The latest Business West features a folksy interview with new Springfield Finance Control Board chairman Christopher Gabrieli, who identifies four top priorities that must be “addressed simultaneously and with equal vigor”—new job sources and the economy; public safety (perception of threat as well as real); education (specifically reducing the dropout rate and urging higher education); and what Gabrieli calls the city’s “demographic challenge,” a euphemism for the loss of the middle class within city limits.
The same issue of Business West offers up a cover story, with a cautiously grinning Allan Blair, about the new discount, do-it-yourself Skybus service out of Chicopee, connecting primarily to Columbus, Ohio. The company warns that if you’re brazen enough to try and connect through Columbus to some other destination, particularly with Skybus, you must move your own luggage between flights. Their schedule is also very tight. However, with a flight starting at $10 a seat, who really cares? To keep up with Skybus locations, subscribe to their email list.
At the Valley Advocate, Maureen Turner published an article this week about Springfield’s Michaelann Bewsee and her relatively new blog. From the piece:
Much of Michaelannland has focused on Bewsee’s frustration with Springfield’s homelessness situation, both the day-to-day developments—the closure of the Warming Place shelter, the transfer of a government homeless contract from Open Pantry to Friends of the Homeless, which she describes as the city’s “pet” agency—and the deeper problems that make it such a divisive issue.
“At the heart of all of this, of course, is class prejudice and self-interest, manifesting as the need to control those deemed lesser than you who are also perceived as a threat to your well-being,” she wrote in one entry. Ultimately, Bewsee’s work is about getting people to stop misdirecting blame and start tackling the larger issues that affect all of us.
Speaking of tackling larger issues, Governing.com’s Alan Greenblatt posted this week from Boston’s National Conference of State Legislature’s annual conference about a forthcoming book co-authored by Brown University’s Kenneth Wong about the benefits and drawbacks of tighter mayoral control over education concerns. From the post:
Wong and his colleagues compared 14 districts controlled by mayors with 90 other districts governed by school boards with similar characteristics. They found that in districts where the mayor is able to appoint a majority of the school board, elementary reading scores were up by a deviation of .15 percent, while math scores were up .14, compared to the traditional districts.
That may not sound like much, but Wong points out that a deviation of .40 would represent a whole year’s worth of extra learning. In layman’s terms, mayoral control translates into one-third of a year’s worth of educational gains per child. “These are real gains in terms of moving the test scores in a real direction,” Wong said.
Wong suggested that some form of oversight or accountability is still needed, and that mayors still struggle when it comes to changing staffing patterns or overcoming challenges related to poor populations (a typical urban challenge in today’s era—are any cities handling poverty and related challenges with grace and competence?).
In the local Reminder, G. Michael Dobbs has a piece updating readers about the recent announcement by the Springfield Business Improvement District. Executive Director Jeff Keck has said the BID will make a pitch to take over handle the management contract of the Springfield Parking Authority, among other interesting details of the group’s new management plan. Keck also mentioned interest in siting a Whole Foods grocer downtown as well as a movie theater. Efforts are underway to advertising campaign for events and activities in the downtown area.
I’ve been reflecting on Barry Elbasani’s advice during the Urban Land Institute’s presentation last year regarding better signage and other improvements downtown, linking one location to another for people on foot.
Elbasani provided plenty of maps on this showing how downtown compares to Eastfield Mall, and how walkable it is. Working on the parking concerns is a parallel (as opposed to “reverse-in“) matter, but providing a shuttle from the I-91 parking garages while the old civic center garage is demolished and rebuilt (another potential project for the BID) may be less preferable than making walking around an easier and more pleasant thing to do. We need better connections, too, from Apremont Triangle and the Springfield Musuems downhill to Main Street.
As the final report (PDF) put it, “Springfield’s urban core is made up of clearly definable districts that are close to one another but not well-connected with appropriate signage.”
Lastly, an article in the 5 Towns Jewish Times pumps up Springfield rather nicely. The positive article prompted a “Ms. P.” of Springfield to write a letter to the editor adding an extra boost to the mini-commercial for the city, calling it a “best-kept secret.”
