WESTFIELD – The City Council approved a motion last night from At-large Councilor Dan Allie to send a letter thanking Governor Charlie Baker for increasing Chapter 90 funding to local communities.
Allie said that one of the first acts Baker took after being sworn into office last week was to order the state Department of Transportation to release of an additional $100 million to cities and towns.
Allie said that Westfield will receive an additional $660,000 in its Chapter m90 funding this fiscal year.
The funding was contained in a $12.5 billion transportation bond approved by the Legislature last March. That bond authorization included $300 million for local road maintenance.
Allie said former Gov. Deval Patrick cut that funding to $200 million and that Westfield received $1.2 million in its Chapter 90 allocation. Baker’s order to the MassDOT released the remaining $100 million to communities.
“Funds for road maintenance and local aid are critical to providing services and balancing our city budget,” Allie said in his motion to send the letter recognizing Baker’s action benefiting Westfield.
“We do not have enough money to maintain our roads, or tackle long-overdue projects such as Papermill Road (improvements) and cannot keep raising property taxes to make up for cuts in state funding.” Allie said.
“I believe that it is entirely appropriate for this City Council to send a letter to our new governor thanking him for his leadership in providing this funding and making road maintenance a high priority,” Allie said.
The council members endorsed Allie’s motion with an unanimous voice vote and requested Allie to submit a draft letter to Council President Brian Sullivan for his signature.
Allie also thanked city voters who supported a non-binding local referendum question on the November ballot. Allie collected the required signatures to place the referendum questions on the ballot.
One question called for release of the $100 million not released by Patrick and the other called for the restoration of local aid, in particular restoration of lottery, established in the ’70s with the express purpose of returning money to the Commonwealth’s municipalities.
The state has diverted lottery funding to support state spending and cut local aid, requiring communities to rely heavily on property tax revenue to balance local budgets.
“I want to thank the voters in Westfield for supporting these questions by a four to one margin in November,” Allie said last night.
