Legislative Forum: Help MetroWest Businesses

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2010-03-04 16:46

Nine local state legislators told the Chamber’s January 6 Legislative Forum at Framingham State College about measures that might help businesses during the current stimulus-recovery process.
 
             Sen. Karen Spilka said she’d like to see a streamlining of the 30 overlapping and sometimes duplicating agencies that now deal with economic development. She called for a one-stop process in applying to do business with the state, and added that Beacon Hill needs to be “friendlier” toward businesses, especially small ones. She said that “national health care” is part of the solution to rising healthcare costs, and that recent transportation reform has already led to cost saving and greater equity for MetroWest.
 
             Rep. David Linsky, Chairman of the Legislature Joint Committee on Federal Stimulus Oversight, said he hoped that a possible, but not yet assured, second stimulus bill could provide funds to pay private firms to work on public construction projects. Few proposals other than “simple road projects” made it through the “Byzantine” stimulus approval process, he explained. The initial stimulus mainly “saved” jobs for teachers, firefighters, and other public sector employees.
 
             Shrewsbury Rep. Karyn Polito, a Republican, ruled out tax increases to generate state income, and called instead for a reduction in administrative bureaucracy, improved efficiency, pension reform, a reduction in health care costs and a legislative focus on assisting business.
 
             Rep. Tom Conroy said he’d like to see the state invest its pension funds in local banks—rather than out-of-state—which would then use the money to provide small business loans.
 
             Rep. Pam Richardson spoke of the need to keep within MetroWest all of the hotel taxes collected locally and use the funds to develop a MetroWest tourism bureau that would benefit local cultural groups. “It’s going to be tough to get done, but it would have big impact,” she said.
 
             Other legislators who attended the forum and participated in a question and answer session included Rep. Carolyn Dykema, Rep. Danielle Gregoire, Rep. Alice Peisch, and Rep. Tom Sannicandro.

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