I hope everyone had a nice Easter. It was a great weekend. The Run Westfield road race last Saturday was an excellent event for our city. I see it growing every year until it surpasses the Holyoke St. Patrick’s road race. Congratulations to all who ran, walked, or had a part in planning and executing the event.
Please join me in congratulating one of Westfield’s newest Eagle Scouts, Ben Pilgrim, of Boy Scouts of America Troop 820. I was pleased to attend his Court of Honor last Saturday.
On Tuesday the State House was overrun by farmers in the annual “Agriculture Day” on Beacon Hill. From dairy farmers to cranberry growers, cheese makers to maple syrup producers, livestock to Christmas tree growers, shellfish to flowers, people employed by or involved in the agriculture industry descended on the capitol to educate policy makers about the importance of what they do from feeding our constituents to preserving land to caring for animals. It is one of the largest lobby days on the hill and it is a sight to behold.
While the House was in session on Wednesday giving initial approval to a bill that would increase Chapter 90 road and bridge money for cities and towns another rally was taking place on the Boston Common and outside the House chamber. Pro-Second Amendment groups came to Boston to remind their government that the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by no less a document than the United States Constitution. I have always been proud to support this common sense issue as a responsible, law abiding gun owner myself. And I was very happy to see several bus loads of my constituents from Westfield Sportsman’s Club and Western Mass.
I saw a quote from someone at the rally who said, “Taking firearms away from law abiding citizens to stop gun crimes is like taking cars away from sober people to stop drunk drivers.” I couldn’t agree more.
The House is taking up a Transportation Financing plan on April 8. You might have heard about this. The House version is less than the $1.9 billion in tax increases that Governor Patrick wanted but is still $500 million in new taxes. The bill would raise the gasoline tax by $.03 per gallon, increase taxes on cigarettes, and tax certain business transactions.
Unfortunately, it would not seek to find any efficiencies in the current $33 billion state budget such as reforming EBT or denying publicly subsidized welfare, housing, or college tuition benefits to those ineligible to receive them. My caucus intends to offer an alternative transportation plan, debate this bill, and offer amendments next week but at this point, despite my support for making transportation infrastructure a budget priority, I am strongly opposed to the legislation.
So, I entitled my column this week “Theft Equals Delays” because of an email I got from Joe Spinelli of R. Bates & Sons. Joe’s company has been working on the Pochassic Road Bridge demolition and construction. Along with Mayor Knapik, City Engineer Mark Cressotti, Senator Knapik, and MASS DOT officials, I have been working with Joe to try to expedite the project. All the work we’ve done can be so easily undone by a few knuckleheads. Read Joe’s letter below and see for yourself:
Don,
Bringing you up to speed on what’s going on at the bridge.
Our weekend demolition St. Patrick’s Day weekend went well. We removed the entire bridge deck and most of the steel beams. 3 days later on Wednesday we set up a 160 ton crane in the Pioneer Valley Railroad Yard and the 86 foot girders were removed and loaded on trucks off to the scrap yard.
Last week we continued demolition by partially removing the large railroad blocks that make up the abutments to make room for the new concrete. Last Friday we took delivery of the rebar and we were well on our way to pour the first concrete of the new bridge this weekend.
That is until someone stole all our rebar over the Easter weekend and Monday night. Our concrete crews, instead of forming and installing rebar, were left trying to figure out what we were missing. I contacted 8 scrap yards in the Springfield area and CT, gave them a description, and told them to call me if they find it walking in through their door.
Rebar is custom shaped for each job. Unfortunately, you do not buy this at Home Depot. It is extremely expensive and it takes time to roll and shape it. It was a significant blow.
This afternoon, I got the call I was waiting for. The manager of one of the scrap yards has our rebar. The thief cashed it in last night for a lousy $X in scrap value. The dollar value to us was around $X and the time we lost puts our loss way above that. I do not know as of this writing if they have everything or if the present condition will be acceptable to the DOT to use.
The short of the matter is the effort spent to accelerate the demo on all our parts was neutralized by 1 guy. We have the guy on video tape. We have his driver’s license. World’s dumbest criminal! The Westfield Police will be picking him up tomorrow. The thief has no idea that we know who he is but he’ll be finding out shortly.
Instead of concrete this week, we’ll be lucky to get the first pour 10 days from now.
The irony of the matter is the guys who are building this bridge will never use the bridge (as most of us live 100+ miles away). This is for the benefit of the people of Westfield. The same people who would benefit from its opening are the ones who find it necessary to steal job materials. Back in February somebody stole all our brand new extension cords.
These extension cords were plugged into the heaters used to keep the concrete warm at night when we poured the concrete footings for the pedestrian bridge in cold weather. Stealing $100 of new cords (now in somebody’s garage) jeopardizes tens of thousands of dollars of work and delays if the concrete should freeze and loose all its strength.
The guys all ask, “Why do we work Saturdays and Sundays for people who treat us like this?” I know this does not represent the majority of people in Westfield. So it’s for the majority that we work the long hours.
I wish I had better news to report. We’ve been working hard, but without our rebar, we really have been stuck in neutral. If this is what we are up against, it’s going to be a long road. We are installing more cameras and signage. Additional police patrols would be helpful.
If you could drop a line to Westfield PD, please let them know that this kid needs to be made an example of, throw the book at him. It’s tough not to be upset on this one.
Regards,
Joe Spinelli, R. Bates and Sons, Inc
Sterling, MA
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of the Westfield News.
Representative Don Humason and his Chief of Staff Maura Cassin may be reached at their Westfield District Office, 64 Noble Street, Westfield, MA 01085, (413) 568-1366.
Representative Don Humason may be reached at his Boston office, State House Room 542, Boston, MA 02133, (617) 722-2803.
Email address: [email protected]
Website: www.DonHumason.org