GREENFIELD – There was no shortage of rural problems identified Thursday night as the state’s Rural Policy Advisory Commission had the last of its nine “listening sessions” to help the state develop a plan next year to improve economic conditions in its 170 towns with under 500 people per square mile.
The roughly 50 people attending the two-hour session – most of them representing towns or service organizations from around the region – sounded off on conditions that were all familiar to everyone: non-existent public transportation, lack of broadband and cell service, public school costs that are outstripping the ability of towns to pay, insufficient affordable housing, an aging population and little water and sewage infrastructure or available industrially zoned land on which to build the economy.
The session, which ended with people placing green or red stickers on lists of rural issues already identified by the 15-member commission – pinpointing the most critical topics or those that don’t apply in western Massachusetts – focused on concerns many said aren’t understood in the Boston-centric state that’s the third most densely populated in the nation, so the commission members can identify those that apply strictly to rural towns, or ones that differ from those in other rural parts of state.
“I feel the angst in the room,” said Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash at the end of the session. “We recognize there needs to be a voice, and the voice is best heard when its collaborative and combined.”
Ash, who said he will be leaving his post soon, but will relate the concerns raised to the governor, advised those present they need to prioritize their concerns.
For example, providing east-west rail, as one person had suggested as a way of providing access to high paying jobs, “is $1 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion that isn’t going for child care, education, that isn’t going for affordable housing. Be very careful what you advocate for, because it’s going to take air out of the room for other things that you need,” said Ash.
Among the many missing pieces in the rural towns, mentioned by several of those attending, was staff capacity to move housing rehabilitation projects forward, a shortage of doctors, dentists and other health-care services – particularly in what one person called the “health care desert” of West County – yet there are other unique complicating factors like ZIP codes that cross town boundaries but are used by some state agencies.
“ZIP codes are used totally inappropriately by the Department of Revenue, by the (Registry of Motor Vehicles) to figure out where people live,” said Beth Bandy of Charlemont. “It has an impact on everything from our ability to vote” to which town gets meals tax revenue, she added, but “Nobody’s actually made this a priority to get something done.”
Also the combination of an aging population and lack of affordable housing and jobs to attract young people resulting in declining public enrollment that commission member Linda Dunlavy said “has a huge impact on municipal budgets.”
So does the dependence on regressive property taxes to pay for schools, which some complained make up the lion’s share of their municipal budgets.
Mohawk Trail Regional School Superintendent Michael Buoniconti called $1.5 million for rural education funding in this year’s budget “is a short-term Band-Aid,” adding that the Legislature’s failure to pass the recommendations from the state’s Foundation Budget Review Commission provides an opportunity for the Rural Schools Coalition – ideally, with support from municipalities – to advocate for getting a rural component in the Chapter 70 state aid formula.
Across the spectrum of issues, the low population density translates to higher costs for providing services and more difficulty providing public transportation to access those services, while many state funding formulas don’t take into consideration the per capita costs.
“We have a lot of talent here, compared to a lot of rural areas elsewhere,” said Greenfield Community College President Yves Salomon-Fernandez. “The level of entrepreneurship, which translates into the individual-owned sole proprietorships is much higher here. We outperform everyone else.”
“The challenges that parents have to find (child) care in our region are really dramatic, and they’re driving their child miles in one direction, miles to go to work in another direction,” said Community Action Executive Director Clare Higgins, adding that the number of family day cares has declined from 40 to 12 across Franklin and Hampshire counties, with challenges for child-care centers as well. “We have to think about this much more deeply than we are…. It’s infrastructure, it’s education, its an economic development investment. ”
Wendy Foxmyn, Deerfield administrative assistant, who has worked in many of the towns across the region, said the lack of funding for senior centers in the state also “is a crime,” because they are a nexus for services.
Foxmyn said there’s a need for small towns to have more help, from staff as well as from volunteer board members.
“One size does not fit all, yet it is what we live with in this state,” she said. “When it comes down to the Department of Revenue and the rules that we all follow, it’s the same. And we can’t keep it up. I don’t know what the answer is. I just see a dark tunnel, and I don’t know how we’re going to get out.”
“I’ve seen three of these plans,” said Charlemont Selectman and former state legislator Jonathan Healy. “My plea is to have us at some time think of the logical next step … and think about mechanisms both from a local and a state point of view, so we can have a better, maybe more formal docking mechanism to scale these issues up. It would be great if we had a little more official way to communicate with the state.”