Patrick Long '10
Fresh Ideas for Great Barrington
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On the Issues
Economic Development and Job Creation: Encourage Economic Development by making Great Barrington a better place to do business. Provide support to small businesses and the innovation economy. Work with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission to implement BRPC economic development proposals. Favor development projects which create more jobs. Sustainable job creation should be the #1 priority in judging redevelopment proposals for vacant properties owned by the town, and we should encourage similar priorities with the redevelopment of the Fairgrounds and the New England Log Homes site.
Even under current economic conditions, there are businesses willing to hire if only they can find workers with the right skills. The Selectmen should work with local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce to find those opportunities and publicize that information so people interested in those career fields know what training they need to get.
Workforce Housing: Our young people usually move away for college and then don't come back because finding a place to live in Great Barrington is too expensive. The Selectmen should support projects which will create more workforce housing in Great Barrington. Along with job creation, this needs to be a priority with the sale of vacant town-owned properties and the redevelopment of vacant privately-owned properties such as the fairgrounds. Tax incentives for year-round occupancy will also increase the supply of affordable housing. Additionally, the town bylaws permit "grandparent" apartments, allowing struggling homeowners with more space than they need to create and rent out apartments in a section of their home. The Selectmen should encourage more people to take advantage of this provision, which creates more affordable housing and lets taxpayers make some extra income to pay the taxes.
Sale of Town-Owned Buildings: Buildings should be sold to buyers who will do the most to improve Great Barrington's quality of life. See 1. and 2. above for an understanding of how I would judge buyers.
Property Taxes: The best thing we can do to reduce property taxes is spread the tax burden over more taxpayers. Attracting new businesses or the expansion of old ones will bring in more commercial/industrial real estate tax revenues, and creating more jobs will increase the number of people who can buy homes and start paying residential property taxes.
Selling the excess real estate the Town owns will allow us to bring in tax revenue from the new owners instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to heat and insure unused buildings, which will reduce the tax burden on Great Barrington residents. We should consider all spending carefully to ensure it really is advantageous to the town. Additional ideas to explore include local option taxes on hotels and restaurant meals, and higher property tax rates on second homes.
Two of the other candidates in the race are on the School Committee, and have a poor record on this issue. They have long had an attitude of invincibility, spending money on the adults rather than the children. Sources of unnecessary expenses include excess layers of administration (which they refused to re-evaluate even when some of the old administrators retired), a 20 year, $40,000/year (plus renovation and moving costs)contract to move the School District's offices to Stockbridge Town Hall from the Housatonic School building (where office space was free), payments to consultants to do Professional Development which could have been done in-house, and a lackadaisical attitude toward seeking alternate sources of funding that do not rely on the taxpayers.
Main Street Reconstruction: I support the MSR proposal in principle. Doing the work will make our streets and sidewalks safer and reduce traffic delays. However, I have concerns about the financial side of the project. We are relying on a promise of funding from the state, which doesn't always live up to its promises. Additionally, any construction project has the risk of cost overruns. The Selectmen should only go forward with the project if we have a contract that protects the town's interests if something goes wrong. The project should be done in sections instead of digging up all of Main Street at once. This minimizes the short-term impact on Main Street businesses by minimizing the time where the street or sidewalk in front of each business is under construction. This is part of the current proposal, and so is replacing the trees on Main Street once construction is finished. The financial protections for the town which I would require are not. Heated sidewalks were a proposal Richard Stanley came up with as an addition to the MSR work. If Richard Stanley wants heated sidewalks, Richard Stanley can pay for heated sidewalks.
Traffic and Parking: Main Street Reconstruction will improve traffic flow but negatively impact parking. As a Selectman, I would work with our state legislators and Congressman Olver's office to find more funding for improved BRTA service in Great Barrington, especially in the summer, to offset the parking impact. Conventional wisdom says we don't have the population for good public transportation, but we're a small town with the traffic problems of a major city. That tells me there is something wrong with conventional wisdom. The 2003 traffic study recommended that we do at least one of two things: either increase the frequency with which the buses travel their normal route through town in the summer, or have a shuttle running from downtown to areas where more parking is available, such as Barrington Plaza or the area around Big Y.
Broadband: The Selectmen should support the Wired West initiative to expand broadband access by joining a group of almost 50 towns in Western Massachusetts working to build a fiber optice network owned by the municipalities using federal, state, and private grants for funding. Universal access to high speed internet access is critical to allowing our local businesses to compete on an equal footing with businesses elsewhere in the state. Broadband access also improves educational quality. For more on why this is important, see: http://wired-west.net/faq/#q1 Please come to Town Meeting, May 3 at 6 p.m. at Monument Mountain, and vote for Warrant Article 18.
Public Safety: Implement the recommendations of the Buracker report. Remove the next Police Chief from the civil service system to ensure greater accountability. Civil service was designed to protect rank and file officers from political interference, not to make the Chief unaccountable to Great Barrington's elected leaders.
Energy and Environment: Where feasible, install energy-saving light bulbs and other energy-saving equipment on Town property to save the Town's money and the environment. Favor development projects which are environmentally-friendly, and promote renewable energy through tax credits. Conduct regular energy audits. And don't waste energy heating the sidewalks.
Open space and environmental impact should be an important consideration when evaluating development projects. Protecting the town's natural environment is a good thing in its own right, and also an important part of a sustainable strategy for economic development. Our natural resources are among the big features which attract tourists.
Lake Mansfield Road: Leave the road open to traffic going in both directions. Requiring drivers to take a longer route would increase traffic in the rest of town and add to air pollution. There are legitimate safety concerns about Lake Mansfield Road in its current state. Those are best addressed through use of traffic calming devices, lowering the speed limit, and better enforcement of existing laws against speeding.
Ramsdell Library: It costs each taxpayer an average of 14 cents per day to keep Ramsdell open. That is a small price to pay for the value it provides for the community in Housatonic. Please come to Town Meeting, May 3 at 6 p.m. at Monument Mountain, and vote against Warrant Article 21, which would close Ramsdell.
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