A Jaunt Around Western MA

Well I’m back from my little vacation to Western Mass! I moved away from my home area about three years ago now and this was the first time since that move that i have really had a chance to see the sights and check in with my old haunts in the Springfield/Westfield area. I must say I was rather taken back by the amount of change! Usually when my hometown area is mentioned about in the news or the blog-sphere whats said is not exactly positive.

When i moved 3 years ago Springfield was in the middle of a hell storm. City hall turned out to be corrupt and that corruption coupled with Mitt Romney’s local aid cuts sent my fair city into bankruptcy. No city workers had contracts, dozens of police officers were let go, crime increased in leaps in bounds (i had a major shooting in my parking lot, and was broken into twice in the same week, oh and my g/f at the time was offered crack in exchanged for a blow job walking into my apartment), and finally the infrastructure was failing causing local businesses to flee the city along with their jobs and tax revenues. It looked very bleak as i packed my U-haul. Mayor Ryan had just started work and man did he have his work cut out for him!

You know what? He has done a bang up job!

After some state loans, shoring up wasteful spending, and admitting the fact that a major city needs to collect taxes in order to stay a float Springfield seems to be on the rebound. The Control Board (a state run group that has overseen the city since the down fall) and Ryan have had to make some hard and sometimes unpopular choices but it looks like it has paid off. Old buildings that are home for drug activity have been torn down, 40 cops have been added to the force, the budget has been balanced 3 years running. Now there are some capital investments returning to the city and the downtown area is more alive then it was when i lived there, which of course has something to do with the completion of the Mass Mutual Center. Clearly Springfield has a long road ahead but at least the city is moving in the right direction.

As near as i can tell the only real annoyance to residences is a 90 dollar a year trash fee on top of property taxes. Many people are saying the city is double dipping with this but i get what Ryan and Co are doing. This is a way to raise the property tax without raising the property tax. The city needs to raise revenue in order to pay off debts and continue this momentum and get the economy roling, but if they raise property taxes to do it will hurt bussnes, growth, and so forth. Nevermind the fact that Springfield tax law is rather tedious, it would be very difficult to raise and then lower the tax rate once the short term goals have been met. The answer is clear: a temporary tax like the trash tax that is easily set up because it is outside of the norm and then simply repeal it once the debt obligations are met. In short it preserves the property tax rate. I’m a Libertarian and i completely get and support what hes trying to do…as long as it does get repealed of course.

In short my support goes to Ryan for this voting cycle and i sincerely hope he wins because of what he has accomplished through deliberate and careful planning.

One little note on Westfield: where did all the banks come from?! there is a different bank on every street corner, it seems rather excessive. I counted 7 new banks on top of the ones that have always been there.