Guest Speakers 
Inviting guest speakers to present in the Village Hall is a vital component of all PBI's renewal programs and activities. The presentations help facilitate in-depth community conversations on specific topics relevant to revitalization projects intended or underway, provide a platform for publicly elected officials to engage in community renewal perspectives and initiatives, and help towards increasing participation on renewal projects teams and committees.
Upcoming Guest Speaker Events:
2023
Previous guest speaker events:
2020
2018
Community Land Trusts: Ensuring Affordble Housing
Susan Witt is the Executive Director of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, which she co-founded with Robert Swann in 1980. She has led the development of the Schumacher Center's highly regarded publications, library, seminars, and other educational programs, which established the Center as a pioneering voice for a new economics shaped by social and ecological principles. Deeply engaged with the history and theory of a new economics and its implications for the transformation of our relationship to land, labor, and capital, she has simultaneously worked to turn theory into practice in her home region of the Berkshires.
Susan Witt speaks regularly on the topic of citizen responsibility for shaping local economies, and counts Jane Jacobs as a valued mentor and important influence on her thinking. Her work has been described in various media venues.
Selection of Previous Guest Speakers:
Jeffrey Anzevino is the Land Use Advocacy Director of Scenic Hudson. Today with over 25,000 ardent supporters, Scenic Hudson is the largest environmental group focused on the Hudson River Valley.
Their team of experts combines land acquisition, support for agriculture, citizen-based advocacy and sophisticated planning tools to create environmentally healthy communities, champion smart economic growth, open up riverfronts to the public and preserve the valley's inspiring beauty and natural resources.
This Guest Speaker presentation was made possible by the NYS Department of State Office of Planning and Development as a part of Philmont's BOA Nomination Step II planning grant.
Norman Mintz and Phil Merick of Projects For Public Spaces ran a Saturday morning workshop in the Village Hall on Placemaking and the Power of 10 - Streets as Places
Placemaking is based on a simple principle: if you plan cities for cars and traffic, you will get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you will get people and places. More traffic and greater road capacity are not the inevitable results of growth. They are products of very deliberate choices made to shape our communities to accommodate the private automobile. We have the ability to make different choices — starting with the decision to design our streets as comfortable and safe places for everyone — for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as drivers.
Made possible by community member matching contributions and PBI's Main Street Program.
Matthew Kierstead of Milestone Heritage Consulting led a community workshop focused on the use of Historic Tax Credits to restore and preserve Philmont's cultural heritage of post-industrial mills. The workshop included a presentation explaining the historic watercourse originating at Summit Lake Dam consisting of a complex network of canals and holding ponds constructed in the mid-1800's as a hydropower system supplying energy to seven previous textile mills.
Milestone Heritage Consulting provides professional Cultural Resource Management and Public History services focused on historical engineering, industrial and transportation sites and structures for clients including government agencies, private developers and the heritage tourism industry.
This Guest Speaker presentation was made possible by the NYS Department of State Office of Planning and Development as a part of Philmont's BOA Nomination Step II planning grant.
Julia Sedlock and Mark Rowntree of Cosmo Design Factory conducted a series of summer workshops taking a close look at Philmont's housing stock, public parks, and neighborhood zoning. Workshops aimed at bringing residents together to explore the inter-related issues of affordable housing, economic development and the vitality of the village renewal opportunities.
These Guest Speaker presentations were made possible by funds received from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation HousingUs Initiative matched with funds received from the NYS Department of State Office of Planning and Development as a part of Philmont's BOA Nomination Step II planning grant.
