housing Authority consists of four properties and more than 300 units.
Macksey said one of the positives of a more robust board is that it’s easier to achieve a quorum and hold meetings. Multiple meetings in recent months have been canceled.
“We’ve been working closely with the Housing Authority to try and improve the atmosphere there,” Macksey said. “We’ve had several drug busts there, maybe two, but that’s nothing to do with the board.”
Starr said she’s aware of safety concerns at the high rise.
“That’s a problem,” she said, “if people don’t feel safe where they live. That’s something we need to address immediately.”