I am beginning my column this month on a sad personal note. As some of you may be aware, the mother of my fiancée Amy Brown passed away on Memorial Day, at the young age of 54. Sandy Brown was a kind, loving, and caring woman, who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Her caring showed in her work of providing at home care for disabled individuals. She raised two intelligent, kind-hearted, and beautiful daughters, and helped to raise Amy’s two nieces, who have turned out to be much like their mother, aunt, and grandmother. She will be sorely missed. I want to take this opportunity on behalf of Amy and myself, to thank all those that have reached out with their message of sympathy and love. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers, they mean a lot to us in this difficult time.
Remembrance is an important thing when it comes to those that have done something extraordinary for us. I was disappointed to see that the Memorial Day parade was cancelled this year, even though I would have been unable to participate. There are those that say we should have gone through with it, I am not one. There are many children and elderly folks that participate in our annual parade, and the forecast was calling for heavy rain, and possible thunder storms. As important as this event is for our city, it would not be acceptable to put people’s health and safety at risk for this event. I was glad to note that Westfield properly honored those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, dying in service to our country, with a ceremony at South Middle School. Remembering those that served, especially those that perished for our freedoms should not be something we only do once a year.
Please note that budget season is here. There are a series of public meetings being held throughout the month of June, to allow citizens to hear what is going into the budget this year. Fortunately this year the Finance committeehas provided an opportunity for citizens to come out and speak on any individual budget item. The meeting times and locations will be noted on the city website CityofWestfield.org, please try to make it out to some of these meetings. It is important for the public to be involved in this process. As I have stated before, if you don’t let your elected officials know what you want from them, they will not address your concerns. I know it is asking a lot for people to come out, as we all have full schedules, and are busy with family, work, and life responsibilities, but please make an effort. I will have a difficult time supporting any budget that raises taxes, as I believe our city needs to first look at reducing spending, and bringing in new tax revenues by implementing policies that are friendly to small business owners.
Moving on to Ward 3 business, the issue of the Western Avenue bike lane was addressed at the last Council meeting. We received a decision from the city law department stating that it is the responsibility of abutting land owners to clear the bike lane of snow and leaves. By state law, the bike lane is considered a public roadway, and must be entirely cleared, all 11 feet of it from edge to edge. I think it is unacceptable to ask property owners, who did not ask for a bike lane to be installed or were against it to begin with, to take on this burden. There have been several proposals on how to address this situation, so they need to be examined and hashed out. The issue has fortunately landed in the City Properties committee, of which I am Chair. I will be scheduling a meeting of the committee sometime this fall. I believe it best to wait until the fall, as we are fast approaching the time when most folks are going on summer vacation.
I have been touring Ward 3 to note those streets in immediate need of repair. I am in the process of making up a list to send to the DPW, so if your street is in dire need of repair, and you believe it needs to be addressed, I would ask you to contact me. Westfield’s new infrared pothole patching machine should be arriving soon, and I will push to have it used to address the worst of our downtown area streets in Ward 3 as soon as possible.
I might take some flak for addressing this issue, and I preface it by saying I hold no hate for anyone, but I would be remiss in my responsibility as an elected official, if I didn’t voice my opposition to the Bathroom and Locker Room Bill which recently passed in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. As a local official, I need to weigh in on issues that will affect our community, and this is one of those times. The Transgender Bathroom Bill, also known as the Transgender Public Accommodations Bill, is a poorly thought out piece of legislation, and it is bad public policy. A rational outcome of this bill would have been to promote the use of single occupancy, locking restrooms for use by everyone in public buildings. Unfortunately this was not the case.
The reasoning of proponents of this bill is fair-minded, but the outcome is not. If this bill is signed into law by Governor Baker, it will allow Men to enter and use Women’s Restrooms, Locker Rooms and Showers, and Dressing Rooms, even in our schools. They don’t need to be transgender, they merely need to claim that they identify as a “Woman” on that particular day. This opens a Pandora’s box, by giving even easier access to sexual predators to take advantage, and it leaves Women and Children in greater danger of peeping, and even worse is the danger of assault. To display how bad this bill is, an amendment was turned down that would have banned sex offenders from entering these Women’s facilities.
We hear a lot these days about safe spaces. My question for those that supported this legislation is where are the safe spaces for Women and Children? There have been weak assertions that if someone misuses the law, and enters a women’s facility for ulterior motives, there will be legal penalties as prescribed by the Massachusetts Attorney General. I do not know how anyone can claim to know the motives of how someone identifies their gender. This also does nothing to address the Privacy and Safety problems inherent with this bill. This is essentially saying, we will pass this bill, and if someone is assaulted, we’ll call the police afterwards…it’s a little late at that point, after someone has had their life destroyed.I would encourage you to look at the voting records, and let your representatives know that you are not supportive of this legislation, and to call the Governor’s office at 617-725-4005, and respectfully ask him to veto the bill.
As always, if you are a Ward 3 resident, and have any issues with the city with which you need assistance, please contact me at (413) 570-0899, or [email protected]. My regular monthly office hours are at the Westfield Athenaeum in the Elizabeth Reed room, on the Second Monday of each month from 11:00am to 1:00pm, and on the Fourth Monday of each month from 3:30pm to 5:00pm.
P.S. Congratulations to all of the Graduates of Westfield Technical Academy, and Westfield High!
I also want to give a shout out to the all those involved with ArtWorks | Center City Westfield, you all did an amazing job on the Articulture event! I look forward to working with you on more events to bring pedestrian traffic and business back to downtown Westfield.
Happy Summer Westfield!
Andrew K. Surprise
City Councilor – Ward 3
