Guyer-E News Summer 2009

Guyer Attends Urban Farm Tour (Boston)- State Representative Denis E. Guyer (D-Dalton) announced his participation in an urban farm tour hosted by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Tuesday. The tour, led by Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture Scott Soares, began at Allendale Farm, the last working farm in Boston. Guyer then went to the Food Project in Dorchester, an organization that instills the value of local and sustainable agriculture to Boston area teens. The group had lunch at Hayley House in Roxbury a non-profit job training cafe that uses locally grown produce. A trip to the Copley Square Farmer’s Market, which features local produce and farm products sold directly by farmers to consumers, followed. The day concluded at the Serving Ourselves Organic Farm, a project which gives vocational training to homeless men and women living at the Long Island Shelter and provides over seventy-five percent of the food for its kitchen operation, which feeds 500 people a day. “Today, as part of my role as Vice-Chair of the legislature's Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, I was fortunate enough to get a firsthand look at the many ways in which agricultural changes lives for the better within the Commonwealth,” said Guyer. “This tour provided evidence of the amazing things that are happening in Massachusetts Agriculture.” Guyer has been active in the farming community throughout his term in the Legislature, including helping to secure numerous grants for farms in the Second Berkshire District, as well as helping to local organizations dedicated to furthering farming. For pictures from the Food Project in Dorchester click here For more information visit The Food Project, http://www.haleyhouse.org/cafe/home.htm ,Serving Ourselves Organic Farm, & Allandale Farm

DTC Extends Deadline for Regional Investigation of Telephone Service Quality – Last Chance to Submit Comments about Verizon Telephone Service! Over the years, the Connect has heard from many residents, local officials and businesses about problems with the quality of their telephone service, such as, static, clicking, humming, and noise during wet weather. If you have had experiences like these, NOW IS THE TIME TO HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD. Earlier this year, tremendous support was expressed for the MA Department of Telecommunications & Cable (DTC) to conduct a regional investigation of Verizon’s telephone service quality. As a result, the investigation is now underway, and has recently had its public comment deadline extended to August 14, 2009. As part of the investigation they are collecting testimony about Verizon telephone service quality in western Massachusetts. Statements that describe your personal experience with Verizon telephone service quality are an essential element of this investigation. In particular, statements that are submitted as part of the evidentiary record (which can be done by mail with an affidavit or at the public hearing, if you so choose) are particularly important in determining the outcome of this investigation. The last public hearing will be held on Monday, August 3, 2009 in Chester, MA. If this issue matters to you, it is very important that you attend the public hearing or submit comments by the Friday, August 14, 2009 deadline. The DTC Public Notice is posted online at http://www.pioneervalleyconnect.org/newslinks.html. PUBLIC HEARING:Hampden County: August 3, 6-9 pm, Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, MA ADDRESS TO SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS BY AUGUST 14th DEADLINE: Catrice C. Williams, Secretary of DTC, Two South Station, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02110(If you choose to submit your comments in such a way as to be part of the evidentiary record, please see the public notice for further details.) For more information… A website for WesternMA Connect is in development. Until completed, the websites of www.bconnect.org or www.pioneervalleyconnect.org and contact information for the former Connects will continue to be utilized. For more information about WesternMA Connect, please contact: Sharon Ferry, 413-496-9606 or sferry@bconnect.org, or Jessica Atwood, 413-774-1194 x101 or jatwood@frcog.org. To unsubscribe from this email update, please email bconnect@rnetworx.com.

2009 Massachusetts Recreational Trails Program Grant Round is now OPEN! Please visit the Recreational Trails Program website for updated grant guidelines, application materials, and paperwork guidelines: http://www.mass.gov/dcr/stewardship/greenway/regionalGrants.htm Also, the most recent rounds of RTP Grant Awards are now posted on the website. Please take a look at the 28 projects which have been funded this year as well as past grant round awards. Contact Amanda Lewis, Recreational Trails Program Coordinator with any questions atamanda.lewis@state.ma.us or 413-586-8706 ext. 19.

Gas Taxes?

I don't think that in the entire time I have been in the legislature have I seen a debate that evokes such strong emotion as the one that has to do with gas taxes. Not a day goes by where I do not hear from at least one constituent telling me to vote, or not vote for the gas tax.

For me, I represent what is probably the most rural district in the Massachusetts House. Many of my constituents drive 40 minutes to an hour just to get to work. Some must drive twenty minutes just to get to the closest store for a loaf of bread! And very few of my towns are served by some form of public transportation. Also, I would guess that on average, the number of trips my constituents would make in a year to Boston, and through the Big Dig, could be counted on one hand. Then there are the years of deferred road and bridge projects in my communities, while transportation improvement money, billions of dollars of it, went to fund the Big Dig. Now, with the project over and cost overruns clearly known, some in Boston are considering doing away with tolls on those roads and putting the future funding onto the gas tax.

SO...let me get this straight? The people who primarily use or live near the Big Dig, or those suburban drivers for whom the Big Dig was supposed to make for a less congested ride on their commutes to and from the city, will NOT have to pay tolls to use that road, but my constituents will have to pay a higher gas tax to drive around rural roads that have not been fixed in years?

And, those Boston and suburban residents also have access to dependable public transportation so when the gas tax gets high enough they will have another option for travel, paid for, again, via the increased gas tax? But many of my residents will...do what as another option? Walk?

WOW! Talk about getting your cake, eating it too and leaving the crumbs for the rest of us!

Let me be clear, I cannot and will not vote for any transportation plan that only allows for an increase in the gas tax. Any realistic transportation funding plan that wants my vote will have to include at least some (hopefully all) of the following:

1. Reforms. Let's try reforming our transportation system first before asking our citizens to pay more taxes. What about merging Mass Highway and Mass Turnpike operations?

2. Border Tolls. Why is it that other states like New Hampshire can charge Massachusetts residents for the pleasure of entering their state, but we can't charge them for coming into ours? Watch the NECN traffic report some morning and look at the volume of NH drivers coming into our state, down I-93, I-95, I-495 and many into the Big Dig.

3. Tolls. You know, as a western Mass legislator I pay them too! But hey, let's keep them for now. Especially if it means a better maintained turnpike.

4. Gas Tax. First, how much? Second, if a gas tax is to win my support, a good portion of it must go to increase the public transportation system for the Regional Transit Authorities like BRTA, PVTA and FRTA. More service to smaller towns is needed and expanded service on nights and weekends too! If we are going to raise the gas tax to encourage more people to use public transit, the public transit system has to be available to all residents; from the wealthiest suburb to the most rural town. I don't mind taking the political hit for raising the gas tax, but I must be able to show my constituents that they are getting something more for it too. Raising a gas tax to pay for the big dig will not win me too many votes in western Mass.

There are no easy answers and there are very few more that are popular.

What are your thoughts?