NORTHAMPTON — U.S. Reps. Jim McGovern and Richard Neal announced last week that they have helped secure a combined $38 million in federal funding for a broad range of local investments across the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts.
The funding was approved as part of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 225 to 201. The bill has also passed in the Senate and will go to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
“Support for these projects is the result of community conversations with stakeholders across this district,” McGovern, chair of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement. “My team and I worked hard to ensure that this $18 million worth of federal funding for the Second District was included in the end-of-year spending bill that will soon be signed into law. Alongside other important victories like permanently expanding summer EBT benefits for families with children, I’m proud of the positive impact these robust investments will have on our communities and our region.”
McGovern’s 15 projects included in the fiscal year 2023 appropriations package include the following in Hampshire and Franklin counties and the North Quabbin region:
■$975,000 for the Avenue A Streetscape Improvement Project in Turners Falls. The funding will help restore an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant, pedestrian-oriented streetscape. The project will connect smaller sections of the streetscape that have been improved over the past five years with support from other sources.
■$450,000 for technology for first responders in Franklin County. The money will allow for updating communications systems for emergency personnel, replacing aging infrastructure. The funds will enable first responders to maintain mobile communications in parts of Franklin County that lack cellular service, remaining connected to the state’s digital interoperable radio system and reducing emergency response time delays.
■$1 million for affordable housing through the NewVue Communities Riverbend-Bigelow Schools Project in Athol. The project calls for creating a new intergenerational living community with 53 units of affordable housing. The development will preserve two historic schools and add a new building that will extend off a central lobby to a wing of new apartments for older residents. The completed project will provide 20 one-bedroom, 24 two-bedroom and nine three-bedroom apartments.
■$1,110,661 for the Jones Library renovation and expansion project in Amherst. The project will use low-embodied carbon materials, reduce energy use intensity by 60%, and reduce total lifetime carbon emissions by 41% compared to the current building. The larger library renovation and expansion leverages state, local, public and private funds toward multiple objectives including full accessibility for those with mobility impairments and meeting the current and growing need for English language instruction space.
■$413,000 to redesign the Grow Food Northampton Community Farm in Northampton. The funding will help create extra parcels to welcome more small and beginning farms onto the Community Farm; add additional Community Garden plots to increase the number of community members growing food for themselves and their families; create additional gardening and farming spaces for hands-on educational opportunities; and construct a barn for farmer use.
Of the more than $20 million Neal helped secure for 15 projects in the 1st Congressional District, $2 million is slated for the Worthington Senior Center and another $2 million for the renovation of the Girls Inc. of the Valley Headquarters and Program Center in Holyoke.
“I am proud to have secured $20,367,800 in community project funding in this bill that I know meets long-overdue community needs in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District,” Neal said in a statement. “From North Adams to Dudley, I have partnered with community leaders to explore ways in which a robust investment in federal dollars could best be allocated. These investments create jobs with better pay, make us safer, strengthen our communities and start to tackle climate change.”
A detailed summary of the bill is available online at bit.ly/3C20Fd2.