PITTSFIELD — Governor-elect Maura Healey made her way to Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre on Thursday in a show of dedication to Berkshire County roughly 48 hours after her historic success at the polls Tuesday.
Democrat Healey, who will become the first women and openly LGBTQ person elected to the governor’s office of the Commonwealth, won the race along with Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll — resoundingly defeating Republicans Geoff Diehl and Leah Allen.
The state attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor stopped in North Adams and Pittsfield Thursday to talk about it.
Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, won 70 percent of the more than 48,000 votes cast in Berkshire County. She said it was no coincidence that one of her first appearances following the election was in Pittsfield.
“This is very intentional because I wanted to make clear to people that we meant what we said when we said we were going to be a team and an administration that is here in the Berkshires, that is here in Western Mass.,” Healey said.
Healey spent a portion of the afternoon meeting with several of the county’s elected officials — many of them fresh from their own successful election bids. Mayor Linda Tyer, state Senator-elect Paul Mark, Representatives Tricia Farley-Bouvier, Smitty Pignatelli and John Barrett gathered for what Healey called a “candid and private discussion.”
“It’s important that we talk,” Healey said of the relationships she’s forging with Berkshire leaders. “We’re only going to have the success that we want to have and that the people in Berkshire County deserve if we are in constant dialogue.”
Governor Elect Maura Healey shares a moment with Kate Maguire at the Colonial Theatre.
Healey said she and the Berkshire delegation discussed the creation of housing incentives that will make existing housing stock more affordable, “investments in public safety facilities” and incentivizing greater economic development in the region.
“Here we are in Pittsfield, a place of such rich history when it comes to innovation and manufacturing and technology through centuries really,” Healey said. “But the question is how can we as a state work with partners — including the federal delegation and private industry — in incentivizing and bringing about the right kind of economic development to this region.”
Healey said her cross-Commonwealth trip was an attempt to give voters across the state proof of the dedication she intends to bring to creating regional equity in her administration.
The governor-elect said her administration intends to have “a strong presence around the state especially in the places that for far too long have not ‘felt the love’ so to speak in terms of money and resources.”
Over the next several months Healey said that she’ll be looking to the Berkshire delegation to help her identify “great talent from Berkshire County” to serve in state agencies, boards, commissions and cabinets.
“People have to understand a region and its sensibility and its needs,” Healey said. “The only way we're gonna get there and be successful as an administration, is if we have an administration and boards, agencies and commissions appointments that reflect that.”