Stephanie Bergman
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Local small-business owners climb on Tea Party bandwagon 4/15/2010
BOSTON – Seventeen small-business owners from Northampton, ranging from a sheet metal purveyor to a forklift mechanic, joined thousands of Tea Partiers Wednesday on Boston Common to hear Sarah Palin speak and support the Tea Party movement.
The group, organized by self-described political newcomer John Rhoades of Northampton, took a two-hour bus ride Wednesday morning to demonstrate for smaller government and less taxes. “Bigger government doesn’t mean people will be better off,” said Rhoades.
Addressing roughly 5,000 people, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee accused President Barack Obama of overreaching with his $787 billion stimulus program. She also criticized the administration’s health care, student loan and financial regulatory overhauls.
“Is this what their ‘change’ is all about?” Palin asked the crowd on a sun-splashed Boston Common. “I want to tell ‘em, nah, we’ll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion – and you can keep the change.”
She also played to the crowd by trotting out a trademark line as she lobbied for more domestic energy production.
“Yeah, let’s drill, baby, drill, not stall, baby, stall – you betcha,” Palin said, though Obama recently proposed to expand drilling off the Atlantic, and Gulf coasts.
Rhoades carried a sign with a picture of Barack Obama dressed as King George III of England that said “King George didn’t listen to us either.” Rhoades said he was concerned about possible backlash from customers in Northampton who disagree with his politics, but felt he had to come to the rally anyway. “We have to come here because they don’t come to us,” said Rhoades. “Apparently, Massachusetts ends at (Route) 495.”
David Fortier of Northampton agreed. “We have to travel to hear what they have to say, but it’s very important,” he said. “I’ve never been a very political person, but I was better off 25 years ago.”
Dianne Galvagni of North Hatfield shares Fortier’s concerns. “I’ve been in business for 29 years, and I don’t think we’ll make it to 30,” she said. Galvagni, who runs Industrial Sheet Metal in Hatfield, carried a sign saying “Stop Spending My Grandson’s Money” on one side and “small business owner taxed to death” on the other.
Galvagni said she had never been to a protest before and was encouraged to go to the Tea Party rally by Rhoades. She said she had not been able to go to an earlier rally held in Hartford, Conn., and so decided to come to this event.
Galvagni said her main concern was the high tax rates she said are hurting her business. Galvagni’s husband, Gary, said the difficulty of actually filling out tax forms is as onerous as the costs of the taxes themselves. “It’s like a shell game, and the rules keep changing,” said Gary Galvagni, a sheet metal worker. “It just makes more money for the accountants.”
Gary Savard of West Hatfield, who owns G and S Industrial, which services forklifts blocks away from the Galvagnis, also has problems with the tax code. “Taxes are out of control,” he said. “And then there are the new fees when they can’t raise taxes.”
Though many Tea Party protesters cited the health care reform bill as a major reason to get involved, the Galvagnis were less concerned than disappointed with its implementation. “Health insurance costs are through the roof,” said Gary Galvagni. “They were supposed to go down.”
Many at the rally declined to give any identifying information about themselves, citing concerns about possible retribution. A man holding a sign calling for a Sarah Palin/Paris Hilton presidential ticket called himself Ned Hill and claimed to be from Bearscat, Alaska, but made a reference to taking the Greyhound bus to Boston from western Massachusetts.
Tea partiers planned to meet for a final rally in Washington today, coinciding with the federal tax-filing deadline.
Dianne Galvagni said she worried about the impact her political views could have on her business.
“In Northampton you have to be careful what you say to customers because if they are liberal they won’t be customers anymore,” said Galvagni.
Most of the people at the Tea Party rally said they were either unemployed or self-employed, and so were able to come to Boston in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. Local Republican leader Christopher Casale said he wanted to go, but had to work instead. “Generally people around here are working,” said Casale, of Northampton.
Savard said he resented the tax burden he carries because he believes much of his taxes pay for programs in the more populous Boston area. “All we do is pay for eastern Mass and every now and then we get a little trickle,” said Savard.
Dianne Galvagni said she did not understand why the state and federal governments had such large deficits and budget shortfalls. “If I can’t afford something, I don’t buy it,” she said.
Rhoades and Fortier stressed the importance of common sense in government and spoke about the importance of small-business owners to the state of Massachusetts.
“As a collective, we’re probably the biggest employer in the state,” said Fortier. “We may not be much as one, but as a whole, we’re a lot.”
http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/04/15/local-small-business-owners-climb-tea-party-bandwagon
Attleboro Area residents among crowd wowed at tea party in Hub 4/15/2010
BOSTON – Attleboro City Councilor Cherie Felos took her children Liza, 11, and William, 10, out of school Wednesday for a live civics lesson at the tea party rally in Boston.
“This is an educational experience,” said Felos, who joined her family waving poster board signs calling for lower taxes.
Felos said she went to the rally because of dismay with the national health care reform law.
“I don’t like the process they used to pass it,” said Felos, who represents Ward 1 in the city. “I didn’t like the secret deals with individual states, with individual interest groups.”
Felos dismissed the notion that the Massachusetts health care law was substantially like the national plan, saying she opposed the Massachusetts law, too. “We’re going to find it’s going to eat up our state budget,” Felos said.
The federal health care law also motivated Charles Campbell, 69, of Norton to attend the rally.
“Congress and the president aren’t listening to the American people,” Campbell said. “We want smaller government and lower taxes.”
Mike Mayer, of Norton, said he came to the rally because he was concerned about corruption in government and what he called “anti-American policies,” though he declined to say what these policies are.
“This government is leading us down a road we don’t want to go on,” said Mayer, an unemployed carpenter. “These policies don’t represent what I think is traditional America.”
While saying “I’m all for apple pie, baseball and my grandparents’ America,” Mayer said he wondered if the federal government really represents America.
“The whole thing makes you miss Joe McCarthy,” he said, referring to the Wisconsin senator most remembered for leading Communist witch hunts in the federal government during the 1950s.
Others at the rally called for civility.
Susan Leslie of the Unitarian Universalist Association Office for Congregational Advocacy & Witness lead a march called ‘Standing on the Side of Love’ that included members of Unitarian Universalist churches across Eastern Massachusetts and some Attleboro residents.
“We’re here to say there is room for the tea party, but there is no space for racism, anti-immigrant sentiment or homophobia,” said Leslie of Cambridge. “It’s really important to say that is not OK.” Others shared that sentiment, but cast blame in other directions.
“If you see someone using a racist word, most likely that person is someone from the left,” said Chip Faulkner of Wrentham, associate director of the tax watchdog group Citizens for Limited Taxation.
The accusation was repeated by seven others at the rally, despite the Tea Party Express booth that included a poster of President Barack Obama dressed in a “pimp” outfit handing money to a scantily clad Nancy Pelosi and addressing her as “ho-ney.”
Tea Party Express leader Donald La Combe of Sacramento proudly claimed the poster was a favorite on the national tea party tour.
“People love it,” La Combe said.
Some of the estimated 2,000 to 4,000 attendees at the rally included counter demonstrators who carried signs that were often humorous and sometimes offensive.
“Hussien Obama is stealing our precious bodily fluids,” said one, referencing the paranoid rantings of the fictional Air Force Gen. Jack D. Ripper in the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”
Another had an image of two elephants in an obscene position with one labeled Sarah and the other Sean Hannity.
Mayer pointed out a sign saying ‘Fascism? Are we there yet?’ with a stuffed donkey on top of it, and complained it was attacking the tea party movement. When informed the donkey is the symbol for the Democratic Party, Mayer said it expressed a feeling of unhappiness many tea party followers feel.
“Well, that isn’t totally wrong,” Mayer said. “People are upset, and this poster shows how upset they are.”
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/04/15/news/7252110.txt
Unions make gambling case
BOSTON – Chanting “we want jobs,” almost 300 union members showed their support for expanded gambling in Massachusetts on Wednesday, lobbying legislators, while gambling opponents held their own news conference.
“This is about jobs, not about whether or not you believe in gambling,” said Gary DeCosta of Randolph, Southeastern Massachusetts’ regional manager for the carpenters’ union. “We need destination casinos with the hotels and theaters.”
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, is expected to unveil his plan today to allow two casinos and slot machines at four racetracks, including Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville.
DeCosta said building the casinos would provide work for union members that is badly needed because of the slump in new construction.
“It’s not just the carpenters, not just the electricians,” said DeCosta. “All the building trades are here to support the proposal, because it would create jobs here.” State Rep. Martin Walsh, D- Dorchester, told the rally he expected expanded gambling to create jobs that are “up and running almost immediately.”
“In construction, a six-month job is a full-time job, because when it’s over, you go to another job,” Walsh said.
State Rep. Bill Bowles, D- Attleboro, agreed.
“We are looking at over 1,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs,” Bowles said after the rally. “Slots are not the answer to all our economic needs, but they are a start.”
DeCosta said he thought the bill was a good start, but hoped for more casinos.
“I think three is the best number,” DeCosta said. “If there are only two, Southeastern Massachusetts might be left out.”
Debate over expanded gambling has been simmering for a long time.
Bowles dismissed concerns over the possibility of increased gambling addiction in Massachusetts if casinos and slots are allowed.
“We have a lot of people addicted to tobacco, getting sick and dying, and that’s a shame,” Bowles said. “The legal right to gamble is free choice, like smoking.”
Opponents also descended on the Statehouse to voice their objections. “Predatory gambling shifts wealth from players to casinos,” Kathleen Conley Norbut, president of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, told a smaller Statehouse rally. “How will Massachusetts residents benefit by losing money to casino billionaires?”
Norbut described DeLeo’s anticipated bill as the “super secret slots” plan that was moving too fast.
“Legislators and the governor do not know what is in the bill,” she said.
Although her husband is a carpenter who has had to travel to New Jersey for work, Norbut said she opposed unions that favor the gambling bill for job growth.
Norbut said local jobs would be lost if casinos are allowed in Massachusetts.
“Where is the voice for the jobs that will be lost?” she said.
Although Norbut also cited possible damage to state lottery revenues, she later said she opposed the Lottery as well.
“The lottery is a form of predatory gambling where the revenues are returned to the state,” Norbut said.
Smoking in senior housing a burning issue 3/26/10
Area lawmakers and housing officials are questioning whether a proposed law to limit smoking in state-assisted senior housing infringes on smokers’ personal freedom.
“How can they say to people, ‘you can’t smoke in your own home?’” said state Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro. “Smoking is legal.”
The proposal, sponsored by state Reps. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer, and Theodore Speliotis, D-Peabody, would require larger senior housing complexes to dedicate at least one building as smoke-free. Smaller facilities would need to ban smoking in at least 20 percent of the rooms. Those living in other units would be able to continue smoking in their rooms.
The bill has been reported out of committee, but does not seem to be a high priority for this session as no vote has been scheduled.
State Rep. Bill Bowles, D-Attleboro, acknowledged smoking in multi-unit housing can be a problem, but he said individuals should have the right to smoke if they want. “It can be an issue when smoke from one unit permeates another unit,” Bowles said. “But it still is in someone’s private home. We should not be banning anything in a private home.”
John Zambarano, executive director of the Attleboro Housing Authority, agreed.
“If someone does smoke, I support their right to personal choice,” Zambarano said.
Current policy for state-assisted housing in Attleboro allows for smoking in private apartment units but bans smoking in common areas like laundry rooms and meeting spaces.
Zambarano said most of the tenants of the Attleboro Housing Authority deals with are non-smokers, mirroring society at large.
“These days, most people in most communities experience fewer smokers,” he said.
Zambarano also said he did not think a law was necessary to deal with the few complaints he receives from tenants about smoking.
Poirier agreed.
“I had a constituent once who lived in a building where another senior smoked and the smell permeated the apartment, but I just remember the one complaint,” she said. “I think it’s a matter of personal freedom, even though I know people can be sensitive to the smell.”
State Rep. Steven D’Amico, D-Seekonk, supports the bill. “I think anything you can do to get people to stop smoking is good for them and good for society,” he said.
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/03/26/news/7158025.txt
Bullying bill 3/4/2010
BOSTON – Hampshire County lawmakers say the suicide of a 15-year-old South Hadley girl is the main impetus behind an anti-bullying bill that would require schools to take steps to avoid future tragedies.
All agree, though, that the legislation – which is expected to prevail – is coming late.
“It’s unfortunate that it has taken tragedies to get us to focus on this issue,” said state Rep. John Scibak, D-South Hadley. “I don’t think that when people think of bullying, they think it could lead to suicide. But obviously it can.”
The bill, introduced by state Sen. James Eldridge, D-Acton, recently passed muster with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education. It would ban bullying at schools and school properties; at school-related events; on school buses and at bus stops; through school-owned electronics; and other locations and electronic devices if the school environment is affected, according to a report in the Boston Globe.
The bill, S228, would also designate teachers as mandated reporters and require training for autistic children on how to deal with bullying. It is now in the hands of the Senate.
Eldridge filed the bill after the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, a freshman at South Hadley High School who moved there from Ireland in the fall. Prince hanged herself after enduring taunts about her accent and her brief relationship with a senior on the football team. A number of students have left the school following her death, but school officials would not specify whether they had left of their own volition or if they had been expelled. No criminal charges have been filed.
In a separate case in early 2009, sixth-grader Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, 12, of Springfield, hanged himself with an extension cord after he was subjected to bullying at school.
It’s been tried before
There have been several attempts to pass anti-bullying laws in Massachusetts before, most recently in 2008. None succeeded, however, and several legislators noted that the push behind this bill was strengthened by the recent, high-profile suicides.
“The Legislature is a reactive body,” said state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst. “If there had been a drunk-driving accident, we would be working on a bill about drunk driving. Now that there have been bullying tragedies, we have a bullying bill when it’s too late.”
But Story said the bill took the right approach in focusing on ways to teach younger students the consequences of bullying.
“We need to go deeper, start in preschool and teach kids to treat others as they’d like to be treated,” she said. “Kids can absolutely understand that being nice to each other is important. Adults have more trouble understanding that.”
Story said solving the bullying problem is an essential part of improving education as a whole.
“The schools that come the closest to erasing the achievement gap between privileged and less-privileged students have three things in common: zero tolerance for bullying, universally high expectations and home visits by teachers,” said Story.
Pushing for change
State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D- Amherst, said he had been pressuring the Joint Committee on Education to pass a bullying bill for a year, since he received a call from parents who were worried about their child, who they said was being bullied. The Senate will begin debating the bill in the next two weeks, and is expected to pass it quickly, according to Rosenberg.
“There are 8,000 to 12,000 bills pending at any given time,” said Rosenberg. “All the bills have to be studied. Unfortunately, it takes something like this to move from the regular pace to an accelerated pace.”
State Sen. Michael Knapik, R-Westfield, said he supports the bill because he is a father.
“Picking on kids just tugs at the heartstrings,” said Knapik. “You always hope that when your child is in a time of need and goes to the appropriate authorities, he isn’t blown off. It takes senseless tragedies to motivate Beacon Hill.”
Forty-one states have anti-bullying laws; 13 have provisions that ban cyberbullying as well. The bill would give school districts the ability to punish students who use the Internet and technology to bully others.
“The bill is an excellent step forward,” said Gus Sayer, superintendent of the South Hadley School District. “It’s giving us some authority over what students do on the Internet. Before, we didn’t have jurisdiction over that.”
Sayer said the school district is looking at the discipline code to determine a fair punishment for those caught cyberbullying. He hopes the district would use the cyberbullying provisions of the bill to help with the investigation into the bullying that occurred in the time leading up to Phoebe Prince’s death.
Where are the parents?
Though state Sen. Gale D. Candaras, D-Wilbraham, supports the bill, she said schools should not bear the sole responsibility for dealing with bullies.
“Parents have to step up to the plate,” said Candaras. “We shouldn’t be making the teachers parent; they’re there to teach.”
Candaras said schools should be able to expel any students caught bullying.
“It’s a crying shame that schools have been very reluctant to call parents down and say, #Your child is a bully. You have to do something,’” she said. “Attending a public school should be a privilege. If you are not capable of conforming your behavior to acceptable norms, you need to find somewhere else to go to school.”
Candaras said bullying should have criminal penalties and the names of those who bully should be released to the public.
“I can’t imagine why this young woman is dead and we are protecting the bullies,” said Candaras. “Even after this girl died, there were youngsters who wanted to speak out, and they were bullied. One girl was on the news; she was shoved into a locker.”
But Candaras is concerned how the schools will be able to afford the required changes, including a provision that creates a position to oversee the creation of an anti-bullying curriculum. However, she plans to vote for the bill anyway.
“The bill is a step in the right direction,” said Candaras. “I would like to be able to see funding go with it, even though this is not the year for funding requests.”
Sayer, the South Hadley school superintendent, says the bill is needed now.
“Certainly it’s the right time to pass this bill,” said Sayer. “For us, it’s a few weeks too late.”
http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/03/04/tragedy-propels-new-law-anti-bullying-bill-expected-pass?SESS4cb3aec7c0fa146124cc67c0169c96ad=gsearch
Time to evacuate two state holidays? 3/18/2010
BOSTON – While most state workers took Evacuation Day off, Senate Republicans met Wednesday in the Senate minority leader’s office in protest of the semi-holiday that coincides with St. Patrick’s Day and provides a paid day off for state workers.
State Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro, said it was unfair that only state workers can take the day off. “All the people back in my district are working today,” Poirier said.
Evacuation Day commemorates the moment on March 17, 1776, when British troops retreated from a challenge posed by the Continental Army massing in South Boston.
Outside of Suffolk County, state workers receive two floating days off rather than March 17 for Evacuation Day and June 17 for Bunker Hill Day, which commemorates the pivotal 1775 battle that resulted in significant British casualties and set the stage for the American Revolution.
On Wednesday, Republicans made a point of taking up other issues in their session, meeting for an hour with Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer and National Federation of Independent Businesses State Director Bill Vernon about employment issues. Poirier said she was working with the governor’s office to bring a “major company” to the Attleboro area, but would not identify the company or what is being done to attract it to Massachusetts.
Vernon, a former state representative from Mansfield, was critical of government efforts to foster job creation through the use of tax credits.
“I don’t think there is a lot of understanding in the Statehouse about what it takes to add a job,” he said in response to questions from the Republicans. “A job tax credit is going to be spent mostly on companies that are going to hire, anyway. A one-time $2,500 isn’t going to induce you to create a job.”
Neither Vernon nor Widmer took questions from the media. Widmer left the meeting before the press was allowed into the room.
But the subject the Republicans kept veering back to was Evacuation Day. Widmer calculated it and Bunker Hill Day cost the state $5 million in overtime costs out of a state budget of $28.2 billion.
Sen. Michael Knapik, R-Westfield, acknowledged that the move to get rid of the holidays was largely symbolic, but claimed it was still an important move.
“These two holidays are an insult to taxpayers,” Knapik said.
Opposition to the holidays was not limited to Republicans.
Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Belmont, stopped by the minority leader’s office to call Evacuation Day a “high holy hack holiday.”
Gov. Deval Patrick – who favors repealing the holidays – invited reporters to a meeting on local workforce development efforts, before heading off to sit down with the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association. Michael Smith, communications director for Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei, R-Wakefield, said a bill to end the holidays was likely to pass if given a vote.
Smith blamed Sen. Eugene O’Flaherty, D-Chelsea, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for keeping the bill from a House vote.
O’Flaherty had asked that the bill be given further study, effectively killing it for this session.
Republicans promised to introduce the legislation as an amendment to the budget to get a vote.
While criticizing Evacuation Day, the Republicans did endorse St. Patrick’s Day. They all wore some item of green on honor of the day and provided green-frosted cake and cookies.
“Today is not about Irish history,” Knapik said, referring to the fact that Evacuation Day falls on the same day as St. Patrick’s Day. “I’ve got green socks on today – you’ve got to love the Irish. But it’s not about the Irish, it’s about the taxpayers.”
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/03/18/news/7118708.txt
Sales tax cut a tough sell 2/22/10
Several area lawmakers say a proposed November ballot question to cut the state sales tax from 6.5 percent to 3 percent would drastically imperil the fiscal health of the state.
“If the measure passes, we will be looking at catastrophic cuts,” said Rep. Steve D’Amico, D-Seekonk. “This is putting our economic recovery at stake, putting our children’s future at stake.”
The Center for Small Government, a libertarian group, needs to collect 11,099 signatures to get the proposal onto the ballot over the objections of the state Legislature, which rejected the measure.
D’Amico said if the sales tax were reduced to 3 percent, the state would face $2 billion in lost revenue.
He said the drop would mean cuts to school building funds and the MBTA because sales tax revenue is partially devoted to those areas. A similar proposition to repeal the income tax failed in 2008, with almost 70 percent of voters opposed.
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said his group opposes the measure because the state could not afford to reduce the sales tax.
“Where would this money come from, what programs would be cut?” Widmer said. “We’ve already had two, three, four rounds of cuts.”
Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, agrees.
“Most people, knowing about the national economic crisis we are in the middle of, would see a cut of more than 50 percent of the sales tax is not sustainable,” Pacheco said.
Rep. Jay Barrows, R-Mansfield, expressed concern about cutting local aid, as “communities would be tasked to make up the shortfall.”
“I don’t think we can cut our communities’ local aid amount, nor can we cut the Chapter 70 money,” Barrows said.
Rep. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, agrees.
“We may end up hurting the services we depend on in the long run if we’re not careful,” Ross said.
Barrows said the proposed cut to 3 percent “might be too far, but the taxpayers are getting a little upset. They’re not seeing the same steps that folks have had to take at home.” Both Ross and Barrows expressed that returning the sales tax rate to 5 percent would be better than dropping it to 3 percent.
D’Amico suggested a political angle to the proposal.
He noted the 2010 election is expected to bring substantially more challenges to incumbents, and said he suspected the timing of the proposal is meant to help those challengers.
“The cheapest way to buy a vote is with a tax cut,” D’Amico said.
D’Amico said politicians who support the measure would be putting “political self-interest over public good.”
George Phillies, state chairman of the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts, disagrees.
Phillies said a cut in the sales tax would be a good thing, especially during a recession.
“This is not a time for the folks in Boston to be putting another tax on people’s wallets,” he said.
Phillies downplayed budget difficulties the state could face if the measure passes.
“There are things that the state government does that it could gracefully back out of,” said Phillies, citing wages of state employees as an area of cost savings, as well as an end to the state’s health care mandate.
The Center for Small Government Web site does not offer suggestions for specific cuts, but does offer options for cutting health care costs by reforming malpractice insurance for doctors and allowing price advertising for pharmacies.
Gambling’s pros, cons discussed on the Hill 2/10/10
BOSTON – Anticipating new efforts to expand gambling in Massachusetts, opponents and proponents held separate Statehouse meetings Tuesday to talk up efforts to help those with gambling problems, and to talk down casinos and slots as a economic panacea.
“We know they are giving it a very serious look this time around,” said Steve O’Toole, general manager of Plainridge racecourse in Plainville. “Whatever they let us expand into, that’s what we’ll expand into. But there isn’t a bill yet.”
O’Toole’s comments came after a session sponsored by the Massachusetts Partnership for Responsible Gambling to release recommendations on dealing with compulsive gambling and associated problems.
The partnership is made up of executives from the gaming industry and representatives from the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling.
“Whether casinos come in or don’t come in, there is gambling, and we need to deal with it,” said Kathleen Scanlan, the council’s executive director. Funds for council come from the state and from a percentage of the profits of gambling institutions in Massachusetts. The state contribution for fiscal year 2010 was cut from $1 million to $500,000, and low profits from racetracks have also reduced the group’s budget.
An estimated 1 percent of gamblers are problem gamblers, according to Scanlan.
Jeff Hartman, chief operating officer of the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, said he trains his employees to recognize customers who seem addicted and the casino has a monitoring system that prevents those on a list of known gambling addicts from withdrawing money from ATMs or using credit cards to gamble within the casino.
“It’s a social responsibility issue,” Hartman said. “Preying on individuals is not a long-term strategy.”
O’Toole agreed.
“We are going to expand responsibly, in a way that makes our host community of Plainville proud,” he said.
But others at the meeting took a less kindly view of the gambling industry’s efforts.
“The most predatory industry in the United States today is the gambling industry,” said Kathleen Norbut, president of United to Stop Slots of Massachusetts, who decried studies funded by the gambling industry showing that Massachusetts would gain $200 million in revenue with expanded gambling.
“The gambling industry is selling a product designed to exploit and addict people,” said Norbut, who called for independent studies of the costs and benefits of expanded gambling.
Her group also handed out packets entitled, “Casino math booklet workbook for Beacon Hill” that included figures showing the negative impact of expanded gambling, such as crime and bankruptcies. “When we say, ‘Well, people go to other states to gamble, and we lose money,’ it’s like saying we lose money when people go to Disney World,” said Robert Goodman, a professor at Hampshire College. “It’s like legislators saying, ‘Let’s replicate Disney.’ It isn’t a good idea.”
Is the bottle half full? Bottle bill story 2/8/10
Local business owners are guardedly positive about a proposal to expand the types of drink containers that would require a five-cent deposit – despite possible costs to them.
“Anything that forces people to recycle more is good,” said Michael Benjamin, owner of Rehoboth House of Pizza. “There is way too much waste going on.”
The current law applies only to soda and beer cans and bottles.
Under Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to expand the “bottle bill,” consumers would be charged a nickle deposit on an additional 1.6 billion beverage containers for water, coffee, tea, fruit juices and energy drinks.
The goal is to spur recycling, but also to boost state coffers. Benjamin said distributors would charge him an extra nickel for containers eligible for deposit, but he said he would not pass the cost along to his customers.
“We would lose the extra nickel, but it wouldn’t affect me much,” said Benjamin, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife Fatima.
Varsha Patel, owner of Sun Market in Attleboro, disagrees.
“I am going to have to raise the customer’s price,” Patel said. “We don’t sell without checking the price we pay. I can’t just stop selling.”
Joe Kvilhaug, director of financial services for Wredemco, a redemption center based in Wrentham, said the proposed expansion would increase his business and could enable him to hire more workers.
“Our volume would definitely increase, and we would be able to justify hiring with enough volume,” Kvilhaug said. “We would have to get additional space, and a lot depends on how much more money we would be paying in rent.”
Under the current container law, redemption centers are reimbursed 7.25 cents by the distributor for every nickel they refund customers who return cans and bottles.
The bottle bill began as an anti-littering initiative more than two decades ago, and now covers about 2.35 billion containers per year, according to Greg Cooper, deputy division director of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
Patrick’s budget proposal estimates the state could make an additional $20 million from unclaimed deposits on bottles and cans not currently covered by the law.
The governor’s budget would use $5 million of the new revenue for recycling programs. DEP estimates that 70 percent of containers now eligible are redeemed. Applying that formula, the state expects to collect a nickle each on 30 percent of newly eligible containers – a total of about $24 million.
“In these instances when the consumer does not redeem the deposit, the unclaimed bottle deposit goes back to the state,” Cooper said. “After all, they certainly aren’t the distributor’s nickels.”
One local lawmaker is leery of the proposal.
“I think recycling is working, so we don’t need another bill to raise the cost,” said Rep. Bill Bowles, D-Attleboro.
Bowles said the argument for the bill – particularly the $20 million or more in new revenue – indicates that the new provision would jeopardize the bottle bill’s original purpose.
“If the state gets $20 million, then people aren’t redeeming the bottle,” said Bowles. “It’s just another tax to charge somebody a nickel more for the bottle.”
Lawmakers oppose Vermont Yankee relicensing
BOSTON – Western Massachusetts legislators say recent reports of radioactive tritium leaking into groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant only reinforce their position that the Vermont Legislature should not renew the reactor’s operating license after it expires in 2012.
“Any facility producing any kind of energy is prone to having incidents, but especially with a 30-plus-year-old nuclear plant there is the potential for catastrophe,” said Rep. Denis Guyer, D-Dalton, one of four area lawmakers who signed a letter last month urging the Vermont Legislature to shut the plant down.
Vermont is the only state in the country where the Legislature will decide whether to relicense a nuclear plant. Vermont Yankee’s original 40-year license expires in 2012; owner Entergy is asking for 20 more years.
Guyer said the plant, 3 miles from the Massachusetts border and right across the Connecticut River from New Hampshire, affects Massachusetts and other New England states.
“This isn’t a state-by-state issue,” said Guyer. “Vermont Yankee is part of a regional grid, and we need to work on this as a region.”
In fact, all of Bernardston and Leyden and parts of five other Franklin County towns are inside Vermont Yankee’s emergency planning zone, an area with a 10-mile-radius surrounding the plant.
Rep. Steven Kulik, D-Worthington, represents a district he described as “immediately downwind” of Vermont Yankee. Kulik said his district “would bear a disproportionate brunt” of any fallout from a disaster at the plant, though because it is a Massachusetts district it will have no representative to argue in front of the Vermont Legislature.
Sen. Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, and Rep. Christopher Donelan, D-Orange, also signed the letter.
“The types of incidents that have occurred don’t give a person confidence that this 30-year-old plant can operate safely for another 20 years,” said Kulik.
Though news of the tritium leak broke after the letter had been drafted, both Guyer and Kulik said the leak was of major concern. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that new tests at a Vermont Yankee monitoring well registered 70,500 picocuries per liter, more than three times the federal safety standard of 20,000 picocuries per liter.
“It must have crossed in the mail,” said Kulik, referring to the timing of the news and the writing of the letter. “We certainly would have included that.”
The letter listed several incidents at the plant in the last several years, including the dropping of a cask of spent fuel, the collapse of a cooling tower and failures of alarm systems.
Kulik and Guyer both said that a new source of electricity would need to be found to compensate for the loss of Vermont Yankee, and said conservation and investment in alternative energies would bring the most gains.
Guyer brushed off any concern over possible job loss associated with closing the plant.
“Other projects picking up there would need workers, so the claim that we would lose jobs is just a scare tactic,” said Guyer, who said that no specific projects where planned for the area yet.
At the same time as local opposition to Vermont Yankee’s continued operation seems to be building, President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address last week, called for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” His 2011 budget request to Congress on Monday called for $54 billion in additional loan guarantees for nuclear power.
http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/02/02/lawmakers-oppose-plant-relicensing?SESSf94d5202ed3677ddf1694944ec70a18f=gsearch
Patrick praises Brockton students in State of the Commonwealth 1/22/10
BOSTON – Brockton High School students praised by Gov. Deval Patrick for their public service said they had no idea they would be such a big part of his State of the Commonwealth address.
“We were told there was a possibility that we’d be in it, but we had no idea he would say so much,” said Fabieny DePina, a junior at Brockton High. “It’s really amazing.”
DePina, along with senior Amber Gordon, found out Thursday morning that they had been invited to the State House to hear the speech.
The students are part of a group called Boxer Buddies that pairs special needs students from the Brockton school system with high school students. The name comes from the school’s sports teams’ name, the Boxers.
In his speech, Patrick recalled visiting the high school last spring and attending a meeting where student council members pitched Boxer Buddies idea.
“These young people didn’t sit around,” he said. “They found a need and met it. They have built a better, stronger community.”
Although Gordon and DePina are proud of Boxer Buddies, they were still surprised it was featured in Patrick’s speech.
“I was really so shocked,” said Gordon, who joined her principal, Susan Szachowicz and teachers Dianne Tarmey and Mary Collins for a dinner courtesy of State Sen. Tom Kennedy, D- Brockton.
http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/x1685419734/Patrick-praises-Brockton-students-in-State-of-the-State