WESTFIELD – On November 4, Massachusetts residents will stroll to the polls to cast their ballots for statewide referendums – chief among them whether or not the Commonwealth will repeal its automatic gas tax and casino laws – and who will succeed Deval Patrick as Governor in January.
Residents will also be faced with questions of a more local nature on their ballots in November, which will vary from district to district.
In Westfield, two public policy questions will be posed to city residents, asking whether or not they support requesting the city’s representatives in Boston to introduce and vote for legislation to return local aid and road maintenance funding to what it was in the fiscal year 2007.
The questions were placed on the ballot thanks in large part to the signature gathering efforts of at-large City Councilor Dan Allie, who will be on the ballot himself on Nov. 4 against incumbent state Rep. John Velis for the 4th Hampden District seat in a rematch of their April 1 special election.
Asked of the importance of the questions, Allie says they will show the city’s elected officials what they’re looking for out of them during the next session.
“It’s a matter of priorities. (The state) created that $12.5 billion transportation bond bill and the Governor (Deval Patrick) only allocated $200 million for road maintenance for the entire state,” said Allie. “The legislature wanted more and he (Patrick) dialed it back to $200 million. In Westfield, the budget to fix 400 miles of roads is $1.3 million, which will fix two miles.”
Regarding the need to restore the level of local aid the state’s cities and towns were receiving prior to the recession in 2007, Allie feels the earnings of the state’s lottery – created in the ’70s with the express purpose of returning money to the Commonwealth’s municipalities – need to be put toward intended purpose.
“(Lottery money) was supposed to be put toward education and to help lower our property taxes,” he said. “It’s money for education, how do you take that without all hell breaking loose? A lot of people didn’t know they (the state) were doing that.
“The state has taken $700 million out of the lottery over the last five years,” Allie said, who stated the two questions are ‘non-binding’ public policy questions.
“The representative doesn’t have to do anything. It’s really public opinion,” he continued. “It’s one way of the people to communicate to their state representative or senator that this is what they want and to ask them to vote accordingly.”
