Western Mass. to Boston: Support the Quabbin communities you’ve relied on for generations
January 16, 2026
John L. Micek, MassLIVE
For Jane Peirce, the cataclysmic flooding and massive displacement of thousands of people that turned the Swift River Valley into the Quabbin Reservoir isn’t just a page torn from the history books.
It’s her family’s story, told and retold over the decades, one that is a source of both nostalgia and ongoing pain.
And helping to preserve the Quabbin watershed, which is the source of clean drinking water for millions of people in eastern Massachusetts, is also a part of her life’s work.
“My dad left the town of Prescott with his family and their whole community in 1938,” Peirce told MassLive, referring to one of the four towns that were demolished to make way for the reservoir in the 1930s.
“It was a big deal for people who had to leave the Valley. They left their homes and their families and their communities and everything,” Peirce, a former state Department of Environmental Protection employee who now serves as a member of Orange’s select board, continued.
“And it’s not an uncommon experience out here to find someone like me, who can say, ‘Oh, yeah, my whole family came from there too,” she said.
Now, after 88 years of seeing their growth and development constrained because of the 120,000-acre watershed, and facing a water crisis of their own, the descendants of the people who gave everything so that Boston could have clean water are asking their neighbors to the east to give back.
Earlier this month, local officials from across a dozen Western Massachusetts communities penned an extraordinary open letter, pleading for help.
Across three pages, they outlined the history of the region, its contributions to the growth of the eastern half of the state and the very particular economic and environmental challenges they face.
“The cruel irony is inescapable: Our people cannot drink the Quabbin water that we protect. Private wells throughout our region are dry or are tainted with PFAS, leaving our residents without reliable access to clean water,” the local leaders wrote. “Meanwhile, we are often unable to fully fund our schools, police or fire departments, or maintain our roads, bridges and public buildings.”
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which manages the reservoir on behalf of the state, said it understood the concerns that local officials were raising.
The agency pays what’s known as a “payment in lieu of taxes” for property around the reservoir that’s come off the tax rolls in the affected communities. That payment is based on the highest tax rate in that community.
That means, for instance, that if the commercial property tax rate is higher, then it pays at that level. The agency said it has built in a hold harmless clause, guaranteeing that its payments will never decrease.
The locals say the money isn’t enough to cover what they’ve lost.
The back story
The 412-billion-gallon reservoir, straddling parts of Central and Western Massachusetts, spans 39 square miles. It boasts 181 miles of scenic shoreline that teems with wildlife, providing water to some 2.7 million people in Greater Boston and to four towns in Western Massachusetts.
It takes its name from a Nipmuc word meaning “meeting of the waters,” which is used to describe the Swift River Valley, according to a NASA history of the vanished towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott.
All told, more than 1,100 structures — including 650 homes — were dismantled and 7,600 graves were exhumed to make way for the reservoir.
Workers also tore up 31 miles of north-south railway tracks, The Rabbit Run, which made daily stops on its route between Athol and Springfield.
At street level
Bob Agoglia, the chairperson of Pelham’s select board, lives with the watershed — and its local impact every day.
“One of the things that a town like us is affected by — we have a good amount of land, (there are) many acres that cannot be developed. Our town can’t grow,” he told MassLive.
“Our town in particular is hampered by the lack of developable land within our borders,” he continued. “All kinds of water conditions — wetlands, streams (and) grades, very little developable land. If we have one new house go up every two years, that is a lot.
The letter from the local officials asks eastern Massachusetts residents to contact their state lawmakers to ask them to back companion state House and Senate proposals that would authorize a small surcharge on local water bills to help support the Quabbin communities.
The Senate’s version of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Joanne M. Comerford, D-Hampshire/Franklin/Worcester, cleared the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources last August.
It’s now before the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, which is typically a bill’s last stop before it’s sent to the Senate floor for a vote.
Comerford met with top committee staff this week to reinforce the fact that the bill remains a priority for her during the Legislature’s current two-year session.
A spokesperson for the committee told MassLive that it is “actively reviewing” the legislation.
The Northampton Democrat, meanwhile, said she was “so deeply inspired by towns organizing themselves to reach their counterparts in Boston.”
“I wish you could have been at some of their meetings. Their appeal is so heartfelt. It is so genuine. They believe that if people understood the consequences of taking four towns and the inequities they face, they would pay more to have water untainted with PFAS and better education,” Comerford continued. “The higher needs are endless when you start to talk to residents and the people who have been stewarding the watershed restrictions for their communities.”
If it eventually wins approval from the state House, which, like the Senate, is controlled by Democrats, the bill will have to get a signature from Gov. Maura Healey.
The MRWA “greatly values the partnership of communities and residents across our watersheds, and appreciates their advocacy,” the agency said in a statement to MassLive. “This collaborative partnership has helped to create and protect the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs – some of Massachusetts most important natural resources.”
Comerford remains optimistic that the bill eventually will be signed into law.
“I really do think this is one of the harms that has been done to Western Mass that must be healed. It must be addressed,” she said. “Otherwise, we will continue to feel that we have this extractive relationship with Boston — we need reciprocity and fair recompense.”
For Peirce, whose family history spans the history of the Quabbin, a rebalancing of the scales is long overdue.
“It’s the equity of it. If people in the east would acknowledge that it’s okay for their water bill to go up by a few cents per, you know, 100 gallons or 100 cubic feet, or whatever their rate is, that money would go back to the communities that are providing the water to them,” she said.
New legislation ensures fair funding for rural school districts
February 5, 2026
Amanda Martin-Ryan and Mark Gardyna, Western Mass News
State Senator Jo Comerford successfully pushed new legislation, ensuring fair funding for rural and under-resourced school districts. The senator’s amendment is for ‘An Act Relative to Teacher Preparation and Student Literacy’ which was passed a week ago.
It sets new statewide literacy standards along with providing professional development and funding for schools. Having garnered bi-partisan support during her speech Thursday, Comerford’s amendment targets new initiatives in the bill, so they adequately support schools that are under-funded or are in rural areas.
Comerford argued those districts can’t afford any new education mandates by the state, unless they’re given enough money to help rollout the changes, “school administrators have told me explicitly that they cannot afford to comply with more and more and more new state education mandates.”
The senator using her own home district of Northampton as an example of how so many new initiatives in under-resourced districts come at the expense of the entire municipality.
The amendment establishes the following:
- Allows schools to use literacy funds for student screenings
- Prioritizes equity in how grants are awarded
- Requires a public hearing in western mass before finalizing grant rules
- And lastly, provides technical support to help rural districts apply for grants
Copyright 2026 Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.
Financial ‘death spiral’ threatens the long-term survival of rural Mass. schools
February 13, 2026
James Vaznis, Boston Globe
A dramatic decline in enrollment in Massachusetts rural school districts over the last quarter century has created a vicious cycle of budget cuts and diminished academic opportunities for tens of thousands of students.
From the Berkshires to Martha’s Vineyard, rural enrollment has plunged by nearly 30 percent over the last 25 years — far steeper than the 7 percent decline for all other districts statewide. About 38,000 students attend 65 state-designated “rural” districts, which carry the distinction of having no more than 35 students per square mile and low per capita income levels.
The growing hardships are raising questions among many local officials about the long-term survival of the districts and whether some of them need to merge, as they also push for more state aid.
“We call it the death spiral,” said Martha Thurber, chair of the Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee, whose district encompasses eight towns in Franklin County, but only serves 760 students, half the number it did 25 years ago. “You start cutting teachers and programs, and then the students who can afford to leave will leave, which brings enrollment down even more and then you need to cut again and more students leave.”
Over the last 10 years, her district has closed an elementary school, eliminated more than a dozen positions, and scaled back music and physical education in the elementary schools, It is preparing to shave nearly $2.5 million from next year’s budget.
Rural school leaders and other local officials have repeatedly warned Beacon Hill lawmakers their schools are sliding into a deepening fiscal crisis. Their plight represents one of the biggest pieces of unfinished business under the state’s school funding overhaul in 2019, which included a commitment to provide public schools with more than $1.5 billion in additional aid.
Only a small portion of that money has gone to rural districts, which mostly receive bare minimum increases in aid because enrollment is declining.
Legislators pledged to help rural districts when they passed the funding overhaul, which called for creating a commission to investigate the problems hitting these districts and develop potential remedies. But nearly four years after the commission released recommendations, legislators have yet to pass a comprehensive bill to implement the changes.
“We are one roof collapse away or one mold abatement away from doom for some of these districts,” said State Senator Jo Comerford, a Northampton Democrat who is sponsoring legislation that would implement many of the commission’s recommendations. “There’s no net under them anymore.”
The bill, among other measures, would provide newly created regional districts an additional $200 per student for three years and establish a grant program for districts to research and develop plans for merging or sharing services, such as for special education.
Spokespeople for Governor Maura Healey, Senate President Karen Spilka, and House Speaker Ronald Mariano said the state’s top leaders have taken steps to help rural districts and will continue to do more.
“Governor Healey wants every student to get the high-quality education they deserve, no matter where they live,” a spokesperson said.
Lawmakers, for instance, established a rural schools fund in 2019, which started at $1.5 million and grew to $12 million this year. Healey is proposing $20 million for next year.
Those amounts are well below the $60 million recommended by the rural schools commission.
The enrollment drops and the financial hardships reflect a statewide decline in birth rates and the challenges facing rural areas as they struggle to recover from the closing of farms and manufacturing plants that once fueled their local economies and tax bases.
Meanwhile, competition for students has intensified with the opening of charter schools and the increasing popularity of vocational schools. Many rural schools also have opened their doors to students from neighboring communities, which shifts around some per-pupil state aid.
At Turners Falls High School, part of the Gill-Montague Regional School District, Olivia Wolbach, a sophomore, said she worries eroding enrollment could set students up for failure. Gill-Montague’s enrollment has fallen by more than 40 percent over the last quarter century to about 840 students this year.
“The less students we get, the less funding we get, and then it becomes what do we have to cut. Then it makes it even harder to get out of Turners and start your own life,” said Wolbach, who loves cooking and baking and would like her own business someday.
As Wolbach sat one afternoon with a group of friends in a sunlit meeting room at Turners, she pointed out that a totally different story is unfolding down the road at Franklin County Technical School, a public vocational school.
Franklin Tech’s enrollment is surging, with about 650 students attending this year from nearly two dozen area towns, enabling it to add programs, including aviation maintenance technology where students get to train inside a dedicated hangar.
Turners Falls High once bustled with more than 400 students, but that was a quarter century ago. It now serves 200 students scattered across a cavernous campus that boasts a football field, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and a sizable auditorium.
Just a few students sit in some electives, a situation that has led to eliminating courses, including some college-prep Advanced Placement. Many teachers, whose salaries are well below the state average, have left for better paying jobs. When Loren Messina arrived as principal two and a half years ago, all the math teachers were gone.
Estes Lemerise-Reinking, a senior, said the budget cutting made it difficult for him to get all the courses he needed to study electrical engineering in college.
He cranked through the school’s most rigorous math courses by the end of freshman year and eventually got grants for Greenfield Community College, where he has taken most of his academic courses for the last two years.
“It’s a really great opportunity,” said Lemerise-Reinking, president of Turners Falls’ student council, of taking college courses. “But it’s putting a bandage on a bigger problem.”
A panel of local and school officials from six area towns, created in 2019, has pitched a potential solution: merging Gill-Montague with Pioneer Valley and the Warwick districts. Residents might vote on the proposal this spring.
Other districts also are weighing potential mergers.
Mohawk Trail is working on a merger with Hawlemont Regional School District, which consists of a single elementary school with about 75 students. Several other districts – Hoosac Valley, North Adams, Mount Greylock, and Northern Berkshire School Union – launched a planning process last fall to explore sharing some services or merging.
Consolidating districts can be a volatile endeavor in a state where local control is highly coveted. A proposed merger between Southern Berkshire and Berkshire Hills, for instance, failed to gain voter approval in most towns in 2023.
“There’s no easy solutions,” said Jake Eberwein, project director for Berkshire Educational Resources K-12, a consulting group. “These towns want to protect their schools, particularly elementary schools, because they are the heartbeat of the town.”
Forced school consolidation efforts across New England have led to revolts.
In Vermont, a 2025 state law calls for consolidating the state’s more than 100 districts into as few as 10. But the effort faces an uncertain future after a state task force charged with drawing new district boundaries instead recommended voluntary mergers, finding little evidence that super-size districts would “reliably lower costs, improve educational outcomes, or expand equity.”
Maine lawmakers also faced a backlash when they attempted to reduce the state’s 290 districts to 80 under a 2007 state law. The effort initially succeeded in consolidating dozens of districts, but lost considerable ground after legislators removed financial penalties against districts that refused to comply.
In Massachusetts, the proposed merger with Gill-Montague, Pioneer Valley, and Warwick is facing resistance.
The Warwick School Committee voted 4-1 in October against joining the proposed super district, with the majority arguing it would provide no financial or academic benefits. Warwick used to be part of the Pioneer district, but left in 2023 to prevent its elementary school, which has about 50 students, from closing.
Alan Genovese, who cast the dissenting vote and also serves as chair of the regional planning group proposing the mergers, said it’s not financially sustainable for Warwick and the other districts to remain independent, given rising budgets.
“It’s not a recipe for success over time,” said Genovese, a retired superintendent. “The towns can’t keep coming up with more money for fewer kids and programs.”
But the Pioneer Valley School Committee, which also opposes the merger, questions whether the larger district will deliver cost savings and expand academic offerings. Members also contend Pioneer is on an upswing after spiraling into a major financial crisis in 2018, which sparked the merger talks.
Pioneer, which has three schools, serves 560 students, including less than 20 students in Grade 12; the proposed mega district would have about 1,500 students across all grades.
“Simply being bigger doesn’t mean it’s better,” said Superintendent Patricia Kinsella. “What we should be striving for is quality.”
On a recent tour of Pioneer Valley Regional School in Northfield, which houses grades 7-12, Kinsella spoke enthusiastically about how she recruited some volunteers a few years ago to reopen the school’s abandoned woodshop.
“It was a sad cemetery of unused and broken woodshop material,” Kinsella said. “People told me you will never get this reopened.”
Inside the shop, equipped with an assortment of new equipment, several students carved wooden spoons out of wood scraps.
In a nearby hallway, a student stood atop of a ladder and put the finishing touches on a mural. And in the band room, more than a dozen students tooting flutes, clarinets, and other instruments practiced the Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington song “Caravan.”
Aimee Cairney, the school’s guidance counselor, remembers when the high school buzzed with about 300 students when she attended in the late 1990s through graduation in 2001. But she believes the school is still offering students something special.
“Everyone is seen,” she said. “It’s hard to fly under the radar.”
Hannah Skorupa, an eighth-grader, said Pioneer’s small size compelled her to stay there for high school.
“You get to know everyone really well and the teachers very well,” said Skorupa, who is eager to continue playing the flute and competing on the track team.
But sometimes, she said, she wishes the school was big enough to have a football team and cheerleading squad.
Christopher Huffaker of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
When the state buys land, towns lose tax revenue. They should be compensated fairly.
February 15, 2026
The Editorial Board, Boston Globe
If Pelham has one new house built in a year, that’s considered a good year for development, said Pelham select board chair Bob Agoglia.
Pelham, with around 1,300 residents, has tried to grow. The town’s first affordable rental housing development, with 34 income-restricted apartments, opened in 2024. A few years ago, Pelham rezoned the portion of the town that’s attached to Amherst’s municipal water and sewer systems to allow smaller lots. Since then, two houses were built by Habitat for Humanity with two more under construction.
But there’s not much buildable land available. As a practical matter, the town can’t allow smaller lots in most areas because of the need to accommodate private wells and septic systems. Some properties are wetlands or are too steep to build on. The town also has 1,195 acres owned by the state, including the Quabbin watershed and land owned by the University of Massachusetts, which are off-limits for development.
With so few opportunities to expand its tax base, municipal finances are tight. John Trickey, chair of Pelham’s finance committee, said the regional school committee is considering charging Pelham $214,000 more next year — but the town can’t raise that much more from taxpayers under Proposition 2.5 without cutting other municipal services or seeking an override.
Unless, that is, the state were to kick in more to compensate Pelham for all the land it owns in the town — and for all the development opportunities the town loses as a result. “If [state-owned] land were available or taxed appropriately as developable land, we might have more money to play with,” Trickey said.
Pelham’s experience points to a problem that bedevils municipal finances throughout rural Western and Central Massachusetts. The state pays municipalities payments in lieu of taxes for state-owned land. But as former auditor Suzanne Bump pointed out in a 2020 report, the formula for reimbursing communities disadvantages those with declining or slowly increasing property values.
Bump found that rural areas in Western Massachusetts get less money over time while affluent Eastern Massachusetts communities get more because the formula is based on the value of a community’s state-owned land as a percentage of all state-owned land. For example: Williamstown accumulated 364 additional acres of state-owned land between fiscal 2019 and 2020, but its reimbursement dropped by $13,863, or 8 percent. The reason is because land values were growing faster in Eastern Massachusetts. Williamstown contained 0.53 percent of the total value of state-owned land in 2020, down from 0.55 percent the prior year, despite the additional acreage.
The problem is particularly acute in small communities where state-owned land can account for thousands of acres, and as much as 10 percent of a town’s property value.
Linda Dunlavy, executive director of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, said these communities take on the responsibility of caring for state-owned land, which is often valuable for meeting state environmental goals. But that “really limits how much economic activity municipalities with large percentages of state-owned land can pursue,” she said. There are also costs for communities that host state-owned land: If there’s a fire or accident, for instance, local first responders may get the call.
The state itself has different ways of valuing state-owned land, with the Quabbin watershed reimbursed differently from other state-owned land. The watershed formula is based on individual communities’ commercial tax rates with a provision preventing grants from declining.
That formula is fully paid each year with Massachusetts Water Resources Authority money, which tends to make it more generous than the general state-owned land formula, for which the amount paid depends on legislative appropriation. However, recent legislative efforts by Quabbin watershed communities to obtain more money from the MWRA, through the creation of a trust fund for host communities, suggest that even this more generous reimbursement rate might be inadequate.
Bump recommended some changes to the state-owned land formula, like basing reimbursements on three years of property taxes, but there may be others worth considering.
In August 2025, Governor Maura Healey created a commission to evaluate potential adjustments to the state-owned land reimbursement program “with particular attention to geographic equity, fiscal sustainability, operational feasibility, and alignment with the state’s land conservation, biodiversity, and climate goals.” Healey said at the time, “For too long, some communities, especially rural communities in Western and Central Massachusetts, have not received their fair share of this funding.”
But there’s no timeline for the commission to complete its work, and Healey hasn’t yet appointed all the members.
Healey should appoint the commission, ensuring adequate representation from Western and Central Massachusetts, and impose a timeline for its report. The commission should examine the state-owned land and watershed formulas to make sure all communities — regardless of geography — are adequately reimbursed.
Massachusetts needs a statewide water plan
February 19, 2026
The Editorial Board, Boston Globe
New Salem is a small, rural town of around 1,000 people located along the banks of the Quabbin Reservoir, the water source that supplies many Eastern Massachusetts towns through the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Ironically, New Salem struggles with its own water infrastructure.
There’s no municipal water supply, so buildings rely on private wells. When the well serving the town administrator’s office building ran dry, she had to buy bottled drinking water and use a bathroom across the street.
New Salem Board of Selectmen chair Susan Cloutier told the editorial board that piping water throughout the town is physically infeasible, given the hilly, spread-out nature of the community. Cloutier said there could be a way to build a municipal water supply in the town center, where residents could get drinking water if their well went dry or became contaminated. But that would take money, in a town with an annual budget of around $3.5 million and where many town officials are volunteers.
A group of Quabbin watershed towns are pushing for legislation to create a trust fund financed by MWRA communities to pay towns that border the Quabbin. It’s a creative financing solution that seems duplicative, since the state already compensates these communities. But the effort points to a real need: many communities in Massachusetts lack a reliable water source.
Worse, there’s no statewide plan to figure out how to help them.
Before Massachusetts’ water problems worsen, the state’s Water Resources Commission should embark on the creation of a statewide water plan. Planning could explore what it would take to provide every region with reliable water and could be used to prioritize where the state spends its money. A big part of this would probably be looking at which communities should be supported to join the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which is the state’s most reliable water source.
“There needs to be a statewide, comprehensive, strategic look at the future of water and how it’s allocated, where the supply is going to come from, and the strategies to manage that in coming decades,” said David McGlinchey, executive director of the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance.
The MWRA provides a clean source of water for 61 member communities in Eastern and Central Massachusetts. Joining can be expensive, so members have generally been those communities with resources to afford it.
As other regions struggle to reliably access water, the MWRA conducted four expansion studies over the past few years, examining what it would take to provide water to communities in the MetroWest area, the Ipswich River basin, the South Shore, and, most recently, the Quabbin Reservoir watershed communities.
There are myriad reasons why these communities could use the water. Some Quabbin communities lack any municipal water. The Ipswich River Basin is considered “stressed,” meaning there’s not enough water to meet the demand, so towns often face water restrictions, like limiting lawn irrigation. The South Shore faces similar supply issues. Communities have had water contaminated by PFAS, chemicals that can cause health risks, then they must spend money treating the water.
A lack of water constrains development. Weymouth, for example, considered joining the MWRA as part of a plan to redevelop the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, since Weymouth’s current water sources can’t meet the demand for an envisioned 4,000 new units and 10 million square feet of commercial space.
But the MWRA doesn’t have capacity to do all these expansions, and the cost of expanding could be prohibitive, particularly for smaller communities. For example, the Quabbin area study found that the cost of bringing Quabbin water to New Salem and three other towns would have cost $215.4 million in 2024, while finding a new groundwater source to serve New Salem and its neighbors would cost $112.4 million. Expanding water to the South Shore could cost up to $1.25 billion (in 2022 dollars) to cover 10 communities. Projects in the Ipswich River Basin and MetroWest could cost anywhere from $110 million to $1.1 billion, depending on how many communities are served.
As McGlinchey put it, “When you have these different options in front of you, it’s impossible to prioritize and know which one should receive devoted resources, because we haven’t taken this overarching review and assessment of water needs and supplies and resources.”
In 2024, House Speaker Ron Mariano tried to obtain a $1 billion earmark in a housing bill to expand MWRA access to communities he represents in the Ipswich River Basin and South Shore. The earmark never made it into law. But the attempt makes clear that if the state doesn’t prioritize where to put finite MWRA resources, based on priorities like environmental need, economic development strategy, or cost-effectiveness, those decisions may be made instead based on which communities have political power.
Addressing water supply will look different in different towns. New Salem may need money for a municipal well in the village center. Hooking up a few South Shore or Ipswich River Basin communities to the MWRA might provide the additional capacity needed in existing water supplies to serve the remaining towns. Some towns could get a more reliable supply with an investment in water treatment equipment.
A statewide plan determining what needs to be done where would help ensure that the greatest number of communities can obtain access to clean, reliable water in the most cost-effective way.
State economic development head hears from Franklin County: No ‘one size fits all’ for WMass
February 20, 2026
Stephanie Barry, Springfield Republican
The state’s new economic development czar on Thursday made his first visit to Franklin County in the role, to hear from business, education, nonprofit and government leaders about challenges in the region.
Eric Paley took the role of secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development in September. The former venture capitalist from Greater Boston was an audience to dozens of stakeholders in the least populous county in Western Massachusetts.
The visit coincided with the rollout of the $4 billion Mass Leads Act, a 2024 economic development bond bill critical for Western and North Central Massachusetts, plus development of another economic development bill expected in 2026.
Both aim to bolster economic development across the state with a focus on high-tech initiatives.
Paley listened to speakers who extolled the many virtues of Franklin County: Coffee, craft beer, an array of outdoor activities that has driven tourism rates up 67% over two years, a robust farming economy and pastoral spots unlike any other in the state.
“Franklin County is a great place to live, love and work,” said Linda Dunlavy, executive director of the Franklin County Regional Council of Governments, during a presentation to Paley and the group.
Among the county’s prime challenges, however, are a significant state funding imbalance that often leaves Franklin County shortchanged, grant and program funding criteria that render the small towns ineligible, an inconsistent communications footprint and lack of administrative staffing for the tiniest towns.
“Ideally, it would work as one size fits all, but that’s not going to work here,” Paley told the group, adding that many in and adjacent to government have suggested the state take all the economic development money it has and invest in artificial intelligence.
“But how do we make sure the funding meets the needs?” he asked.
Attendees also cited a critical shortage of affordable day care options, which Kristen Elechko, Western Massachusetts aide to Gov. Maura T. Healey, remarked was on “the same rail” as housing insecurity.
Elechko also said Franklin County is a “data desert” with inconsistent cell phone coverage.
Many at the forum, including state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, said detailed listening sessions from Healey’s cabinet members are a critical place to start.
“He can’t fix anything unless we tell him what that is and what’s really important,” said Comerford, a Democrat who serves Franklin, Hampshire and Worcester counties.
She joined Paley and the rest of the delegation on additional stops in Franklin and Hampshire counties.
Those who attended were heartened by the opportunity to share their realities and concerns with the secretary.
Some didn’t sugarcoat it, like Raymond Lanza-Weil, president of Common Capital, a private lending agency for local businesses.
“MassDevelopment is not doing a good job of helping,” he said, referring to the state-run office designed to financing, real estate expertise and community development solutions to grow businesses. “There’s been bad communication and lots of delays.”
Paley said since he is so new to the job, he “doesn’t have an ego” about hearing negatives and would prefer to hear about such experiences than not.
Although, he added he had previously received many positive reviews about the office.
Bryan Smith, town administrator for Erving, population 1,700, said the little hamlet is finally seeing its first affordable housing development after 20 years of negotiations with the state.
“These types of forums are very helpful,” Smith said. “Particularly in areas where we don’t stack up and compete as well … previous ones have led to reforms.”
The housing development will become a reality with a $20 million investment from the state. That followed a similar forum featuring the state housing secretary.
Dunlavy also used the housing project as an example of previous successes along with a pilot program to improve dirt and gravel roads, plus improvements for rural communities in terms of municipal aid from the state.
