As November rapidly approaches the question is will people come out to vote? Do they remember how City Council represented or did not represent their best interest? Westfield has a great opportunity this November to elect a city council that represents the needs of Westfield residents. There is no shortage on challenges for the next round of councilors.
Westfield overwhelmingly showed up and participated at the council budget hearing and made it clear that they were over taxed. In fact Westfield tax has increased every year for ten years with the one exception of last year. Some residents show tax bills that more than doubled. Unfortunately most of the city council decided that those viewpoints were not important and just wanted to increase the annual budget. Some suggested that perhaps residents shouldn’t go out to eat or allow Westfield to place a lien on your home to defer your taxes under “a special program”. Sadly the councilors that do represent the citizens for fiscal responsibility came up short by one vote to make any real difference. At the end of the day only about $250,000 was cut and residents will end up with about a five to six percent increase in taxes and businesses slightly more than that.
Another challenge is the infrastructure. You would assume with that much in taxes Westfield would be a utopia. Sadly that is also not the case. Westfield has the fourth largest amount of roads in the state and it is underfunded to start with, even some of that funding is diverted to other projects that I would call “would like to have list” and not a “must be done list”. Several police cars and DPW trucks are also at their end of life and need to be replaced and we have little transparency on how that will be funded. Just recently Westfield Fire Department had to start making a detour as they were not legally allowed over Little River Bridge until a waiver is approved. The bridge was supposed to be fixed a while ago with aid of the state but that did not happen and no one at City Hall followed up on the issue. This oversight at worst could have put people’s lives at risk and at a minimum could cause residents insurance premiums to increase because of the detour by the fire department. It was not until a story broke out on the Westfield Forums that this issue gained any traction. This is not how day to day oversight should work in city government.
What Westfield needs is fiscally responsible leaders that will actually make the hard calls to protect the residents and businesses alike. If we build the most beautiful city in Massachusetts but no one can afford the taxes it is a moot point. To make a vibrant down town we need to attract family friendly business at a reasonable tax rate that complement the ArtWorks program and the many great dining establishments we already have. Let make downtown an entire night out instead of just dinner. The tax cost on a bowling alley or a Mom and Pop movie theater are just too expensive to attract.
Lastly people want transparency. Westfield is good in some aspects and not so good in other areas. When a resident is interested in an issue for the city council it is transparent. We have an agenda published in advance and the meeting is recorded in case you can’t make the meeting in person. When an issue or agenda item is sent to a subcommittee a person has to work hard to track that item to attend the meeting. Also those meetings are not recorded so you have no reference other than what the recommendation was and the vote outcome, which is then sent back to the city council.
My decision to run for City Council was based on repairing the relationship between City Government and the businesses and residents of Westfield. To bring back transparency and most importantly fiscal responsibility.
Please come downtown on October 19th to a new local establishment, Stella’s at 110 Elm Street Westfield for my next meet and greet to discuss the issues that concern you. I ask for your vote come November to take them on and make Westfield great again.
My decision to run for City Council was based on repairing the relationship between City Government and the businesses and residents of Westfield. To bring back transparency and most importantly fiscal responsibility.
Please come downtown on October 19th from 6-9pm to a new local establishment, Stella’s at 110 Elm Street Westfield for my next meet and greet to discuss the issues that concern you. I ask for your vote come November to bring a fresh perspective to the City of Westfield.
Jeff Chagnon
Candidate for Westfield City Council at large
