Editor’s note: As part of the Greenfield Recorder’s end-of-the-year features, we are publishing our choices for the top newsmakers of 2019. The first installment ran Monday. Here is the second. They are listed in no particular order.
While Greenfield Community College President Yves Salomon-Fernández said her first year was “wonderful,” she says there’s a lot more to come.
Salomon-Fernández was inaugurated as the college’s 10th president in May. Since then, she has gotten to know her staff and faculty, introduced herself to the community and forged numerous partnerships with other schools and organizations. She said as the college evolved this year, GCC looked at demographics, encouraged student activism and helped the adult working population returning to school to “reskill.”
Salomon-Fernández, who has been referred to by many as a “dynamo,” said GCC has always been part of the fabric of the upper Pioneer Valley, strengthening it and adding some color. Under her direction, she said GCC will continue to expand its senior mentoring program, welcoming older adults to be matched with students.
There are new academic programs, including the new adventure education degree that expands the outdoor leadership program already in place, and she said GCC is also committed to its liberal arts program and plans to make it stronger. She said liberal arts will be integrated into other programs, including technology and vocational.
“We plan to be the catalyst for change and evolution needed in higher education today,” Salomon-Fernández said. “There is growing income inequality across the region and nation, higher education debt is unsustainable and our demographics are changing. We need to prepare the county to be resilient for the changes that are here and the ones coming.”
In 2020, she said GCC will foster partnerships with the local YMCA, Yankee Candle Co., Double Edge Theatre and Bete Fog Nozzle Inc., which will include internships, mentoring programs and international internships for students. It will also continue to be a partner in the battle against opioid addiction.
“We’re completing our strategic plan and continuing to be responsive to the needs of individuals, institutions and the community,” Salomon-Fernández said. “We’re going to put students in the driver’s seat of their education, and GCC will be the navigational assistant.”
Spawlbuster Al Norman has made waves — and drawn criticism — in the city of Greenfield in 2019 as a proponent of the French King Highway and an advocate for the citizen’s referendum process.
Earlier this year, city officials tried to craft proposed zoning changes in time to consider them March 20 with a vote on the $19.5 million public library. The move was part of a deal crafted by library backer Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud and At-Large Councilor Isaac Mass, who offered to vote for the library if he gets the zoning changes to spur economic development.
Norman proposed a “compromise to the compromise,” with ideas such as turning the French King Highway overlay district industrial and making gas stations and drive-thru restaurants only allowed by special permit.
Norman filed a citizen’s referendum petition after the March 20 council vote that removed zoning laws from a majority of the French King Highway corridor overlay district in exchange for a vote to approve the library project. His intention was to pause the zoning change and send it to the ballot box for a citywide vote in November.
He also filed a lawsuit against the city concerning language in its charter about citizen’s referendum petitions on May 30 in Franklin County Superior Court.
The civil complaint requests the court do two things — correct an error in the city charter or for Greenfield to hold public hearings to pass a new measure that clarifies the citizen’s initiative and referendum process; and to allow the referendum petition he put forward challenging the March 20 city council zoning votes to proceed.
Both the city and Norman filed for the voluntary stipulation of dismissal of the case on Nov. 23.
As Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, reflected on her first year as a state legislator, she said it has been a wonderful experience and she’s ready to hit the ground running in 2020.
Comerford spent her first year filing bills, touring libraries and marijuana facilities, serving hot meals, helping caregivers get the help they need, fighting for people with disabilities, working toward better education for all and much more.
“I’m so proud of our Democracy Tours, the passage of the Student Opportunity Act, the oversight hearings we held this past year and more,” she said.
Comerford said she and other members of the Western Massachusetts delegation held numerous listening sessions with constituents throughout Franklin County to talk about public health, water and sewer issues, and other matters.
“We made a really concentrated effort to bring out colleagues from out east to many of our events so they would be steeped in our full reality here in the west,” she said.
Comerford did receive some backlash when constituents learned she had co-sponsored a bill that would allow murderers serving life sentences to have parole hearings after 25 years in prison. While Comerford said she was moved by the family of Thomas Harty and his wife Joanna Fisher, who were murdered in their East River Street home in Orange by Joshua Hart and Brittany Smith, she said some people who have committed first degree murder should conceivably be paroled.
“I worked on more than 50 bills this year, either sponsoring, co-sponsoring or supporting,” she said. “The bills are doing pretty well, either being passed or receiving favorable reports.”
She said they range from helping caregivers to reaching net-zero energy status.
“I’ve worked on a lot that doesn’t make headlines, and those are some of the ones I’m most proud of,” she said. “We are all helping all sorts of people across the county deal with a wide range of issues, like navigating MassHealth or the RMV to avoiding loss of their insurance.”
Comerford said she did a lot of volunteering this year, including delivering Meals on Wheels, cooking hot meals at a meal site and reading stories to school children.
“It has been extremely fulfilling,” she said, adding she’ll enter her second year more connected and more knowledgeable. “I’m more grounded in my district.”
Some of what she said she’ll work on includes a climate bill and reinvesting in not only higher education, but early education, and will continue work on what she has already started.
Isaac Mass still wants to serve Greenfield.
And while the at-large city councilor has decided not to run for reelection, Mass is shifting his focus to “saving a downtown landmark.”
The local attorney served for six terms on City Council — including when it was “Town Council” — and reflected on his last year in office.
By far, City Council’s biggest achievement in 2019 was “the compromise,” Mass said, in which councilors with different political leanings came to an agreement to vote positively for both relaxed zoning laws along the French King highway and $19.5 million for a new library.
Mass, a proponent of easing zoning restrictions, and City Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud, a new library proponent, brokered a deal to vote favorably for each other’s aims.
“It says that, though we are a community that has differing ideas, we can listen to each other and try to make a positive outcome for everyone,” Mass said.
Mass said he’s scaled back to practicing criminal law up to three days a week. He’s accepted an appointment to the state’s Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke board of trustees, and will continue on the board of trustees for Greenfield Community College.
However, Mass’ main priority going forward is operating Greenfield’s Garden Cinemas, having bought the 90-year-old theater with his wife in November.
“It’s a place where everyone’s happy,” Mass said.
Mass and his wife, Angela, are the third owners in the theater’s history. Running the theater is a lot of work, he said — “baby steps” — but the Masses are having fun. They’ve lit up the marquee, replaced old items like trash receptacles, added new concessions and, for the most part, cleaned.
In the lobby, above the theater’s original organ, Mass installed a TV monitor playing black-and-white silent films, so visitors can get a taste of what going to the movies was like in 1929.
“There’s a lot of work to do and a long way to go,” Mass said. “But, our goal is to keep the theater open and have a diverse selection of films showing.”
As her first year in office comes to a close, Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Sunderland, has stayed true to promises made on the campaign trail, and continues to make headway as an advocate for rural communities.
“Education was a big topic of conversation on the campaign trail,” Blais said, speaking via phone from Beacon Hill just a few days before Christmas.
She worked to change the Chapter 70 formula and help pass the Student Opportunity Act. The act was unanimously approved by the House and Senate and is described as a long-awaited overhaul of the state’s funding formula for public education.
“That was a monumental effort,” Blais said. “It will investigate the unique challenges facing rural school districts.”
The bill includes $1.5 billion to be woven into school districts over the next seven years. It tackles inequity by requiring more money be distributed to school systems with higher percentages of low-income students and English language learners.
“I will really be focusing in on transportation,” Blais said, when asked what was on her agenda for 2020.
Blais sits on the Joint Committee on Transportation and said she will work on a proposed bond bill with Gov. Charlie Baker in the spring.
Before being elected representative of the 1st Franklin District, Blais worked as executive director of the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce. She brought 20 years of previous political experience, having worked with then-Congressman Bernie Sanders. She was also a congressional aide to U.S. representatives John Olver and Jim McGovern.
In 2018, she said it would take a strong voice in Boston to advocate for the needs of rural people. Since taking office, she has worked behind the scenes to get enhanced service for the Amtrak line that runs along the Connecticut River and expressed concern for rural public transportation systems.