Another month means another political and financial power play in the town of Greenfield.
Barely removed from a previously unprecedented reduction of both the operating and capital budgets, Town Council Vice President and self-appointed “budget hawk” Isaac Mass has cleaned his claws yet again at the expense of his supposed political ally, Greenfield Mayor Bill Martin.
This time, he single-handedly nixed a $245,000 capital stabilization transfer to cover the last piece of financing for an ongoing DPW effort to reconstruct and stabilize part of Silver Street.
It’s a project most people agree is important, including Mass, who also saw it as a chance for a little budgetary “carpe diem” to force Martin to further curtail the town’s current rate of capital spending.
Transferring money from that account requires an affirmative vote from nine of the council’s 13 members, and it just so happened that there were only nine councilors present at last Wednesday’s special meeting.
That meant all nine had to vote “yes” to release the money, a reality that Mass was fully aware of and that he took full advantage of, telling Martin the price of his vote was a mayoral commitment to cut at least $100,000 from the existing capital budget.
“I’m not trying to be obstructionist. I’m really not,” Mass said. “But I can’t vote for this without some measure of acknowledgement to the taxpayers that they can’t fund everything.”
The only one to speak against the gambit was Precinct 8 Councilor Ashli Stempel, who decried the effort to hijack the Silver Street project in the name of fiscal austerity.
“This is something that is really important,” Stempel said. “I just don’t think trying to barter and trade is the noble thing to do here.”
Martin was clearly not amused by Mass’ actions. Nor should he be. But he might want to start getting used to it, because after having a relatively free hand for most of his tenure, this mayor is now having his feet held to the fire on pretty much every big-ticket item that comes before this council, which is proving to be far less financially pliable than any of its predecessors in the mayoral era.
Speaking of Martin, he has finally made his first public comments since a series of racist, altered photos of Town Councilor Penny Ricketts were emailed to several town officials, including himself..
Reading from a prepared statement which never mentioned Ricketts directly, Martin decried the lack of civility being displayed not only in town, but across the nation, in what seemed like an attempt to address both the email controversy and the recent series of race-related police shootings at the same time.
Other than a tersely worded one-page statement issued the Monday after the first emails surfaced, the 3-minute torrent of words is the only public statement Martin has made on the matter, which he chose to deliver at a council meeting that was not televised live, but was being taped for a later broadcast.
Glean from that what you will.
If you want to view Martin’s statement, it’s available at GCTV.org. I’ll also be running it in its entirety on my “Beyond The Headlines” half-hour radio show this weekend (at 10:30 a.m. Saturday on WHMP AM 1240 and 107.5 FM and at 6 Sunday morning on WHAI and Bear Country 95.3).
You’ll have to decide for yourself how effective his comments were. I’ve already formed my opinion.
There are clearly a number of members of the Massachusetts General Court who are unhappy with Attorney General Maura Healey’s recent edict regarding assault weapons, including one whose identity might be a surprise to some.
It’s rare that Healey and 1st Franklin District State Rep. Steve Kulik find themselves on opposite sides of an issue, but that’s where they stand after Healey announced plans to expand enforcement of the commonwealth’s assault weapons ban to include so-called “copycat” weapons.
“I have great respect for the attorney general, but I believe that her office has overstepped its authority with this unilateral decree which reinterprets our existing gun law,” Kulik wrote in a prepared statement. “Such a major policy change requires a transparent and participatory public process by the Legislature, not a directive developed in secret without public input.”
I don’t think his opposition means Kulik is pro-automatic weapons, but as a representative from a rural district that contains a lot of gun owners, he had no choice but to join the other 57 legislators — including many Republicans — who signed a letter asking Healey to reconsider her decision and let the Legislature work on a bill which addresses her concerns.
“It is my hope that the attorney general will suspend this order, and instead file legislation that can be fully reviewed and considered by the public’s elected representatives in an open and deliberative process,” Kulik added.
Which, the last time I checked, is how government “by the people” is supposed to work.
Chris Collins, who worked in local radio in a number of capacities, has observed political life in Franklin County for years. He also is a former staff reporter for The Recorder and a Greenfield native.