State Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash got an earful from Franklin County Selectmen’s Association members this week as he unveiled the Baker administration’s economic initiatives, aimed at bringing “opportunities for all.”
Before he even got a chance to talk about it to the roughly 50 current and former selectmen, their spouses and regional officials at the association’s quarterly meeting at Chandler’s Restaurant, he began fielding complaints about holdups in broadband development.
“We’re all about innovation,” he promised. But the administration’s commitment to broadband came under immediate question from area selectmen who said they’ve been waiting years for the state to help them connect their “last mile” of telecommunication to help the region compete economically.
“The one technology that fits all is fiber-optic,” said Rowe Selectman Marilyn Wilson. “The others don’t work in hilltowns because of the topography. The MBI was created eight years ago under an emergency bill. Eight years later, we’re still waiting. The towns are putting up two-thirds of the money, the state is putting up one-third. It’s not a huge amount for the state to be funding. And we’re still waiting.”
Baker announced last month that it would allow the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to move ahead on helping seven partially served towns expand their coverage with Comcast by releasing a $5 million bond approved for that purpose, after holding up the rest of a $50 million connection program since December primarily for towns without any access to high-speed telecommunication.
“Our priority with you is to figure this out,” Ash said, who agreed that broadband is essential to help rural parts of the state compete not only with its urban areas, but also with the rest of the world. “Gov. Baker gets that. We will get there. … It’s complicated. It would be if there was one process, one technology for that would work everybody.”
Ash said the governor has asked MTC to review all of the technologies and he added, “I hear the frustration … I have lived my life off slogans. As a city manager, I had a slogan for almost everything … You plan the work and then you work the plan. We’ve looked at almost every plan that others were working on to see if we believe in it, and to see if we can commit to it. … You have our pledge we’ll do everything we can”
Yet Leyden Selectman Michelle Giarusso told him, “We can’t wait that long. Our towns are dwindling. Our children are not staying here. There are no jobs. …. I’m watching it grow, watching it go toward Interstate 495. We really need support from the governor.”
Ash told her, “I will tell you, we’re not coming and saying, here’s a check. There has to be some accountability involved. … We’re committed to working with you and trying to figure it out. When we sign that agreement to make something, I’m feeling really good that what’s happening is going to be something that’s sustainable.”
Giarusso, one of several local officials who pressed the speaker on the issue, continued, “So can we have answers in six months, three months, one month? … Homes are not selling here.”
He responded, “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
After he outlined Baker’s nearly $1 billion proposed economic development plan for the state, with its top priority around the workforce and around “innovation” — including centers modeled on the Orange Innovation Center. Ash was asked whether that would come at the expense of paying for a more fundamental goal of education, especially elementary education.
Ash responded, “We are providing more money for education than we ever have, and will continue to do that. But what we’re expecting is also results, and we’re not getting all the results we should get.”
He also took barbs from Conway Selectman Jim Moore on Baker’s proposal to lift the charter school cap and add a dozen new charter schools a year.
“If the people of Massachusetts don’t kill that bill, there’s something wrong with us. I think I’ll go somewhere else to live. If Gov. Baker wants to have that kind of thing, he can have it but let him have it somewhere else. It’s killing our public schools. Common sense opinion is if we’re going to have charter schools, if we’re going to take money away from public schools, then the people who run those charter schools need to be accountable to the people who are getting their money sent to them. They are not really like public schools; they can pick and choose.”
Ash said, “I appreciate the passion you have about it,” but said there are families that are trying to get their children into charter schools, which are “pushing the public schools to be better at what they do.”
The secretary also heard the Franklin County group call for money for commuter rail here. “It’s not going to happen,” he said.
County officials also asked that the state not pull back incentives for solar development that can add jobs as well as reduce the need for fossil fuels.
“There’s a reason why there’s a huge solar industry,” he said. “There’s a demand because there’s a huge subsidy. To pay for it. If the huge subsidy disappeared, then the demand would disappear as well. There’s reason to provide some level of subsidies,” but there need to be more emphasis on developments of wind and hydropower as well.