Opinion Archives - Page 15 of 24

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff October 7, 2014

Opinion

NFL Drops Ball on Domestic Violence

By Carol Fusia Campbell

I love the game of football. I grew up around the sport. My father was a football coach, and our family lived, breathed, and ate football.

But National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell’s handling of the Ray Rice situation sickens me. It sickens me that there is any doubt that domestic violence should receive a swift, definitive penalty. It sickens me that, for even one moment, the owners and the commissioner tried to find justification for Rice dragging the limp body of his then-fiancee off an elevator. It sickens me that an NFL player receives harsher penalties for using illegal and performance-enhancing drugs than for physically abusing the women in their lives.

The Rice scandal has made clear that the professional organization that represents football must make a dramatic shift in their policies regarding domestic violence.

As a long-time board member of the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, I’ve learned that intimate-partner violence is a complex social problem that requires interventions on a variety of levels.

A good place to start is the code of conduct. It’s common knowledge that the league spells out, with shocking detail, rules of glamour, etiquette, and hygiene for cheerleaders. The cheerleader tome also includes a multitude of ways in which the woman can be punished with fines and game-day suspensions, or even fired, for ongoing makeup infractions. The NFL should be no less strict in their code of conduct for their players. The commissioner must craft a strong, unambiguous set of guidelines regarding domestic violence and immediately communicate these no-tolerance guidelines to players, coaches, and team owners.

In addition, one of the most effective interventions is peer pressure — men making it clear to other men that it’s simply not OK to abuse women. Commissioner Goodell had an opportunity to send this message after being confronted with evidence that Rice punched his fiancee, now his wife, in the face, knocking her out cold. The commissioner squandered this opportunity.

The NFL should not do the same. Instead, its owners should dismiss Commissioner Goodell to signal the beginning of a new no-tolerance policy. They should then use their incredible reach and influence to educate men on how violence against women threatens the very fabric of our communities.

When women are not safe in their intimate relationships, they are not able to hold jobs, pursue education or technical training, or secure stable housing for themselves and their families. The NFL should work with experts like the Women’s Fund who can help shape this proactive education along with community partners.

I will always love the game of football. But the NFL must draw a bright line between right and wrong when it comes to domestic violence before I can fully embrace the organization.

Carol Fusia Campbell is president and CEO of Chicopee Industrial Contractors and the daughter of Vic Fusia, who coached football at Brown University, the University of Pittsburgh, and UMass, and also scouted for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. She was recently named Woman of the Year for 2014 by the Professional Women’s Chamber.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff September 23, 2014

Opinion

Shedding Some Light on Downtown Plans

Just about every plan to revitalize downtown Springfield boils down to chicken-and-egg scenarios.

More and better retail, dining, and entertainment options will attract more market-rate housing … and vice versa. More feet on the street will bring about a stronger feeling of public safety … and vice versa. Keeping young talent in the region will cultivate more entrepreneurship and jobs … and vice versa.

That’s why plans to improve downtown are smartly focusing on all of the above, in the hope that each success generates another. The recent report outlining a potential ‘innovation district’ is a good example, calling on the city to improve infrastructure and create a more business- and tourist-friendly environment in the neighborhoods around the current club district.

It’s also why the Springfield Business Improvement District and DevelopSpringfield announced a plan last week to illuminate eight downtown buildings under a $400,000 architectural-lighting program. The project is intended to both highlight the area’s unique architecture and create a feeling of safety that will draw more people onto the streets, thus creating a demand for more shopping and dining options, which will draw even more people, which will further bolster that feeling of security. It all fits together as part of a targeted strategy to improve quality of life in the City of Homes.

Evan Plotkin is a believer in the feet-on-the-street approach to enhanced public safety. In this issue (see page 49), he talks about how art, music, and a bustling café have made 1350 Main Street a place people want to be, which has dramatically increased occupancy rates.

He believes this success represents a microcosm of what Springfield can achieve, and argues that any targeted effort to make downtown more appealing — with art, music, lighting, enhanced walkability, incentives for retailers and restaurants, etc. — will bring more people outside, which will catch the attention of more businesses, which will set up shop and draw more people downtown. After all, he told BusinessWest, people don’t feel afraid in a crowd, but most are reluctant to walk down a darkened city street alone.

Time will tell whether all Springfield’s improvement efforts will bear fruit, but city leaders have to be encouraged by the number of businesses and colleges (including UMass, Bay Path College, and Cambridge College) that have recently established a presence in the downtown towers, and other efforts — such as MassMutual’s $5 million commitment to the Springfield Venture Fund — to keep talent local and generate jobs. Each positive step is further evidence that the city doesn’t need a casino to spring fully to life, although it’s our position that a gaming resort will certainly help.

No, there’s no one solution that will boost the city’s fortunes, and, like we said, many of its current dilemmas are of the chicken-and-egg variety. But it’s equally true that each new downtown lease signed, each market-rate housing development in the works, and each new building façade improved is lighting the way, literally and figuratively, to a healthier Springfield.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff September 23, 2014

Opinion

Baseball, Youth, and Smokeless Tobacco

By RICHARD PIETERS, M.D. and ANTHONY GIAMBERARDINO, D.M.D.

The headlines first came with baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. His all-too-early death at 54 was attributed to the long-term use of smokeless tobacco. Now it’s former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who revealed on Aug. 20 that he was diagnosed in February with mouth cancer. “I do believe without a doubt, unquestionably,” said Schilling when making his condition public, “that chewing [tobacco] is what gave me cancer … I did it for 30 years. It was an addictive habit.” His physician agreed.

Many of us who grew up with the game are used to seeing players chewing tobacco, but a new generation of children watching in the stands and on television may be seeing smokeless tobacco used for the first time. They are the ones most influenced by what baseball players do both on and off the field. And that behavior by professional athletes can be more powerful in shaping behavior than any advertising campaign by the tobacco industry.

Although cigarette smoking in the U.S. continues to decline, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the use of smokeless tobacco has held steady over the past nine years. CDC says 14.7% of high-school boys, and 8.8% of all high-school students, reported using smokeless products in 2013.

The CDC further states that smokeless tobacco contains 28 carcinogens, which can cause gum disease, stained teeth and tongue, a dulled sense of taste and smell, slow healing after a tooth extraction, and, worst of all, oral cancer.

Smokeless tobacco is not harmless. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it delivers more nicotine than cigarettes and stays in the bloodstream longer. Clearly, tobacco use is both a serious medical problem and an oral-health problem.

In a letter to baseball commissioner Bud Selig following the death of Tony Gwynn, nine leading healthcare organizations, including the American Medical Assoc. and the American Dental Assoc., stated that “use of smokeless tobacco endangers the health of major-league ballplayers. It also sets a terrible example for the millions of young people who watch baseball at the ballpark or on TV and often see players and managers using tobacco.”

Oral cancer continues to be a serious problem in the U.S. More than 30,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and the five-year survival rate is only around 50%. While a batting average of .500 would be considered outstanding in baseball, 50/50 odds aren’t very good in the game of life.

The connection between oral health and overall health is well-documented. What happens in the mouth can affect the entire body. Physicians are now being trained to examine the mouth and work with dentists to make patients more aware of the importance of oral health as it affects their overall health and well-being.

Programs such as the Mass. Dental Society’s Connect the Dots, in which physicians and dentists work together in the community, and the Mass. Medical Society’s establishment of a Committee on Oral Health mark the beginning of a growing relationship between physicians and dentists to promote oral health in the Commonwealth.

But oral cancer isn’t the only health risk from smokeless tobacco. Users have an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. Many health issues are preventable, especially those related to tobacco use. The medical and dental professions can play a key role by providing education and screening for oral cancer.

Major-league baseball players have an important opportunity to contribute to this educational process by aiding in prevention efforts, particularly aimed at impressionable young people. For the past four years, the Mass. Dental Society, in partnership with NESN and the Boston Red Sox, has produced TV campaigns on the dangers of smokeless tobacco.

The Mass. Medical Society and the Mass. Dental Society are committed to reducing tobacco use in all its forms and welcome the continued participation of the Red Sox and all of major-league baseball. In 2014, chewing tobacco continues to be as much a symbol of baseball as the actual action on the field.

For the health of our children, shouldn’t this image of our national pastime now be considered past its time? The cases of Tony Gwynn and Curt Schilling should serve as a warning to us all.

Dr. Richard Pieters, a radiation oncologist at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, is president of the Mass. Medical Society. Dr. Anthony Giamberardino practices general dentistry in Medford and is president of the Mass. Dental Society.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff September 9, 2014

Opinion

Some Steps in the Right Direction

Several months ago, we wrote about what we perceived as a considerable challenge for this region: finding capable successors for all Baby Boomers — and others — who will be retiring over the next several years.

As we noted, the Boomers will be stepping down in very large numbers over the next decade or so, and the shoes of many of this region’s business and nonprofit leaders will have to be filled by individuals who can take those organizations forward.

Months later, this assignment continues, and as matters unfold, we notice what we believe is a trend, and one that we sincerely hope will continue. Specifically, many of the people now doing the shoe-filling are women.

For example, Maura McCaffrey has taken the helm at Health New England, succeeding long-time president and CEO Peter Straley. Just a few months ago, Joanne Marquesee was chosen as president and CEO of Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton.

Roughly a year ago, Mary-Beth Cooper took the reins at Springfield College, becoming the first woman to lead that 128-year-old institution that has long been dominated by men and was originally open only to them. Likewise, Carolyn Martin not long ago became the first woman to lead Amherst College, which also started as a men’s school.

Just recently, Hope Margala was named president and CEO at Yankee Candle Corp., one of the region’s largest employers. Earlier this summer, Dena Hall was named regional president of a much larger United Bank. On the nonprofit side, Kim Goulette has been named executive director of the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, succeeding long-time director Rick Lee, and a year ago, Sarah Tsitso became the first woman to lead the Springfield Boys & Girls Club.

The first thing we’ll say about all this is that caution, or discretion, must be exercised whenever the discussion comes around to women being placed in high positions. The last thing we would want to do at BusinessWest is indicate that there is anything extraordinary about this or somehow send a message that someone has been awarded a top-level executive position at a local business or nonprofit — and, wow, she’s a woman!

Indeed, we’re years, if not decades, past the point (or should be) where gender should even be an issue in matters such as filling positions in the executive suite. But, let’s face it, this is something we simply would not have seen 20 years ago, or perhaps even 10 years ago, when the only women college presidents in Western Mass. were running women’s colleges, and all of the region’s banks were run by men.

What has happened?

Well, we’d like to believe that maybe, just maybe, gender is now a non-issue when it comes to appointments such as these. We’d like to think that area businesses and nonprofits are no longer overlooking at least half the qualified candidates for a position.

And maybe women are becoming less hesitant to reach higher for posts such as these because they believe they won’t be discounted because they’re a woman, or hired because they’re a woman; rather, they’ll be hired because they’re the best candidate.

We believe this might be the case, because all of those appointments above do not amount to a coincidence. Instead, they amount to considerable movement in the right direction.

And this movement isn’t just toward putting women in such positions, but rather toward ending the historical habit of effectively eliminating them from the discussion.

It’s a movement that certainly bodes well for this region.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff September 9, 2014

Opinion

Electricity Grid Bending, and Might Break

By MARC BROWN
For the past two years, New England has seen its energy rates rise from $.036 per kWh in 2012 to $.056 per kWh in 2013 — more than a 50% increase. New England ratepayers paid an additional $3 billion for the energy we consumed last winter, and as a result of capacity shortages in the most recent auction, we will be doling out an additional $1.8 billion in payments to generators just to be available.

The regional organization which oversees our energy grid, ISO New England, has repeatedly warned us of our overreliance on natural gas for electricity generation, which currently accounts for more than half of our capacity. Add to that 8,000 megawatts of expected-to-retire generation over the next decade, and New England is looking at a real future capacity shortfall — a gap that all of the energy efficiency, conservation, and demand response in the world won’t be able to close.

Rightfully, ISO’s warnings have led to panic among the region’s legislators and bureaucrats — ironic, considering that they and their predecessors supported, promoted, and enacted policies that have led us to our current situation — as well as high prices and dwindling base-load capacity. Policies like renewable portfolio standards, the renewable greenhouse-gas initiative, net metering, and others have favored expensive, intermittent renewable power at the expense of more affordable and reliable base-load options.

We are going to need new base-load generation to power our homes, businesses, hospitals, and schools. Unfortunately, the way the energy markets are designed offer little incentive for new investment. Capacity markets are too shallow (three years) and are subject to price caps that are in place to protect ratepayers, but in the long run may do more harm than good. Extending capacity to five, six, seven, or more years might be enough incentive to bring new capacity into the region. It may also provide some financial security to natural-gas electricity generators, allowing them to make longer-term fuel commitments, which in turn should spur private investment in new natural-gas pipelines. Ratepayers could ultimately benefit from a market that trades higher capacity payments for lower energy payments.

New Hampshire’s Northern Pass (1,200 MW) and the Footprint natural-gas plant in Salem (700 MW) are two projects that could bring much-needed base-load power to New England, but both have been met with opposition. Footprint, whose future is in question, has been opposed by environmental groups like the Conservation Law Foundation because it is a fossil-fuel generator, despite the fact that it emits half of the CO2 and none of the SOX of the plant that it would replace. Northern Pass has been opposed by myriad environmental groups, as well as the New England Power Generators Assoc. (NEPGA), a trade organization representing the owners of more than 100 electric power plants in New England who control more than 80% of New England’s generating capacity.

NEPGA’s responsibility is to advocate for its membership, many of whom have benefited from the high prices that have hit ratepayers the past two winters. ISO’s day-ahead electricity auction is a “clearing auction,” which means that all generators who clear the market receive the marginal (or highest) cleared rate. For example, if a 1,000-MW generator bids into the market at $20 per megawatt hour to cover its cost of generation and the market clears at $50 per MWh, the generator will make $30 per MWh in profit, or $720,000 for that day. During a cold week this past January when the average day-ahead price exceeded $262 per MWh, a 1000-MW generator would have received more than $44 million in energy payments alone.

New Englanders are looking for relief from high energy costs, regulators are looking to ensure reliability, and, despite their poor track record, policy makers are looking to address our long-term energy needs. Sooner, rather than later, New England is going to need more base-load electricity to replace retirements.

The Farmers’ Almanac is predicting another bitterly cold winter for New Englanders. Vermont Yankee and its 600 MW (600,000 homes) will be powering down for good at the end of December. Run to your local hardware store and get your generator now, because, if January 2015 is as frigid as January 2014, rolling blackouts might be in our future — and while not all of us will be surprised, some of us will have a lot of explaining to do.

Marc Brown is the executive director of the New England Ratepayers Assoc., the nonprofit dedicated to protecting ratepayers in New England.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff August 26, 2014

Opinion

Education Alone Won’t Save the Economy

By ROBERT KUTTNER

Our economy is now five years into an economic recovery, yet the wages of most Americans are flat. For the entire period between 1979 and 2013, median worker wages rose by just 7.9% while the economy’s growth and productivity rose 64.9%. The top 1% has made off with nearly all of the economy’s gains since 2000.

Is there nothing that can be done to improve this picture? To hear a lot of economists tell the story, the remedy is mostly education. It’s true that better-educated people command higher earnings. But it’s also the case that the relative premium paid to college graduates has been declining in recent years. If everyone in America got a doctorate, the job market would not be transformed. Mainly, we’d have a lot of frustrated, overeducated people.

The current period of widening inequality, after all, is one during which more and more Americans have been going to college. Conversely, the era of broadly distributed prosperity in the three decades after World War II was a time when many in the blue-collar middle class hadn’t graduated from high school.

I’m not disparaging education — it’s good for both the economy and the society to have a well-educated population. But the sources of equality and prosperity mainly lie elsewhere.

Three big things have changed in recent years that better explain why this recovery is accompanied by flat wages.

First, the financial collapse is still exerting a drag on the economy. Until the crash of 2008, ordinary families whose incomes had not kept pace with the cost of living had been borrowing to sustain their consumption. Americans ran up credit-card debts, borrowed to attend college, and above all borrowed against their homes. All of that camouflaged stagnant earnings. But the crash ended the borrowing binge. Without increasing debt (which is the wrong remedy), household purchasing power is too low to stimulate a strong recovery.

Second, corporate America got increasingly into the habit of hiring people on a temporary, part time, or contracted-out basis. Traditional payroll jobs became harder to come by. A small fraction of Americans turned this new insecurity into a plus, becoming entrepreneurs. But for every successful Internet startup and every truly joyous freelancer, there are dozens of people for whom working as a ‘consultant’ is nothing but disguised unemployment.

Third, the sources of labor bargaining, including strong federal labor-market regulation and trade unionism power, have been weakened. In their absence, corporations and investors are able to capture the lion’s share of the economy’s productivity growth.

So, are we just stuck? Do the characteristics of the new economy simply doom us to flat incomes for most people and stratospheric gains for the few? Actually, several things could be done to restore a better distribution of the economy’s productivity growth. But most of them are outside mainstream political debate.

A good historic parallel is the burst of deferred growth that came with World War II. In 1940, unemployment topped 13%, and many economists argued that technology had displaced so many human workers that this was the best the economy could do. But by 1942, unemployment had vanished.

In the intervening two years, workers did not suddenly become smarter, better educated, or more diligent. Rather, the government borrowed money and taxed the wealthy in order to massively invest in fighting World War II. The war, in turn, became the greatest accidental economic stimulus program ever. As a side effect, wartime spending produced scientific breakthroughs and technological gains as well as more purchasing power.

Today, we don’t need another war. But we do need major investment in decaying public infrastructure and in transition to a green, sustainable economy.

The wartime economy propelled America into the post-war boom and laid the groundwork for the post-war middle class. After the war, we doubled down with social investments such as the GI Bill and major infrastructure projects, as well as minimum-wage regulation.

We could do it again. All that stand in our way are a lot of bad economics and a consensus of the elites that cutting deficits and rewarding speculators take precedence over rebuilding the country. The obstacles to restoring prosperity are not economic. They are political.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the American Prospect and professor of Social Policy at Brandeis University.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff August 26, 2014

Opinion

In Pursuit of an Innovation District

Kevin Hively, one of the authors of a redevelopment plan for the area impacted by the natural-gas explosion in 2012 — and the streets surrounding the so-called ‘blast zone’ — hit the nail on the head while explaining why this plan is ambitious and why it will be quite challenging to convert into reality.

“We want to create an innovation district with a lot of energy and momentum taking place,” he told those assembled at a press conference earlier this month staged near where the blast took place. “But the fact of the matter is, innovation districts are driven by talent, and talent is driven by job opportunities and quality of life.”

Right now, Springfield can’t say it offers either one. And that’s why there’s not much talent here around which to create an innovation district.

But there is promise for both, and that is the city’s ongoing mission — to convert that promise into something tangible, something that will attract talent.

Backing up a bit, the report, called “The Worthington Street District Plan,” lays out not only what the city can do with the multi-block area in its central business district, but also the stern challenges that lie in the way.

Indeed, as Hively pointed out at the press event, probably every city in the country would like to create a thriving innovation district, but certainly not all of them can. To replicate, even on a much smaller scale, what has been accomplished in Cambridge, Silicon Valley, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle will take some luck, a good deal of patience, and, well, some innovation.

And the city is not exactly starting from a position of strength. While this area of the city has some assets, most of them — like Apremont Triangle, Stearns Square, the existing entertainment district, and Union Station — are not going to attract that aforementioned talent, at least not in their current form.

But there is some momentum in a few key areas — promoting entrepreneurship, opening up avenues to capital, and promoting innovation. This momentum is best exemplified in initiatives like Valley Venture Mentors, which encourages entrepreneurship and helps fledgling businesses get off the ground; the Baystate Innovation Center, described as a mix between an incubator and an accelerator now taking shape in downtown Springfield; and Tech Foundry, which is billed as a training ground for those who might enter the technology field.

And there are other positive developments, such as the new UMass Center at Springfield in Tower Square and the potential for a casino in the South End.

But as Hively pointed out, talent is driven by job opportunities and quality of life. Springfield can’t match Cambridge, Boston, or San Francisco, or even Providence or Lowell at this time.

It must do something about both crime and the perception of crime, foster the development of more restaurants, shops, and cultural attractions, and, above all else, help create attractive places for people to live.

At the moment, there is a distinct lack of people who have a desire to live, work, or start a business downtown, and this is the equation that simply must change.

How? That’s the $64,000 question. Most observers say you can’t just build housing and then hope eateries, clubs, and shops will follow. Likewise, you can’t — or shouldn’t — open those businesses until you are sure there is a critical mass of people with disposable income to support them.

Is an innovation district possible? Of course it is. Is it doable in Springfield? Perhaps, but, then again, most every city has tried or is trying to create one, and success has been hard to come by.

One thing is for sure. There is little, if any, time to waste, and the city will have to be energetic and imaginative if it is going to attract the talent needed to make an innovation district thrive.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Opinion

UMass Center Is Yet Another Puzzle Piece

It was with considerable fanfare that Gov. Deval Patrick, UMass administrators, and Springfield city officials announced last fall that the university would be greatly expanding its presence in downtown Springfield with a 26,000-square-foot learning center to be built in Tower Square (see related story, page 6).

And there will be much more hype roughly a month from now when most of the same people — plus many others, we’re sure — will gather to mark the opening of that gleaming facility, less than a year after it was announced.

Indeed, expectations are high when it comes to this center and its potential impact on Springfield and especially its central business district. Maybe too high.

For years now, city officials have been urging the university, one of this region’s largest employers and arguably the economic engine with the greatest horsepower, to takes its brand and influence to downtown Springfield. The school has responded with a number of smaller-scale initiatives, involving everything from the arts to precision manufacturing to relocation of the university’s Design Center into a building in Court Square.

The facility now known as the UMass Center at Springfield represents a far more significant investment in terms of dollars — the cost of this complex is more than $5 million — and commitment to the city. And as it prepares to open its doors to students on Sept. 2, with more than 30 classes covering a host of subjects, there is a great deal of hope and anticipation when it comes to what the center will mean for the city.

It is expected to provide a huge shot in the arm for Tower Square, which, as everyone knows, has a first floor defined largely by empty storefronts and sparse foot traffic. The UMass Center, which may have 200 to 300 students taking classes there this fall, could help re-energize the once-thriving retail center.

The facility is also expected to provide a spark for downtown, in terms of that aforementioned foot traffic, but also psychologically. After all, if UMass Amherst is willing to make that kind of investment in Springfield’s central business district, then things must be getting better. Right?

As we said, maybe the expectations are a little too high.

Overall, we believe that William Dávila, the recently named director of operations, has the right perspective as this highly anticipated experiment gets underway.

Rather than focus on enrollment numbers for this fall — which appear solid, by the way — Dávila and his staff seem more concerned with getting this facility off to a good start and making sure that the students coming there have a good experience.

This is important, because no one really knows if people will want to come to downtown Springfield for classes, given the city’s lingering image problem and perceptions regarding safety. Other schools, most notably Western New England University, have created satellite facilities downtown, only to see them fail.

If these first students at the UMass Center come away satisfied with their experience, it will be that much easier to sell the facility — and Springfield itself — to others down the road.

Meanwhile, this first year is a time to build partnerships and foster collaborative efforts that will make the UMass Center much more than a place to take classes. It can — and needs to be — a community resource.

There is now a large UMass sign on the east side of Tower Square. It proclaims the arrival of the university and the start of what could be an exciting new era downtown.

Let’s hope it’s a sign of progress and a sign that better times lie ahead.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff August 12, 2014

Opinion

Five Principles for an Open Internet

By ANDREW LIPPMAN

In the past few months, the open Internet has been everywhere from Comedy Central to the Harvard Law Review. Why? Because the U.S. government is at a crossroads in deciding how Americans will access it. The FCC solicited comments from the public, and more than 1 million people responded. But getting this one right doesn’t have to be complicated.

The FCC was created in 1934 to ensure that citizens throughout the country had access to affordable telephone service. We need a similar mandate today for Internet access. Here are five principles that can help us reach this goal.

Principle 1: It’s about more than money. A common metric used to measure the success of the Internet has been the number of commercial successes it has enabled. But a far better measure is the number of attempts at innovation it has allowed. Sure, there are the Ubers and Googles and Facebooks that have made many billionaires. But more important is the vastly reduced barrier to simply trying a new idea. This low barrier is a far better measure of an entrepreneurial society. Attempts are a proxy for opportunity, and while many of these do not explosively succeed, the people who make the attempts are invariably better off for it, as is society at large. Let’s drop the economic argument that success is the only metric and place appropriate value on the social goal of giving everyone a chance. After all, opportunity is the American way.

Principle 2: The Internet is a learning engine. We spend endless energy considering how to reform schools to make an educated populace, but the Internet has done this by creeping through the back door. There are two essential aspects of learning where the Internet succeeds and traditional educational institutions fail. First, it builds an accessible reference that creates communities of knowledge, and second, it establishes a forum where people can experiment, debug, and contribute. Both are essential, but only the first is measurable. Open courseware, the open-source programming movement, and Wikipedia are wonderful examples; they have transformed learning from memorization to access and participation. The results are clear.

The second aspect, however, is less obvious. In the 1960s, Seymour Papert invented Logo as a way for kids to learn mathematical principles through creation rather than rote. Modern iterations stress everything from creating animated stories to learning programming. More generally, the reduced barrier to trying a new idea transforms society, but it also is now affecting everything from technical learning to creative expression.

Principle 3: Symmetry is the norm. The Internet transforms us from passive consumers to active participants. The technologically enforced distinction between those who make bits and those who consume them has been eliminated. That separation is a holdover from the ancient past of mass media — think bloggers versus couch potatoes. At the MIT Media Lab, for example, students can pop up a server at the drop of a hat and publish a website, an application, or a new e-commerce experiment overnight. Can’t we make sure that everyone everywhere has the same chance?

Principle 4: Give me at least a bitway. Open Internet access has to be a simple duty of any owner of an information/communications franchise. The idea that someone can rent our airwaves and then privatize all the information that flows through them is abhorrent. Would we allow anyone to rent a public street and then charge us for its use? Of course they can provide specialized services such as movies, sports, and shopping, and of course they can profit from them. But it has to be done on top of a robust infrastructure that is open to all. This is a civic responsibility.

Principle 5: Don’t throttle the open Internet. The basic infrastructure for an open Internet cannot be diminished in favor of those higher-profit services. A way to think about this is that there are public roads and toll roads that can exist side by side. But we have to make sure that every improvement made to the toll road is matched by an equal improvement to the free road. Otherwise, if you can’t pay the toll, you’re out of luck — and at the mercy of potentially narrow interests.

None of these ideas are revolutionary. But all too often, they create a polarized debate about regulation versus corporate freedom. And that misses the point. The current laws also don’t help. They are garbled and were written before the patterns of use and technologies of access had matured to where they are today. Using these principles as a guide, we can achieve an open Internet — without bitterness or legal wrangling.

Andrew Lippman is a senior research scientist and associate director at MIT’s Media Lab. This article first appeared in the Boston Globe.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff July 29, 2014

Opinion

Adjusting to a New Economic Reality

Andre Mayer appears to be right, but we sure hope he’s wrong.

Mayer, senior vice president for communications and research at Associated Industries of Mass., was talking with BusinessWest about the economy and, more specifically, the recovery and why it really hasn’t materialized (see story, page 6).

And he proffered the opinion that, five years after the recession ended, it might be time to say this just might be as good as the recovery is going to get.

Like we said, we hope he’s wrong about that.

The regional economy has really seen only modest growth since the end of the Great Recession, maybe a percentage point or two each year, and many business owners are still waiting for that surge, boost, spurt, whatever one chooses to call it, that officially signals the end of a downturn and the start of real recovery.

What Mayer is saying, and he’s apparently not alone in this thinking, is that what we’re seeing is real recovery, or at least the new reality when it comes to the economy.

It comes with modest growth in jobs (and even that has arrived mostly in recent months) and only slight gains in gross domestic product. These are just some of the defining elements of something called ‘secular stagnation,’ an economic theory supported by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and many others, which contends that a host of factors, from advancing technology to globalization, are keeping this recovery from gaining any real steam in many sections of the country.

Secular stagnation might indeed be real, but our regional economy should be doing better. As Bob Nakosteen, professor of Economics at UMass Amherst, pointed out, conditions for pronounced growth are there, especially an improvement in the financial situation in many households, and businesses as well. Many have reduced debt and righted balance sheets that certainly contributed to the severe downturn at the end of the last decade.

What’s still missing, in many cases, is that all-important commodity known as confidence. A lack of it is still holding a number of business owners back when it comes to expanding their ventures and adding to their workforces. Some sectors are experiencing modest growth, including education and healthcare, the pillars of the local economy, but many are still treading water.

And while the state’s June employment report was encouraging — the jobless rate was at its lowest point since 2008, and another 3,700 jobs were added — there were disturbing declines in the manufacturing and construction sectors, two areas that were supposedly on the upswing.

As area commercial lenders told BusinessWest, business owners read and hear about improving conditions, job gains, and an uptick in business confidence, but don’t necessarily believe what they’re seeing or hearing.

Thus, many are still hunkering down and continuing to do the things that got them through the recession — tightening their belts, creating greater efficiency, and hiring only when they have to.

Mayer believes that some attitudes may be changing when it comes to the economy and the recovery. He believes that some business owners are recognizing that maybe that surge everyone is waiting for simply isn’t going to happen, and that it doesn’t make sense to continue waiting for it. Better still, he believes that some are coming to the conclusion that, by not waiting, they may actually help facilitate that surge.

On this point, we hope he is correct.

If he is, then maybe the current state of the recovery doesn’t have to be the new reality, and this is not as good as it’s going to get.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff July 29, 2014

Opinion

Bay State Is Gaining Ground — Literally

By JACK CLARKE

By the year 2050, Massachusetts needs 52% of the Commonwealth to be permanently conserved as open space.

Currently, a quarter of the Bay State’s 5 million acres of space is developed, a quarter is protected, and the rest is up for grabs.

Of that remaining land, we need to set aside a little over half, or 1.5 million acres. These are the lands identified by scientists, state environmental agencies, and the land-trust community as most important to the biological diversity of the Commonwealth, and critical to a strong, healthy, and vibrant environment — an environment undergoing rapid, unprecedented climate change.

That leaves more than a million acres available for development. Building on that land will require a statewide strategic-planning initiative that advances the best available smart-growth techniques while supporting the economy and our quality of life. This includes conservation subdivision design, transit-oriented development, and zoning that protects Massachusetts’ traditional working landscapes of forests, farms, and waterfronts.

Over the past decade, Massachusetts targeted real estate worthy of acquisition by focusing on protecting endangered species, establishing woodlands and parks, and guarding drinking-water supplies. Today however, as the planet rapidly warms, there is an urgent need to step up the pace of land stewardship by defending the remaining critical natural areas from not only the bulldozer but also the severe impacts of human-induced climate change.

Achieving our land-conservation targets does not mean job done, work over, mission accomplished. The focus of our efforts will shift as we strive further to restore ecosystems to a condition that takes advantage of their resiliency and adaptability. This renewed natural defense will ready the ecology of the Commonwealth to face the impacts of global warming and the more frequent storms, rapidly rising seas, and temperature extremes that go along with it.

The tasks include rebuilding wetlands, rivers, and watersheds to re-establish their flood-storage capacity; sustainably protecting forests so they can clean the air, filter water, and absorb heat-trapping carbon pollution; and managing coastal beaches, banks, and dunes for their ability to save people and uplands from hurricane-force storm surges.

In its newly released fifth edition of the series “Losing Ground,” Mass Audubon reports that, between 2005 and 2013, public and private organizations protected 41 acres a day of green space and developed 13. Not bad for the third-most densely populated state in the union, especially when compared with our recent development history.

Back in 1987, Mass Audubon documented that, in the previous six years, more than 100,000 acres of land were built upon. As recently as 2003, 40 acres a day were being consumed by large-lot development and suburban sprawl, with only 20 a day being protected. Six years later, those figures reversed in a real success story for Massachusetts.

The fact that we have managed to slow the rate of open-space conversion and protect more land over the last decade demonstrates how well-planned conservation efforts can work alongside economic-development initiatives. While protecting open space, Massachusetts has been rebounding from the Great Recession and credit crunch, with housing starts, job creation, and overall growth on the upswing. This is proof we can do both: conserve land and provide for the economic well-being of our residents.

By targeting places most suited to protection and areas most appropriate for development, we can ensure that we will continue to safeguard the public health, grow the economy, and support the environment. Our responsibility, to this and succeeding generations, is to protect the nature of Massachusetts for people and wildlife in the face of a rapidly warming climate.

Jack Clarke is director of public policy and government relations for Mass Audubon.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff July 15, 2014

Opinion

Maybe the Legislature Finally Gets It

The adjectives used in the comments made in reaction to the state Legislature’s recent approval of a major funding increase for the University of Massachusetts pretty much tell the story.

‘Extraordinary’ was one of the words UMass President Robert Caret used to describe the Legislature’s commitment to another $40 million increase in funding for the university (subject to approval from the governor), which will become $50 million due to an additional $10 million in state fringe-benefit funding, and $100 million over the past two years for the same reason.

Meanwhile, Henry Thomas III, chairman of the UMass board of trustees, summoned ‘historic’ to describe the Legislature’s action.

They’re both right. It is historic, and in most ways, it is extraordinary.

That’s because the Legislature has made it a habit to traditionally underfund public higher education, at least when compared to other states, and the schools, and the students attending them (or not attending because they couldn’t afford them) have suffered accordingly.

We’re not sure why this track record for underfunding public schools, and especially the university, continued for so long, but the prevailing theory is that in a state known around the world for its prestigious private institutions — Harvard, MIT, Smith, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, and dozens more are on that list — it’s been easy to overlook the public institutions and perhaps take them for granted.

But it seems that attitudes are changing, and that’s good, because they need to change.

Indeed, as the cost of higher education continues to increase at rates far greater than that of inflation, access to such an education becomes threatened. Harvard, Smith, Amherst, and Wellesley can always find students with families willing and able to spend $60,000 per year to come to their campuses, and they have huge endowments to help talented students who don’t have such resources to attend as well.

Public schools, including the university, do not have such luxuries. As their costs continue to rise, they must pass them on to students in the form of higher tuition and fees, putting a college education out of reach for some.

It is this simple math that prompted Caret to propose his so-called 50-50 plan, which called for a two-year, $100 million commitment from the state, with the goals of strengthening the university and equalizing the amount of money students and the state provided for educational programs. In exchange for full funding of the 50-50 program, UMass has committed to not raising tuition and fees for in-state undergraduate students, an important initiative when the cost of attending the university’s flagship campus in Amherst has reached $24,215, including $13,258 in tuition and mandatory fees.

The Legislature’s commitment to the university is worthy of terms like ‘historic’ and ‘extraordinary’ for those reasons mentioned above and the fact that this vote amounts to a change of course. But also because this action amounts to an important economic-development strategy.

Indeed, to succeed in this state’s knowledge-driven economy, a college education is becoming increasingly essential. Meanwhile, there is considerable evidence to suggest that those who attend the state’s public institutions are more likely to stay in this state than those who graduate from those prestigious private institutions.

Thus, the Legislature’s investment in the university is an investment in the state’s future and could be a pivotal weapon in the ongoing fight to halt that phenomenon known as brain drain.

Moving forward, our only hope is that we can soon retire words like ‘historic’ and ‘extraordinary’ when talking about the Legislature’s funding of public higher education, because consistently appropriate funding levels will mean that they no longer apply.

Time will tell if that happens. For now, we’ll just join Caret, Thomas, and others in applauding the Legislature for doing the right thing and the appropriate thing.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff July 15, 2014

Opinion

A New Framework for Medical Care

By KERRY ANN HAYON

Whether practices have gone through the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) rigorous process or have unofficially structured themselves as a medical home, the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) movement here in Massachusetts continues to expand.

The PCMH elements outlined in Chapter 224 — the state’s healthcare cost-containment law — and the goal of the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services are to have all primary-care practices in the state become patient-centered medical homes by 2015.

The PCMH movement has been focused on primary-care practices, but specialty practices are increasingly adopting the concept of the medical-home model as well. In order to accommodate this growing demand, the NCQA recently rolled out a patient-centered specialty-practice designation.

In talking with physicians and practice managers, I often encourage them to start by considering the following high-level framework:

• Do you have access to data? The ability to drill down and access patient-level, disease-specific data and to identify what your practice considers complex and high-risk patients is an important component of the medical-home model.
• What are your processes? Often practices have processes, but they may not be clearly outlined, documented, or well-communicated. Having your staff trained on reliable, consistent processes in place is key.
• How do you communicate? Com-munication can be considered a core-framework component of the PCMH model. It is extremely important to have communication among practice staff, between care providers both in the practice and externally, with patients, and with other support services and other healthcare institutions. Consistent communication on essential patient information with key stakeholders in a timely and consistent manner is critical.
• Do you engage your patients? Engaging patients is not just a buzzword in a PCMH model; it is a crucial element. Identifying how to engage your patients and mechanisms that work for your particular patient base will be required.
• Is your practice accessible? Appoint-ment availability during office hours and the ability to reach a care provider during off hours is extremely important. Providing same-day appointments for patients who require them is a must-pass element in the NCQA’s criteria. You may want to start with reviewing your data, determining where you currently stand, and working on necessary improvements in access.

While it is important to note that implementing a medical-home model calls for attention to numerous requirements with a considerable level of detail, reflecting upon where your practice stands in relation to this high-level framework is a great first step in considering what elements you may already have in place and what elements may need to be implemented.

Kerry Ann Hayon is manager of the Mass. Medical Society’s (MMS) Physician Practice Resource Center. This article first appeared in Vital Signs, an MMS publication.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff July 1, 2014

Opinion

A Critical Moment for Springfield

It was Friday the 13th when the Gaming Commission came to Springfield to commit the state’s first casino license to a developer, in this case MGM.

Maybe they should have waited for another day.

The action taken by the commission was not unexpected, and in many ways it was a formality — MGM’s proposal to build a resort casino in Springfield’s South End has been the lone surviving bid for this region for more than seven months now — but this should have been a celebration.

Indeed, a city that has been struggling for decades, with everything from high unemployment to tornadoes, from a fiscal mess to a moribund central business district, was on the cusp of a new and exciting era. MGM was going to spend $800 million, create 3,000 permanent jobs, and transform several blocks in the tornado-ravaged South End.

But it wasn’t really a celebration, and for good reason. The referendum question regarding the fate of casino gambling in the Commonwealth has been hanging over this process like a wet blanket for months now, taking much of the festive spirit out of that gathering in Springfield.

And now, as most everyone knows, that referendum question will appear on the November ballot, following a unanimous vote of the state Supreme Judicial Court on June 24.

The next four months or so will be a wild, frantic period in the Commonwealth. This will be an intense, very expensive campaign that both sides are firmly committed to winning. They will hold nothing back — nor should they, because the stakes are incredibly high.

And it is not hyperbole to say that nowhere are they higher than in the City of Homes.

It was nearly two years ago when MGM first began wowing Springfield and raising hopes that something remarkable could happen here. At a high-tech, Vegas-style unveiling of the company’s plans for the South End at the MassMutual Center, politicians, business people, and residents looked at the flashy pictures and videos and started to dream — big.

Over the next several months, more companies had similar shows, and eventually people began to think that this could really happen here. And as the events of last fall unfolded, when West Springfield and Palmer voters said ‘no’ to proposals for their communities, some people here actually started to see a casino as a sure thing.

They should have known better.

There are no sure bets in casinos, and there are certainly no sure bets in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In fact, it’s fair to say that momentum for casinos is eroding in this state. Recent polls, including one conducted by the Boston Globe, say otherwise, but it’s easy to get the sense that it’s all slipping away. The Gaming Commission has looked inept at times, many times, and there were enough votes like the shocker in Palmer to make people wonder how wide and deep the support for casinos really is in this state.

There are enough question marks about all this to prompt conversations about what will happen in Springfield if the anti-casino forces prevail in November.

These are not uplifting conversations, to be sure. Indeed, the prevailing opinion is that it will be a blow that Springfield will take a long time to recover from — if it ever does.

That’s because the city is now this close to seeing its landscape transformed, its downtown property climb in value, its stock rise, its name become known for something other than poverty and blight. But it’s equally close to seeing it all go by the boards, leaving, as we’ve said on many occasions and in many ways, no Plan B, C, or D for how to spark a turnaround.

As we said, many individuals and communities have a lot at stake in November’s vote. But none more than Springfield. This is a critical moment for the city.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff July 1, 2014

Opinion

Early-childhood Education Is Important

By Steve Grande

There’s a perception that manufacturing is a dying industry in Western Mass., but the reality is quite different. In fact, a fundamental challenge faced by manufacturing companies in the region is finding enough qualified employees who can apply math, science, and critical thinking to do the technical jobs that are the backbone of manufacturing operations today.

The challenge is increased because the industrial workforce is aging, and there are not enough qualified younger workers to replace the older ones who will be retiring soon. Companies planning their long-term survival need new generations of skilled workers. My company, Meridian Industrial Group, is one of those companies.

Meridian has deep roots in Holyoke, where it was established in 1890 as The J&W Jolly Co. We manufacture large parts used in aerospace, defense, commercial, and medical applications for customers across the country as well as overseas. Our workers make this business possible, and from a practical standpoint, I know we need a pool of qualified candidates to perform skilled manufacturing jobs.

There are existing regional efforts that help supply the pool of workers to fill manufacturing jobs, but I have concluded that preparation must start sooner. Building the necessary skills — how to think clearly, focus attentively, and apply concepts of math and science to solve problems — has to begin early in life. When I say early, I mean years before a child enters kindergarten.

Companies like Meridian Industrial need people who are ready to learn, know how to learn, excel at learning, and enjoy learning, now more than ever. That’s why I decided last year that I would make a concerted effort to support the success of Square One. It intrigued me when I learned that Square One, which provides early education and care for mostly poor, inner-city children, was founded back in 1883 specifically to provide child care for young mothers so they could go to work and support themselves. Now, as then, the children see their parents going to their job each day, so work and self-reliance are considered the norm.

Children at Square One spend their day learning in a quality early-education and care environment that prepares them to enter school and be successful. Their lessons transfer directly to their experience in school and helps make children who went to preschool at Square One much more likely to graduate from high school, continue their education past that, and contribute productively to the community. Any business person can appreciate the long-term value of such an investment.

It also intrigued me that Square One was smart enough to figure out that you can’t just educate and inform a child; you have to educate and inform their family so the culture of personal responsibility for one’s own success is reinforced on a daily basis. It’s a ‘hand-up’ philosophy that makes sense on many levels.

So I decided to support Square One. Speaking practically, I understand that what I’m doing now to support the organization will impact my ability to be successful as a business owner over the long term. That’s why I call on my colleagues, customers, and community to get on board with Square One and the whole concept of early education and care. Take time to educate yourself about the impact of early education and care. Go visit a Square One preschool and meet the children. Stay for the morning and read them a story. Meet the teachers and the staff.

I don’t run a large foundation that can afford to give away millions of dollars. I run a manufacturing business that I want to be profitable for a long time. That’s why I am proud to be an ambassador who talks to others about the important work that Square One is doing. Look into what Square One is doing because it matters, and support early-childhood education. v

Steve Grande is president of the Meridian Industrial Group, LLC.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff June 17, 2014

Opinion

State Must Think Big on Gateway Cities

The Patrick administration recently announced that it will seek $100 million from the Legislature to spur business growth in the state’s so-called gateway cities, which include several communities in Western Mass. The four-year plan calls for everything from job training to loans for small businesses, all in an effort to spark progress in communities that, for the most part, have missed out on the economic progress the Commonwealth has seen in recent years.

But while that may sound like a big number, it really isn’t, not when you consider that there are now 24 of these cities — there were an original 11 designated in 2008, with 14 more added in 2010 — and that the problems facing them are large and quite stubborn.

For those reasons, we ask the governor and his administration to think and act bigger — make that much bigger — when it comes to these cities. Otherwise, progress will come slowly and unremarkably, if at all.

Backing up a bit, the state’s stated desire to help gateway cities, also called ‘legacy cities’ by some, is laudable, because help is clearly needed. These are, for the most part, old, industrial cities, with the industries varying from paper to shoes to fishing, that have tried in recent years to reinvent themselves as something else, but mostly have come up well short in those efforts.

The original 11 gateway cities are Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester. Those later added include Attleboro, Barnstable, Chelsea, Everett, Leominster, Lynn, Malden, Methuen, Peabody, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Taunton, and Westfield.

Some of these cities are doing better than others — Lowell has made a stunning turnaround over the past decade or so, for example — but most are still burdened with high unemployment and poverty rates, underperforming school systems, struggling neighborhoods, moribund downtowns, old mills that haven’t found new uses, and a lack of new business development.

The Gateway Cities program was launched to provide assistance to these communities — many of which, like Springfield, Worcester, New Bedford, and Pittsfield, anchor the regional economies surrounding them — because it was clear that they were not rebounding on their own.

One of the biggest reasons why is jobs, or, more precisely, a lack thereof. To create more, these communities must become more entrepreneurial — a theme we’ve stressed before — while also assembling workforces that can compete in this knowledge-based economy and embracing new industries and the cultural economy.

All that will take a lot more than $100 million over the next four years.

The Patrick administration’s plan calls for spending $20 million in job training in technology and advanced manufacturing careers at vocational schools and community colleges; $5 million to be spent on loans for small businesses; another $25 million to renew annual tax credits for companies that commit to adding jobs; a $15 million fund to jump-start commercial development projects; tax credits for housing construction; and $10 million in grants and loans to clean up contaminated industrial sites, among other considerations.

In our view, this represents a good start.

But if the Patrick administration is serious about enabling cities like Springfield, Holyoke, Lawrence, and Fall River to share in the prosperity enjoyed by Boston, Cambridge, and other communities, it must adequately fund programs to get the job done.

As we said, the state must think and act bigger when it comes to making investments in these legacy cities.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff June 17, 2014

Opinion

Healthcare Stakeholders Support Reform

By LYNN NICHOLAS

An impressive collection of healthcare stakeholders have joined with the Mass. Hospital Assoc. (MHA) in calling for the state to support two extremely important reform efforts in the FY 2015 budget.

First, policymakers should address desperately needed behavioral-health reform measures. Five of Massachusetts’ largest care-provider organizations are jointly calling on the Legislature to support vital behavioral-health reform measures in next year’s budget. In addition to MHA, the Mass. Assoc. of Behavioral Health Systems, the Mass. Medical Society, the Mass. College of Emergency Physicians, and the Mass. Psychiatric Society are urging the adoption of both budgetary action and vital administrative steps needed to bolster timely access to behavioral-health services.

The Commonwealth’s behavioral-health system is broken, and immediate supports are needed to reinforce critical mental-health and substance-abuse services while we all work toward comprehensive, systemic reform. The multi-step plan advanced by our collective organizations calls for important investments in community-based placement services, outpatient and community-based diversionary services, and inpatient hospital-level services. It also urges the Legislature to adopt operational reforms that advance patient access to appropriate services on a timely basis and reduce emergency-department delays.

The persistent call for comprehensive reform of the Commonwealth’s behavioral-health system is gaining traction throughout the state. While thorough and systemic reform may take some time, it’s essential that policymakers move forward on some immediate interim steps that will preserve access and advance true parity for behavioral-health coverage and services. We hope this growing call from healthcare, public advocacy, and civic leaders will result in meaningful improvements for all patients in the very near future.

Second, new federal healthcare funding should be dedicated to its intended purpose — to support both low-income health-coverage programs and those who provide the care.

Hospitals, home-care providers, physicians, community health centers, advocates for patients, and organizations devoted to fighting major diseases are all calling on the state to ensure that the use of federal healthcare funding coming to Massachusetts through the Affordable Care Act is set aside to support the funding of Medicaid and other low-income healthcare programs in a transparent manner. Gov. Deval Patrick’s budget created the Health Insurance Expansion Fund to house the enhanced federal Medicaid revenues the state receives and dedicate the funding to support the financing of health-insurance coverage for low-income Massachusetts residents.

This approach is supported by the MHA, Health Care For All, Health Law Advocates, the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts, the Mass. League of Community Health Centers, the Mass. Assoc. of Behavioral Health Systems, the Mass. Law Reform Institute, the American Heart Assoc. and American Stroke Assoc., the Mass. Medical Society, the Mass. Health Council, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals.

This coalition has urged the Legislature to carry the governor’s recommendation forward while adding language that increases transparency — so that the amount of revenues in the fund, as well as expected additions and expenditures, are reported regularly — and explicitly authorizes one of the uses for the funding to be to support those who provide care to Medicaid patients.

This federal money was intended to shore up and support the important healthcare programs that have been developed under the state’s reform effort. By connecting the funding directly to these programs, the Legislature can create true transparency and accountability and help preserve the many collective successes we have achieved since the passage of the first health-reform efforts back in 2006.

Lynn Nicholas is president and CEO of the Mass. Hospital Assoc.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff June 3, 2014

Opinion

Casino Can’t Be Only Revitalization Plan

The Boston Globe was out visiting Springfield again recently. The paper does that on a fairly regular basis, usually to tell the rest of New England just how downtrodden the city is.
On this occasion, the paper chose to focus on a quiet Thursday night downtown — make that very quiet. “At 8:45 p.m., there was no traffic. No people or voices, either. Not a sound at all a block from City Hall, near the hulking MassMutual Center arena,” the story began. “As if on cue, a strip of plastic bubble wrap rolled down the empty street in the breeze, an urban tumbleweed. Office windows in the stately buildings along Main Street were dark, block upon block. A single sedan hogged the entire first level of the enormous Civic Center garage.”
Urban tumbleweed? OK, the writer needed such hyberbole if he was going to juxtapose what he perceives as the present — he would have seen a different picture on many nights, but that’s another story — with what may happen in the future if MGM builds its planned $800 million casino in the South End.
“It is difficult to overstate how much Springfield’s political leaders are counting on MGM to be the ‘economic engine’ that will drive the rebirth of a city tormented by an annual unemployment rate above 10% for the past five years,” the writer went on, before quickly, and correctly, pointing out the dismal track record of urban casinos when it comes to carrying out that assignment.
Perhaps the Globe writer is accurate in what he says, but we believe he might be overstating things a little. Let’s just say we hope he is.
Indeed, we’ve never considered this casino to be something that will drive Springfield’s rebirth. Rather, we think, and we hope, that it will be a big part of a rebirth that has proven quite elusive for this community.
And this is an important distinction moving forward. The casino isn’t — or shouldn’t be — the revitalization plan. But it can be a huge component in that plan.
Here’s what the casino will do:
• It will bring 2,500 to 3,000 jobs to a city that desperately needs them, which is the top line of any discussion concerning this proposal;
• It will redevelop several blocks of unused or underutilized property in the South End, much of it damaged by the 2011 tornado, for which there are few viable alternatives;
• It will bring several million people to Springfield each year. What happens after they get here and after they’re done gambling is a matter of debate, but it will at least bring people to the city;
• It will support a number of local businesses by buying from them or making them part of the casino complex;
• It will make the city a more attractive site for meetings and conventions; and
• It will, in many respects, make Springfield relevant again.
Here’s what the casino won’t do: it won’t magically transform Springfield into a bustling urban center overnight — or even in 10 or 15 years. That hasn’t happened in cities where casinos have been placed, and it won’t happen here, either.
For Springfield to enjoy a real rebirth and reduce those urban tumbleweeds, many other things have to happen besides the casino. For starters, market-rate housing must be developed downtown to attract young professionals and empty-nesters — constituencies with disposable income — to the city. But you can’t just build such housing and hope people will come (Hartford did that, and it didn’t work); you have to give people reasons to come, such as attractive jobs, nightlife, low crime rates, and a cultural community.
For a true rebirth, Springfield must also go about turning the lights back on in those office buildings the Globe mentioned, and it must create more avenues to a better life for the many people living at, or sometimes well below, the poverty line.
Springfield has become the right city at the right time when it comes to the casino era in Massachusetts. It was the only community in this region to vote ‘yes’ on a plan, and it is on the doorstep of one of the most intriguing chapters in its long history.
A casino won’t create a turnaround. But it can be a part of that process.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff June 3, 2014

Opinion

Tech Foundry May Yield Better Workforce

Over the past several years, Delcie Bean has many made many headlines with his company, Paragus Strategic IT, one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the country.
Soon, though, he may be securing headlines of a different sort, through an initiative he calls Tech Foundry. He’s already garnered one; see story on page 15.
But Bean’s not really after press with this concept, although he’ll gladly take it because it will certainly help him achieve his goals. Instead, he’s after a larger, better-qualified workforce from which to draw employees not only for his company, but for everyone doing business in this region.
And Tech Foundry sounds like a great start toward creating one.
In a nutshell, this new nonprofit agency is a training center of sorts that will be created on the long-vacant ninth floor of Harrison Place in downtown Springfield. It will focus on providing skills to meet specific employer needs, but also on giving participants a basic understanding of what’s needed to be employable in today’s technology-based economy.
Elaborating, Bean said that many of those looking to enter the workforce today lack not only the technical skills to work at a place like Paragus or MassMutual or Comcast, but also lack many of the basics. These include everything from an understanding of the need to show up on time to work every day to the so-called people skills needed to provide effective customer service and communicate with co-workers.
Beyond the basics, though, Tech Foundry will strive to provide those aforementioned specific career skills. And he means very specific, because this is what’s needed in today’s offices and factories, and what’s often missing from most job applications.
Bean draws an analogy between a manufacturer ordering a specific part and an employer putting in an order for an employee with a particular set of skills and certifications. It’s not a perfect analogy, because people are not nuts and bolts, but it’s an intriguing concept.
Tech Foundry intends to address all of the above, and with a host of constituencies ranging from high-school and college students to veterans; from career changers to the many underemployed in this region. And it will start in a few weeks with what’s being called a pilot program that will involve 25 young people soon to enter their senior year in high school.
They’ll be learning in space that Bean describes as “Googlesque,” with bright colors on the walls and funky furniture in the classroom, and working through the summer and into the fall and winter after school. When they ‘graduate’ in the spring, they’ll be placed with companies that have agreed to participate in the program.
From this important start, Bean can envision some dramatic developments, even a company like Google coming to Greater Springfield because of a workforce that could be defined with the two words quantity and quality.
Such an eventuality is probably many years away, but work with these 25 high-school students represents a strong start and a good degree of hope when it comes to addressing one of this region’s most vexing challenges — presenting employers — and potential employers — with a workforce that can help them grow and prosper.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff May 20, 2014

Opinion

Giving Credit Where It’s Due

When Kevin Kennedy took over as Springfield’s chief development officer in late 2011, BusinessWest asked the long-time aide to Congressman Richard Neal why he wanted to take on that rugged assignment at that point in his career.

He started with an answer you might expect, something about how this was a considerable challenge and how he liked challenges, especially this one. He then gave a reply one might not expect, unless they know him well.

“I’ve proven I can get things done,” he said with a voice brimming with confidence. “And that’s what the city needs right now — someone who can get things done.”

Kennedy was referring to such projects as the new federal courthouse on State Street, a Neal-led initiative where he was essentially point person; the State Street corridor project, another Neal initiative, which enhanced a lengthy stretch of that road; and Union Station, a project that was not yet started when he moved into his city office on Tapley Street, but one that’s well on its way, largely because of his persistence and the belief he shared with Neal that the long-shuttered landmark was a key to further development in the city.

We’ve long been skeptical about what a revitalized Union Station means for Springfield, but there is no debating that, over the past two and half years, Kennedy has shown that he can get things done, and we believe he’s in large part responsible for a can-do attitude that exists now in this city.

And that’s important, because for too long, there had been a ‘can’t-do’ attitude here, one that stifled growth, especially when it involved the private sector.

Before elaborating on Kennedy’s track record to date, we have to admit that he’s benefited from being in the right place at the right time. Indeed, this a time when Baystate Health boldly went forward with its $250 million Hospital of the Future project despite a balky economy; when UMass Amherst, amid seemingly non-stop prodding to do something, anything, to help bolster Springfield’s downtown, came forward with plans to build a satellite center there (the welcome center is already open); when the state has committed to spending more than $200 million to fix the viaduct portion of I-91; when the state wanted to help the city by making it the site for a backup data center; and, last but certainly not least, when the gaming industry made Springfield the city of choice for the Western Mass. resort casino.

Those projects account for a huge chunk of the $2.5 billion in development projects recently completed or in various forms of progress in Springfield, as outlined at a recent event held at CityStage to show just how much is happening in the City of Homes beyond the casino planned for the South End. And while it’s fair to say that most of that would have happened no matter who was in the chief development officer’s chair, these projects did not happen in a vacuum.

Instead, they happened because city departments and economic-development agencies are coordinating their efforts in ways we haven’t seen in some time, and also because there seems to be an actual development plan for Springfield — again, something we haven’t seen for a while. And Kennedy deserves credit for both.

The plan involves using one project to leverage further development in a given area and create momentum. This was seen on State Street, where the courthouse, data center, and corridor enhancements have spurred new projects, such as a planned grocery store and restoration of the Gunn Block, with more in the works. On Main Street, meanwhile, the plan is to take momentum from Union Station, the UMass satellite center, and other initiatives to create a long stretch of progress from the North End, where several new medical facilities have opened, to the tornado-ravaged South End and the planned casino site.

From there … well, the plan is to generate additional momentum through more success stories and more evidence that Springfield is a place where things can happen.

There is still considerable work to be done in this city, but Kennedy has proven that he can, indeed, get things done. And as he said, that’s what Springfield needs right now.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff May 20, 2014

Opinion

A Housing Shift Our State Must Adopt

By PAUL McMORROW

The number of Americans who own their own homes fell again last week. This is barely even news anymore. The Census Bureau updates its count of homeowners and renters in America every three months, and with each update for the past decade, the tally of homeowners has slipped a bit more. Homeownership rates haven’t been as low as they are now since 1995.

The fall is more than a long hangover from the burst housing bubble. American homeownership has been slipping so steadily for so long that the massive scope of the decline has obscured its real meaning. It isn’t really a story about Americans drifting away from homeownership en masse, so much as it’s a story about a fundamental shift in where, and how, young Americans live.

Cities and towns in Massachusetts that want to survive need to recognize, and embrace, this shift. The easiest way to begin is to stop building single-family homes.

Home ownership in the U.S. peaked in mid-2004, at 69%. And while ownership rates have fallen across the board, the decline is especially pronounced among young Americans. Since 2004, home ownership among adults under age 35 has fallen one-and-a-half times as much as the national rate has fallen. The decline among 30- to 34-year-olds is more than double the national average; the ownership rate among this age group is now as low as it’s been since at least the early 1980s.

Since young Americans are waiting longer than ever to take on a mortgage, the shift has enormous consequences for the way cities and towns grow. It means, on the most basic level, that they have to build more of the type of housing that folks are demanding — apartments — and less of the homes they don’t want or can’t afford in this still-sluggish job market. In Massachusetts, that means convincing local governments to change the way they’ve always approached growth.

There is no real state housing policy in Massachusetts. Municipalities control their own development. The state can only overrule local officials and force development on municipalities in very limited, painful circumstances. For the most part, the state’s housing policy is whatever common elements emerge from 351 separate land-use regimes. These different agendas usually add up to Massachusetts doing the exact opposite of what it needs to do in the housing arena.

Over the past two decades, Massachusetts has added new housing at roughly half the national rate. And when the state has added housing, it has added the wrong kind of housing; most has come in the form of single-family homes. And the state has already built most of the single-family homes it will need for a generation.

The sharp shift away from home ownership among the younger set means that, if Massachusetts is serious about attracting and retaining young workers, it can’t just continue churning out small quantities of large suburban homes.

A report earlier this year by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found that Massachusetts needs to add hundreds of thousands of new housing units by the year 2040, but found the vast majority of development demand will fall on apartments and condominiums. This means Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville need to keep cranking away on their recent building sprees.

It also means that suburbs need to make their zoning priorities fit modern housing demands, and focus on building up rental units in denser town centers, where the housing demand is greatest.

Paul McMorrow is an associate editor at Commonwealth Magazine.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff April 22, 2014

Opinion

Some Steps in the Right Direction

Jay Minkarah, director of DevelopSpringfield, is right when he says that most of the projects currently in the agency’s portfolio don’t make much sense — financially, anyway.

The Gunn Block, the condemned 19th-century commercial building on the corner of State and Walnut streets that the agency acquired last year, is in horrific condition. Rehabbing it will be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, and when that day comes, the property will sit on the edge of a mostly vacant, considerably underutilized block of buildings across State Street from Springfield Technical Community College.

No wonder the development community had no interest in it.

It’s also had very little, if any, interest in the property known as 83 Maple, the former residence of Ansel Phelps, Springfield’s fourth mayor, which DevelopSpringfield acquired last year and is currently rehabbing. Also long-condemned, the property has not been occupied for years, has resisted at least a few efforts at revitalization, and has become one of many symbols of stagnation in the city.

And then, there’s the former River Inn parcel just a few hundred yards down State Street from the Gunn Block. It has become an eyesore and a crime scene, and DevelopSpringfield acquired it at auction a year ago and razed it with the intention of selling the parcel for reuse, hopefully for retail.

All three of these projects would have to be described as very long shots and financial risks that traditional developers wouldn’t touch.

But as Minkarah told BusinessWest, they are also very symbolic, and therefore appropriate projects for this private, nonprofit agency to use to generate momentum and create a sense of accomplishment in the city.

And such victories are needed because, while we keep reading and hearing about the billions of dollars that will be spent in the city over the next few years — and those numbers are certainly impressive — there is still a sense of ‘seeing is believing’ in this city, and there still isn’t much to see.

‘Strategic’ was the word Minkarah used repeatedly to describe the agency’s current projects, and it’s an appropriate term to use. By revitalizing the Gunn Block and moving forward with a planned grocery store across Walnut Street, the city could spark a new development in Mason Square and change the face of that block just east of Commerce High School. And landing a major retailer in the former River Inn property could generate more momentum for a stretch of State Street that is showing some signs of life, and will show more when the old fire station just down the road is finally rehabbed.

Meanwhile, successfully converting the Ansel Phelps House into use for professionals could stimulate more progress in the Maple Heights area, an historic area that could use a dose of optimism.

At the very least, these projects should create more of a very important ingredient in the city’s efforts to bounce back from fiscal turmoil, natural disasters, a stagnant economy, and a gas blast: hope.

Minkarah’s theory is that, if people see that some of the most blighted properties in the city can be a given a new life, then just about anything is possible.

And he’s right.

These projects may not make sense financially, but they are certainly small — and potentially big — steps in the right direction.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff April 22, 2014

Opinion

Rising Ocean Waters — and Rates

By JACK CLARKE

Bay State ocean waters and insurance rates are rising. Just ask those holding 25,000 federally subsidized coastal flood-insurance policies in Massachusetts. These contracts insulate people from the full risks of living on the shore — risks that private insurance companies have long refused to take, making taxpayers assume the burden.

Today, due to bigger and more frequent ocean storms, property loss has drowned the national program under $24 billion of debt. Much of this debt mounted after hurricanes Alex, Katrina, and Superstorm Sandy.

To ensure that future flood-insurance rates more accurately reflect the risks associated with living in hazardous coastal floodplains, in 2012, Congress experienced a rare moment of clarity and passed comprehensive flood-insurance reform.

When the new rate increases took effect, they sparked widespread panic, and Congress quickly backpedaled and then hit the snooze button on any serious rate reform. It seems that Congress is more than willing to step into the limelight to rebuild homes and businesses, but not to promote solutions that prevent or minimize property destruction in the first place. One thing is for certain — all this new attention to the risks of coastal living is a wake-up call, and we’d be wise to pay attention.

For those facing King Neptune’s inevitable onslaught of coastal destruction and havoc, options include moving buildings back from the shore, elevating structures on pilings, re-nourishing beaches with sediment to strengthen their natural storm-buffering capacity, and purchasing properties in harm’s way.

Evidence of completed federal coastal property-buyout programs from across the country shows that these investments pay for themselves within 10 years by permanently avoiding response, rescue, recovery, and repair costs from future floods. Most importantly, the lives of first responders and residents are spared.

Flooding causes almost half of all disaster-related property destruction in America — and it’s getting worse. A recent Federal Emergency Management Agency study found that sea-level rise will expand the nation’s flood-hazard areas by more than 50% by 2100, with the number of associated flood-insurance policies increasing by an astounding 130%. A growing coastal population exacerbates the problem. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that almost 40% of Americans now live in coastal counties. Here at home, according to the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office, 85% of Massachusetts’ 6.7 million residents live within 50 miles of the coast.

A 2005 congressionally mandated study found that, for every $1 invested in hazard-mitigation activities, the national economy saves $4 in losses from future disasters, and saves an additional $3.65 in costs to the U.S. Treasury from avoided disaster-recovery expenditures and lost tax revenues. Last month, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting showed that, in this region, there are 534 properties considered ‘severe repetitive loss’ casualties — meaning that the flood insurance program has paid owners multiple times to repair and rebuild on site.

A bill championed by state Sen. Mark Pacheco, chair of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture, includes coastal buyback simply because it is among the most cost-effective and pragmatic mitigation measures for addressing high-hazard coastal areas. The legislation proposes to fund the purchase, from willing sellers, of properties that are repeatedly and substantially damaged by storms. Specifically, a voluntary coastal buy-back program would:

• Invest in high-risk properties in advance of flood disasters;

• Clean up and restore properties to their natural conditions while conserving them for public benefits such as parklands, wildlife refuges, and public beaches;

• Provide storm buffers as repaired coastal resources absorb floodwaters and save uplands from flooding; and

• Capture and store heat-trapping carbon pollution within restored coastal ecosystems, mitigating some of the worst effects of climate change.

A coastal buy-back program would convert vulnerable and dangerous flood-prone properties from liabilities to valuable community assets while sparing lives, protecting the environment, and saving tax dollars.

The alternative is to continue pouring money into an undertow of debt.

Jack Clarke is director of public policy and government relations for Mass Audubon and a recent gubernatorial appointee to the Mass. Coastal Erosion Commission.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff April 8, 2014

Opinion

Time to Think About Summer — and Jobs

The calendar declares that it is only April. Spring is just beginning, and a brutal winter is thankfully in the past tense, but barely.

Still, it’s time to talk about summer and, more specifically, summer jobs for young people.

Some of the early projections for the numbers of jobs that will open up for those in high school and college are not particularly promising, and this is not surprising. While the recession was declared officially over roughly five years ago, it never really ended in this region, and many companies remain wary about making large investments — and new hiring certainly falls into that category.

Meanwhile, in this environment, where jobs are scarce and unemployment rates, while somewhat lower, remain high, many low-end, entry-level jobs are being taken by older individuals who are simply desperate to re-enter the workforce.

But the need to create jobs for young people and enable them to experience everything that summer employment brings — from the paycheck to the ability to work as part of a team, to the benefits of being around and learning from older people — will hopefully override concerns about adding some payroll for the summer months and create some opportunities.

In Boston, Mayor Martin Walsh — in an effort to continue, if not improve upon, the strong track record of his predecessor, Tom Menino, for spurring businesses to bring on summer help — has issued what amounts to a stern challenge to companies there to create some jobs. Indeed, his goal is to surpass Menino’s record of putting 10,000 teenagers to work, and the new target is 12,000.

The same type of call to arms is needed here.

The Regional Employment Board of Hampden County has officially launched its summer jobs program — an initiative that asks companies to add to their staffs or donate money so that positions can be created at area nonprofits — and other workforce-related organizations are doing the same.

We strongly advise area business owners to heed these requests and put some young people to work. There are benefits for these youngsters, the businesses themselves, and the region as a whole.

As we said, individuals get to put some money in their pockets, but they also have the opportunity to gain some maturity by absorbing the responsibilities that come with a job — be it at Friendly’s, Six Flags, MassMutual, or a local park or swimming pool. Meanwhile, these young people could be exposed to fields, or career paths, that they might not have considered before, such as the broad realm of healthcare.

As for the businesses, they’re introducing themselves to potential future employees and, at the same time, getting an infusion of youth — and young ideas — into their organizations.

And the region benefits because, ultimately, its workforce becomes larger and more versatile, something it will need to be if it is to attract new jobs across a number of sectors.

Yes, it’s only April. The Red Sox have just started playing, and many area golf courses aren’t even open. Flowers won’t be blooming for several more weeks. But it’s time to start thinking about summer and adding a summer job — or two, or three.

Times remain tough, the economy is still an issue, and many companies still lack the confidence for big expenditures. But summer jobs are investments — in young people and this region as a whole — and we hope area business owners can be inspired to make them.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff April 8, 2014

Opinion

Early Education: a Worthy Investment

By JOAN KAGAN

The Benjamin Franklin adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is as true today as it was when Franklin authored it in 1736. Pay attention early, and you prevent costly problems later — a simple concept that is demonstrated in high-quality early-education programs, such as Square One, in which the cognitive, social, emotional, health, and nutrition needs of children and families are addressed through research-based curriculums and activities.

Each April, the National Assoc. for the Education of Young Children shines a national spotlight on the needs of young children and their families while focusing the public’s attention on programs that meet those needs. The Week of the Young Child, celebrated this year April 6-12, is an opportunity for us to stop and support these meaningful contributions and the impact those contributions have in improving the lives of children and their families.

Children with a high-quality early-childhood program get better grades, are more educated, are 40% more likely to graduate from high school, and become better employees and better citizens. When James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, was asked how best to positively impact our economy, he responded, “high-quality early-childhood programs.” Heckman and other economists report that the return on dollars invested in quality early-education programming varies from 7% to 16%. The savings are recognized in a reduction in crime, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, special education, and welfare dependency.

Yet, the challenge of funding high-quality early education for all children is daunting. The majority of funding is federal, and eligibility is based on the economic and work status of the family. The cost of providing the service far exceeds the rate of reimbursement from state contracts.

Many private early-education and care providers are no longer accepting or are reducing serving the number of children with subsidies because of the low rates of reimbursement, thus reducing access to services. Unfortunately, many of our community’s poorest children, who are at highest risk for school failure, are not eligible for subsidized early education, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty and unemployment.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama affirmed that the job of equipping our citizens with the skills and training necessary to grow our economy has to start at the earliest possible age. And recently, Gov. Deval Patrick announced his heightened focus on early education in Massachusetts.

Both leaders know that early education is a wise investment that will pay for itself many times over, and will benefit everyone. Businesses will benefit from an educated workforce. Communities will benefit from reductions in violent crime. Schools will benefit from students who are not simply ready to enter school, but who are prepared to excel in school and who are reading proficiently by the end of third grade — a key indicator of a child’s future success in school.

Early education is irrefutably an ounce of prevention that is worth, for us all, a pound of cure.

The Week of the Young Child provides a special opportunity to support early-education and care programs. Join us during this special week to celebrate the good works happening every day by pledging your commitment to the highest-risk children and families who need a chance to learn and grow together.

Contribute your time or talent. Come and visit, and share a special skill with our children and families. Coming in and reading for even an hour shows our children just how much our community cares for and about them. Take this week to demonstrate your support for our year-round work.

Joan Kagan is president of Springfield-based Square One; (413) 732-5183.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff March 25, 2014

Opinion

Coworking Spaces Can Be Idea Factories

For many years now, we’ve been preaching the virtues of inspiring and facilitating entrepreneurship as a sound economic-development strategy, one that is often overlooked by many.

Indeed, that phrase ‘economic development’ is usually associated with filling industrial parks or convincing foreign automakers to build a 1 million-square-foot factory in one’s community. And that’s one way to go about it, granted a very difficult way.

The more old-fashioned way is to encourage the creation of startups and then finding ways to help them grow — and stay — in one’s region. It takes longer, but the results are often more sustainable. This is why we have encouraged groups and initiatives such as Valley Venture Mentors (VVM) in their efforts to help get businesses off to the ground and then get to that next level.

And also why we’re quite impressed with what’s going on at 20 Hampton Ave., Suite 150 in Northampton.

This is the address of Click Workspace (see story on page 12), a unique facility that its founders and current president Paul Silva, also involved with VVM, say specializes in “collisions.”

These are meetings of the minds that often turn into business opportunities in the form of collaborations, assistance that might help an idea come to fruition or a business take a critical next step, or startups that could eventually employ dozens of people.

Click Workspace has seen all of the above, and repeatedly. Maybe the best example of such a collision involves Randall Smith and Chris Landry. The former is a digital strategist and founder of a company called PowerLabs. The latter is the founder of Landry Communications, a branding venture that helps organizations get their stories out. The two met at Work Clickspace and quickly determined that their skills were complementary. They wound up responding as a team to a request for proposals from Boston-based Chorus Foundation and won a sizable contract from the agency.

There are countless other examples of how these collisions work, and they provide ample evidence of the fact that the region needs to find ways to create more of them.

Those involved with ‘Click,’ as it’s called, are interested in taking the concept to other area cities and towns, and we hope they are successful in doing so.

They need some ingredients to fall into place for that to happen, though, including a critical mass of entrepreneurs and creative professionals and affordable commercial real estate, something they somehow managed to find in Northampton, despite the long odds against doing so.

Their next target should be downtown Springfield, and there is already movement to establish a facility there. It’s a common-sense step, because there is considerable activity involving entrepreneurship in the city’s central business district — VVM meets there regularly — and there could be much more in the years to come with UMass having an active presence and initiatives underway to create a larger, more vibrant creative economy there.

What’s needed is a space where the minds can meet and collisions can happen.

There is already much happening when it comes to economic development in Springfield, from the planned $800 million casino complex in the South End to the long-awaited revitalization of Union Station to UMass Amherst’s planned satellite center. These should all create more vibrancy and more interest in the City of Homes, but what’s needed is more focus on inspiring entreprenership and spurring new small businesses.

A coworking facility that can replicate some of those collisions happening at 20 Hampton Ave. in Northampton would be a great place to start. n

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff March 25, 2014

Opinion

A Potential Wellspring of Job Growth

To look around the facilities at Alliance Upholstery, located in the former Bottaro Skolnick building in Springfield’s South End, one might gain a new perspective on the phrase ‘humble beginnings.’

Alliance is a decades-old and very successful upholstery business that operates in what could only be called a no-frills environment — that’s an industry term of sorts — in the century-old building where monkey wrenches, one of Springfield’s many ‘firsts,’ were manufactured.

Sharing space with Alliance is something called the Wellspring Upholstery Cooperative, or WUC, the first in what will hopefully be a network of businesses created to tap into the huge buying power possessed by the region’s colleges, healthcare facilities, and other large institutions, and create worker-owned businesses — and much-needed jobs (see story on page 6).

Wellspring, which, as the name suggests, is designed to created a continuous supply of jobs and opportunities, was inspired by similar initiatives elsewhere, including the hugely successful Evergreen Collaboratives in Cleveland and the Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain, which to date have created more than 100 businesses now employing more than 80,000 people.

Ventures like Wellspring have to start somewhere, and this one started with a few dozen booths from a dining commons at UMass Amherst, several chairs from the Westfield mayor’s office, and a few items from the campus hotel at UMass, projects that have kept the first WUC employees busy.

The hope, and expectation, is that there will soon be many more upholstery projects and employees to handle those assignments, and then the creation of more businesses, such as a greenhouse operation that could supply those aforementioned anchor businesses with fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a commercial laundry, such as the one created by Evergreen, one of its most successful ventures.

We believe that it can happen, and will happen, largely because there are a number of anchor businesses and partners committed to making this a success. That first list includes Baystate Health, the Sisters of Providence Health System, UMass Amherst, Springfield Technical Community College, and Western New England University. The latter includes the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, Partners for a Healthier Community, and the United Way of Pioneer Valley.

Beyond this large and solid base of support, though, is the understanding that a venture like Wellspring needs to work.

Indeed, economic development takes many forms, from attracting new businesses to helping existing ventures expand, to creating new business sectors, such as the biosciences. One that’s often overlooked is generating development in neighborhoods where private investment is rare, if it occurs at all, and Springfield has many of those.

Meanwhile, generating jobs in such neighborhoods is not only an economic-development issue, but a health issue as well — jobs are certainly a key component to a healthy community, and a lack of jobs is one of the factors that has made Hampden County the least healthy county in the state in recent years.

At the moment, the program created by all those aforementioned partners has created a wellspring of potential. In time, and perhaps not much of it, it may indeed become a key source of opportunities and jobs.

From the current humble beginnings, great things are possible, and likely. v

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff March 11, 2014

Opinion

The Curse of I-91 Continues

Call it the ‘curse of I-91.’
Since about 20 minutes after it opened — and well before it was constructed, actually, when elected officials decided to build it on the east side of the Connecticut River rather than the west, as was originally planned — this road has been a problem for the city of Springfield.

It slices through the downtown, effectively cutting it off from the river. It essentially destroyed much of the character and cohesiveness of the city’s South End neighborhood. And while it has helped this region promote itself as the ‘crossroads of New England’ — I-91 and the turnpike intersect here — the highway seems to have become more efficient at enabling people to pass through this area than stop here.

And now, the curse continues.

Indeed, at perhaps the most pivotal time in recent memory, a time when Springfield seems ready to shake off decades of stagnation and experience some real growth, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) has decided that the highway’s viaduct section must undergo a massive repair and reconstruction project (see story, page 32).

When we say massive, we mean it. At $260 million, this repair project will cost more than the entire highway when it was built in the late ’60s. That price tag is several times higher than the next-largest public-works initiative in the region’s history — the Great River Bridge project in Westfield.

And massive is also the word that will undoubtedly be used to describe the negative impact that will result from what the DOT says could be two or three constructions seasons of work, but will more likely be more — perhaps much more.

Anyone who lived through the reconstruction of the Memorial Bridge, the I-91 ramp project that coincided with the opening of the new Basketball Hall of Fame, or the South End Bridge repair initiative knows that projections about how long and painful such undertakings will be are generally well off the mark.

For this latest project, the DOT is touting the virtues of something called ABC, or accelerated bridge construction, practices. This involves use of pre-cast concrete sections of road, work that continues something approaching 24/7, and other steps designed to reduce the duration, and therefore the headaches, of this project.

For those tempted to be skeptical — and to borrow from the famous line in that old movie — ‘be skeptical … be very skeptical.’

This project has the potential to make the Memorial Bridge project look like a minor inconvenience — and that took six years to complete after construction crews started tearing up the deck and discovered that practically the entire bridge had to be reconstructed, while it remained open.

The I-91 project will lead to ramp closures and the funneling of traffic to East and West Columbus avenues, roads that cannot handle much more traffic than they’re already handling. And portions of the I-91 North and I-91 South parking garages will be closed, creating more inconvenience for people trying to get to downtown office towers, Symphony Hall, and especially the Hampden County Hall of Justice, which is due to be replaced, but certainly not in time for this project.

There’s also the matter of MGM Springfield, the $800 million casino planned for the South End. If all goes well — meaning the attempt to ban gaming via a statewide referendum fails — construction on those facilities should start just around the same time work begins on the highway. This means that two of the biggest construction projects in the region’s history will be going on simultaneously — and within a few hundred feet of one another.

And then, there are those 17 days in September when the Big E opens its gates. I-91 is already bumper to bumper through many days of the fair, especially the weekends. Now imagine the situation when two of the six lanes of traffic are shut down and ramps off the highway are closed.

But there’s another aspect to this curse. On top of all this uncertainty and inconvenience, the repair project, deemed necessary and not to be delayed, will essentially end any and all talk of doing something more dramatic with the highway, such as taking it underground or to street level.

Those who say that federal and state governments won’t do anything with a road they just spent at least $260 million to repair are right on the money with their analysis. If (it’s more like when, the way things look now) this project proceeds as scheduled, this city will have to live with the viaduct for probably another half-century.

And that’s why you could certainly call this the ‘curse of I-91.’

Editorial 2

By BusinessWest Staff March 11, 2014

Opinion

A Region Ramps Up for MGM

Mike Mathis can’t promise you a job, although that hasn’t stopped people from walking up to him, the incoming president and CEO of MGM Springfield, and asking. But he can promise a fighting chance at some very intriguing opportunities.

In fact, that word promise is the heart of why MGM Springfield’s planned $800 million casino is appealing to so many locals. Take, for example, the host-community agreement forged with the city’s leaders last year.

The financial commitments — $15 million to Springfield up front, during the construction phase, and $25 million annually after that — are only the beginning. What really has locals excited are the 2,000 construction jobs expected in the short term, then 3,000 permanent jobs in the complex once it opens, as well as a commitment to spend at least $50 million dollars annually with local providers of goods and services.

Together, that amounts to a real shot in the arm for the local economy. The question is, will area businesses and job seekers take advantage?

It’s a more complex question than it sounds. On the vendor side, doing business with MGM — whether that’s opening up a restaurant or retail shop inside the casino or striking a deal to provide cleaning or groundskeeping services, office equipment or hotel linens, or dozens of other things — means meeting the needs of a large, Fortune 500 company and simultaneously jumping over the state’s regulatory hurdles aimed at anyone who does business in the gaming industry.

Neither is something many area small businesses are used to, and building capacity and navigating gaming-industry rules won’t happen overnight. That’s why local chambers of commerce are beginning to ramp up workforce-development programs for employers interested in securing some of those contracts.

Meanwhile, the region already struggles with a persistent ‘skills gap’ that has left many businesses struggling to find qualified help for job openings. Bringing another 3,000 positions into the City of Homes, although an obvious plus for job seekers, only exacerbates the skills gap, not just for MGM, but for the companies that will be losing workers to the shiny new casino and must scramble to backfill those resignations.

Thankfully, MGM will have a hand in this effort, with plans to participate in job fairs to promote the construction work and the permanent positions, as well as helping to fund training and workforce-development programs to lessen the skills gap, including endeavors to assist minority applicants, the disabled, and the chronically unemployed and underemployed.

BusinessWest, which supports the MGM project, has long believed that a casino, by itself, cannot be a panacea that will end economic stagnancy, but needs to be seen as one — albeit major — piece of a city’s long-term growth strategy.

We still believe that to be the case, and have been heartened by some of the other pieces falling into place downtown. And, if the Gaming Commission gives MGM the license (and if casinos aren’t overturned in a possible state referendum in November), more dominos will start falling as vendors ink deals, construction tradespeople get ready to go to work, and real-estate activity heats up downtown. And, of course, as thousands of area residents angle for jobs.

MGM is ready to come to Springfield — but are job seekers and small businesses ready to take advantage? It seems there’s work to be done on both counts. Let the competition begin.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff February 25, 2014

Opinion

Cloud of Uncertainty Hangs Over Casinos

This should be a time of great anticipation and, yes, celebration for some players in the casino industry — and, likewise, in communities like Springfield, where there seems to be little that can prevent MGM Resorts International from winning a license to build and operate an $800 million resort facility in the city’s South End.

But it isn’t — at least to the extent that it could be.

That’s because there’s a very dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over gaming in Massachusetts, and it comes in the form of a lawsuit pending before the state Supreme Judicial Court. That suit was filed by the backers of efforts to repeal the state casino law passed in 2011. They gained enough signatures to place a referendum question on this November’s ballot, but then saw Attorney General Martha Coakley rule that the petition was unconstitutional because it would “impair the implied contracts between the [gaming] commission and gaming license applicants” and illegally “take” those contract rights without compensation.

Repeal backers then took their case — quite literally — to the SJC, which is slated to take up the matter in the late spring and render a decision by June or July. That should be a few months after the commission chooses the winning applicant for the lone slot-parlor license, and several weeks after it issues licenses for resort casinos in Boston (where there are two contenders) and Western Mass., where MGM is the only player standing.

Suffice it to say that, if all goes as expected and MGM wins this region’s license, most of the celebrating will be muted, if not postponed entirely, until the SJC settles what will be one of the most closely watched cases to come before it in years, and one where some experts are saying it’s hard to predict the outcome.

To say that there is a lot of stake would be a huge understatement. If the repeal backers win in court, and a majority of voters support their effort at the polls, then there will likely be no casino era in Massachusetts and, thus, no $800 stimulus to the Greater Springfield economy. And the millions, if not tens of millions, spent by the casino companies to bring their proposals to this stage would be wasted.

That explains why there is deep concern in the casino camps, and also why a coalition involving these players (including MGM) and the backers of casino gambling in this state has been formed to fight the repeal effort.

It is the coalition’s basic contention that the repeal initiative is, as Coakley ruled, unconstitutional, and amounts to the illegal taking of contract rights. In addition, they contend that the casino law passed in November 2011 is essentially working the way legislators intended it to, meaning that communities that don’t want a casino within their borders can vote such a proposal down (and many have), while residents who do support them can also control their fate at the ballot box, as voters in Springfield did.

Michael Mathis, head of the MGM’s so-called ‘Springfield initiative,’ summed things up nicely in recent comments to the press. “Our plan was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of voters,” he remarked. “It would be devastating to roll back all that has been accomplished and take away the promise of what it is to come.”

Citing a recent poll conducted by the Western New England University Polling Institute showing that 61% of Massachusetts adults support the establishment of casinos in the state (roughly the same number as in 2009 and 2010), some casino backers and gaming executives are confidently downplaying the likelihood that a repeal effort would succeed should it reach the ballot.

These individuals shouldn’t ever underestimate the ability of voters in this state to surprise them, or to attempt to rule by referendum. It happened with nuclear power plants, which were banned in 1988, and with dog tracks 20 years later.

It could happen with casino gambling, but we don’t believe the measure should come before the voters at all. It is our hope that the SJC concurs with Coakley and declares this bid unconstitional.

Unless or until it does, that dark cloud of uncertainty will continue to hover over the casino era in the Bay State.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff February 25, 2014

Opinion

Cost Report Creates False Impressions

By LYNN NICHOLAS

The state’s Health Policy Commission (HPC) just released its latest Cost Trends Report, in which it claims Massachusetts healthcare providers — primarily hospitals — waste somewhere on the order of $14.7 billion to $26.9 billion by providing ‘unnecessary’ medical care.

Some of the report’s concerns regarding unnecessary medical care are valid, but the report glosses over some of the non-hospital systemic problems that help drive unnecessary care, and many of the very real improvements that hospitals in Massachusetts have already achieved. Some of the report’s claims also foster misunderstanding about cost variations among different kinds of hospitals, which makes for provocative sound bites but ultimately fails to highlight the real issues.

Despite critics’ claims to the contrary, there are some valid and necessary reasons for higher costs at academic medical centers, though it’s also true that some of the cost disparities warrant much closer scrutiny and should require justification if they are to continue. That is all part of the reform that is underway in Massachusetts. Ultimately, what should guide the decision-making process is a commitment that each patient should receive the right care in the right setting.

It’s hard to keep a scorecard on the progress of healthcare reform in Massachusetts. This is partly because there is so much happening and because a lot of it is not yet visible to the public. Meanwhile, current data to measure progress is not available. Data from 2009, extensively relied upon in the HPC report, doesn’t fully reveal the hard work being done to improve the way care is delivered and paid for.

Most important is that, even as we at the Mass. Hospital Assoc. (MHA) study the report, hospitals are working collaboratively with each other, non-hospital providers, government, and other stakeholders to improve care while becoming even more cost-efficient, including in the areas identified in the HPC report as examples of wasteful spending.

For example, 10 Massachusetts hospitals have hosted an MHA educational program on ‘lean’ continuous-improvement techniques since 2010. As a result, more than 240 healthcare leaders have joined other lean experts in deploying these techniques in hospitals.

The Massachusetts hospital community has also been making quality and patient safety improvements on many fronts. The MHA’s board of trustees and all our member hospitals’ boards unanimously endorsed an association-wide initiative to make measurable, concrete improvements in hospitals’ performance, focusing on reducing readmissions and hospital-acquired infections. In addition, most Massachusetts hospitals are enrolled in a national quality-improvement collaborative aimed at improvements in 10 patient-safety areas. And the 29 Massachusetts hospitals that are enrolled in the MHA-coordinated Hospital Engagement Network have collectively experienced a 30% reduction in five adverse healthcare events: catheter-associated urinary-tract infections, central-line-associated bloodstream infections, pressure ulcers, ventilator-associated events, and early elective deliveries.

It is true that hospitals can become more efficient and improve the delivery of care — but that’s only one piece of the overall healthcare costs scenario, as hospitals comprise less than 40% of overall healthcare expenditures. There is ample evidence that underinvestment in behavioral-health issues adds to the cost of the overall healthcare system, with preventable readmissions being just one example.

The HPC report is correct in its conclusion that prime areas of opportunity for improvement moving forward include fostering a value-based market; promoting an efficient, high-quality healthcare delivery system; advancing alternative payment methods; and enhancing transparency and data availability.

But there are market practices that impede progress, like the broken behavioral-health system that takes such a toll on our families and communities. Its impact on cost can be seen in the number of patients readmitted to hospitals with behavioral-health diagnoses.

It’s important to realize that hospitals are already pursuing many of the strategies cited in the HPC report as opportunities to reduce costs and improve efficiency, although more certainly can and will be done. But cost isn’t solely a problem of providers, and not all cost differences among providers are wasteful.

Lynn Nicholas is president and CEO of the Mass. Hospital Assoc. This article first appeared on the MHA blog.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff February 11, 2014

Opinion

An Opportunity for the EDC

Allan Blair, the long-time director of the Economic Development Council (EDC) of Western Mass., announced at a recent council board meeting that he will be retiring at the end of this year. Almost within minutes after that announcement, the board announced the appointment of a search committee to anoint Blair’s successor.
The juxtaposition of those events clearly indicates that Blair’s decision to step down wasn’t news to anyone, and it also makes it evident that the board had already made up its mind up to carry on in the same fashion that it has for the past 17 years.
We suggest that the board slow things down a bit, or more than a bit, take full advantage of the one year’s notice Blair gave (under different circumstances, this would be a little excessive), and decide first if this model is really working before simply starting to pore over résumés.
A thorough examination might well conclude that the current system — which has the EDC serving as an umbrella organization for a host of agencies, ranging from the Affiliated Chambers to Westmass; from the Regional Employment Board to the Convention and Visitors Bureau — is a model that works. But then again, it may also decide, as many have suggested, that the current system adds bureaucracy to the process of economic development, not real value.
And while examining its model, the EDC’s board should also address the agency’s purpose, and determine whether its mission has been properly, and specifically, defined — and communicated.
We say this because many business owners and managers — including some who sit on the EDC’s board — are not at all sure what this agency and its leaders do and how it is to be held accountable for what’s done, or not done, as the case may be.
And as the board uses the year Blair gave it to consider all these things, we would suggest they use the occasion of his departure to infuse some new blood, and some new energy, into the organization.
Blair has notched some notable accomplishments in his lengthy tenure — mostly in the realm of industrial-park development and creating what is known as the Hartford-Springfield Economic Partnership — but this agency needs a shakeup and a fresh commitment to the many tenets of economic development.
For this reason, we suggest the search committee look outside the block of offices in the TD Bank Building to find a successor. While hiring from within — and, in this case, that’s a broad term — is often a prudent tack, in this instance we believe the EDC needs some new perspective and new sense of purpose, and it won’t get either unless it brings in dynamic new leadership.
Two names come immediately to mind. First is Richard Sullivan, the former mayor of Westfield and current secretary of the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. He knows this region, has a proven track record for getting things done, and knows how to work with people to set and meet or exceed goals.
Another is Greg Bialecki, currently state Secretary of Housing and Economic Development. While not from Western Mass., he has worked closely with Gov. Deval Patrick to help Springfield recover from the fiscal woes of a decade ago and recent weather calamities, especially the tornado of 2011. He understands the plight of the state’s Gateway Cities, and would bring some energy — not to mention state connections — to the process of revitalizing those in this region — Springfield, Holyoke, Westfield, and others.
It may be difficult to recruit either one because they will likely have a number of job opportunities when (and if) their tenure with the state ends soon. But they are examples of how this region needs to think big — and hire big — when it comes to filling this important position.
As we said, this is an opportunity for this area, and it should take full advantage of it.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff February 11, 2014

Opinion

Electricity Grid and Markets Need Fixing

By MARC BROWN

This has been a cold winter, and rate payers shouldn’t expect their electricity costs to thaw anytime soon. Wholesale electricity prices have exploded as frigid temperatures have driven up demand for natural gas for home heating purposes. This results in most natural-gas generators paying a premium for what little gas remains in the pipe. This in turn has led to an increase in expensive oil-fired generation just to keep the lights on.
How high have prices climbed? How about nearly 10 times last year’s average wholesale price for hours at a time — and weekly averages at three times the price over the last two months. Incredibly, for the week of Jan. 20-26, the average wholesale price of electricity was $0.26 per kilowatt hour — seven times the average wholesale cost in 2012.
Unfortunately, the bad news is only going to get worse. Brayton Point, a generating plant with 1500 MW of capacity, has announced that it will close its doors in 2017 despite a determination by the New England Independent System Operator (ISO-NE) that the plant is needed to meet future electricity demand and ensure grid reliability. Brayton’s closing leaves New England’s generating capacity tenuous (at best) for the next forward-capacity auction (FCA).
One of the inherent flaws in the structure of New England’s electricity markets is that it encourages price volatility over stability — which in turn reduces incentives for new investment in base load power sources that our region desperately needs. In addition to market structure flaws, regional regulatory policies enacted by our legislatures have contributed to the shortsightedness of our grid. Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) force electric utility and competitive electricity suppliers to purchase a percentage of their electricity from politically preferred classes of renewables, creating markets for renewable-energy generators that wouldn’t exist if not for the grace of government.
Don’t be fooled when renewable advocates tout ‘zero fuel costs’ and ‘energy security’ when proclaiming that wind, solar, and other renewable resources are cost-effective. If they were cost-effective, they wouldn’t need an artificial market created by politicians to ensure their survival. Electricity suppliers don’t care from which resource they buy their power — they just want cheap, reliable power for their customers. If not for government requirements, they certainly wouldn’t be buying wind, solar, or biomass.
Recently, New England governors announced a plan to socialize the expansion of natural-gas pipelines into the region to take advantage of ‘cheap’ (be careful; the price has doubled since 2012) natural gas. Pipeline expansion is a worthy endeavor — one that should be undertaken by the private investment of pipeline companies based on capacity commitments from natural-gas generators and local distribution companies. What happens if we build the pipeline and the price of natural gas climbs to levels we saw as recently as 10 years ago? Then rate payers will get hit twice — once for the pipeline and again for the expensive electricity. If we have learned anything over the past decade, it is that government doesn’t make very good decisions when it comes to energy policy.
A better solution for our electricity problem would be for our leaders to create an environment that incentivizes private investment that would result in lower costs to consumers and an efficient, reliable grid. One idea would be for ISO to expand the FCA beyond three years. This would provide stability to existing generators so they would make long-term investments in both infrastructure and jobs, but wouldn’t block new, efficient, cost-effective resources from entering the market. If a plant isn’t receiving energy payments because it isn’t ‘in merit,’ and becomes uneconomical, the plant could sell its capacity payments at a discount to more efficient resources and retire.
An important question for elected officials and rate payers to consider (especially commercial and industrial customers) is, what kind of market structure would you prefer? The current market — which provides lower prices in the short term, but high volatility that sends mixed signals to investors — or a more stable market, that keeps prices steady and, in the long run, may ultimately lower prices by spurring investment in new resources?

Marc Brown is executive director of the New England Ratepayers Assoc., a nonprofit dedicated to protecting rate payers in New England.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff January 28, 2014

Opinion

The Race to Pick MGM’s Pockets

As the process for awarding the only Western Mass. casino license moves into its final, critical stages, there is an interesting subplot emerging — area communities trying to swing generous deals from the presumptive winner of that contest, MGM Resorts International.
Many communities have already negotiated what are known as ‘surrounding-community mitigation agreements’ with the casino operator, winning both upfront payments and yearly awards, with both averaging something close to $100,000 per community. Holyoke, for example, recently struck an accord that calls for $50,000 upfront and an additional $1.275 million over the next 15 years, or $85,000 annually. Some cities and towns have negotiated more, others less.
Holyoke isn’t an abutter, and isn’t likely to be impacted much by the casino, but these payments essentially amount to compensation for having a casino in the same county, and many other communities have shamefully followed suit. MGM, understandably, has seemed more than willing to strike such deals, on the premise that they are a cost of doing business. Extracting dollars from MGM, or any other business for that matter, however, sets the wrong tone for doing business in the state.
Where things get interesting is with two communities — Longmeadow and Northampton — that are seeking large amounts of cash (or likely will). Longmeadow, one of the most prosperous towns in the Commonwealth, fears its community will be adversely affected by traffic to and from the South End casino, and is seeking $1 million upfront, followed by annual payments of $500,000, along with annual escalators. We hope MGM tells them enough is enough.
What will Longmeadow do with that money ? Widen Route 5? Build a flyover? Put in a monorail? No. It’s probably going to get a new fire truck or new snow-clearing equipment, acquisitions that won’t improve the commute from downtown Springfield. So what’s the point, other than to extort money from MGM, which seems to be the new parlor game?
Northampton, meanwhile, hasn’t specified an amount, but a petition submitted by the community after it failed to reach a settlement with MGM anticipates “grave and substantial impact on finances and local businesses due to the erosion of its status as the sole destination market in the Pioneer Valley.” In other words, officials and business owners in Paradise City fear that individuals and groups will choose the casino and its various attractions rather than their community’s restaurants, clubs, and cultural attractions.
Is this a logical fear? Is someone who frequently attends the Paradise City Arts Festival or the Iron Horse Music Hall going to ditch that in favor of a day at the slots or roulette wheel? Of course not. And if they do, so what? Isn’t that the way free enterprise is supposed to work? Yes, the casino will have shows, but those shows would likely not have come to Northampton.
It’s a ‘let’s get ours’ mentality, and even remote Hampden, three towns away from Springfield, is thinking about seeking some compensation. Who’s next, Goshen? West Brookfield? Why stop there? This sentiment is poisonous to all businesses, especially the ones thinking about locating here.
Indeed, while many are still wary about a casino and its potential impact on Springfield and surrounding communities, they should be more wary of a casino that opens and then struggles — or, far worse, fails.
A Western Mass. casino will face a number of challenges, including a still-tepid economy and intense competition from casinos in this state and others. MGM doesn’t need to be further challenged by unreasonable requests for compensation from area communities, many of which will not be directly impacted by the gaming complex.
Instead of trying to pick MGM’s pockets, area communities should be trying to work with the company to make sure that this nearly $1 billion project is one that starts strong and builds momentum. If that happens, maybe then nearby cities and towns, which will have a better understanding of the casino’s impact, can share in the wealth that resorts like MGM bring.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff January 28, 2014

Opinion

Tackling the Innovation Deficit

By L. RAFAEL REIF
The long-term future of congressional support for research and development is being shaped right now, and the stakes are high. Those of us who see firsthand the power of scientific research can offer a simple message for U.S. policy makers: to help close the budget deficit, close the innovation deficit.
Last month, Congress passed a budget deal that eases some of the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. For the next two years, discretionary spending will be cut less severely and indiscriminately than it has been since last March, when sequestration began.
This is good news for our nation’s research and development, since sequestration imposes cuts on all of the federal agencies that fund scientific research. The cuts set in March ranged from 5.1% to 7.3% and were scheduled to continue through 2021. Next month, it should become clearer what the gentler reductions under the new budget deal will be. Still, absent further legislation, in two years we’ll go back to the original sequestration plan.
That would be a mistake that would only compound a problem we already have: decades of declining investment in innovation. Federal R&D as a percentage of GDP — essentially, our societal commitment to research — has fallen from 1.3% in 1978 to 0.8% in 2013. Our competitors are going in the other direction.
Sequestration has hit Boston-area universities and hospitals hard: Massachusetts received $125 million less in federal funding for medical research in 2013 than it otherwise would have. Such cuts translate into lost jobs today and slow the process of innovation that produces future jobs.
Innovation is fueled by a long-time partnership between the federal government and the nation’s scientists and engineers. Since World War II, federal funding for science has led to important technological breakthroughs and contributed mightily to our national defense. Over the long term, as much as three-quarters of economic growth may be attributable to innovation and technological change.
This effect has shaped Greater Boston, particularly in recent years. For decades, this region has had great colleges, universities, and hospitals. But with today’s innovation economy, a place long admired for its educational excellence has branched out in exciting ways.
To see how federally funded research influences the future, consider three areas of innovation that now benefit greatly from sources other than the federal government, but were the downstream products of earlier federal funding of science and technology.
The first is online learning. A year and a half ago, MIT and Harvard launched edX, which offers online university courses to the world. This new platform for global learning is built on advances in computing that trace their roots to Defense Department research from the 1960s and 1970s that led to the Internet.
A second example comes from healthcare. One of the most important trends of our lifetime is the convergence of the life sciences with the engineering and physical sciences. It’s at the heart of the Ragon Institute, a collaboration of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Engineers, mathematicians, and scientists are working with doctors to find a vaccine for the AIDS virus. The vaccines currently being developed would not be possible without long-time investment in research by the National Institutes of Health.
A third illustration is 3-D printing, a concept pioneered by MIT faculty members. The field developed rapidly from its beginnings in the 1980s and has changed the way big companies develop products. These technologies are now in the hands of home users and professionals alike. Researchers are even experimenting with ‘printing’ replacement human organs. How did it all begin? With funding from the National Science Foundation.
Greater Boston can be proud to serve as a model for the innovation economy — and as a reminder of what we could lose if we do not protect the public-private partnership that has made U.S. research the envy of the world.

L. Rafael Reif is president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an electrical engineer.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Opinion

Taking Time Off Just Makes Sense

Everyone wants time off from work, right? So why doesn’t everyone take it?
That’s the question many workforce observers are asking in the wake of a recent poll conducted by global workplace consultancy Right Management, showing that 69% of all workers surveyed do not take all their vacation time at work (see story, page 24). And it’s not a recent phenomenon; the firm’s previous surveys, in 2011 and 2012, showed a nearly identical figure of 70%. So we suppose the latest results are an improvement.
If so, they’re not much of one.
“Not taking time off regularly can lead to serious health problems,” notes Timi Gustafson, a registered dietitian, author, and blogger. “The results are comparable to chronic stress, when there is no reprieve not just from one’s workload but also from repetitive routines.”
Matt Norquist, general manager at Right Management, says that kind of health impact makes vacation essentially a productivity issue for businesses. In other words, it’s not just employees who benefit from vacations, but also their companies, because their workers are happier and more productive on the job when they’re occasionally able to step away from it.
And it’s not just mental health at stake; chronic stress takes its toll on the body’s ability to resist infections, maintain vital functions, and even avoid injuries, noted Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor of Psychology at UMass Amherst.
“When you’re stressed out and tired, you are more likely to become ill, your arteries take a beating, and you’re more likely to have an accident,” she writes in Psychology Today. “Your sleep will suffer, you won’t digest your food as well, and even the genetic material in the cells of your body may start to become altered in a bad way.”
In addition, she notes, “not only do you become more irritable, depressed, and anxious, but your memory will become worse, and you’ll make poorer decisions. You’ll also be less fun to be with, causing you to become more isolated, lonely, and depressed.”
Not exactly a recipe for success on the job — or a particularly pleasant workplace.
So why are many employees loath — or unable — to use the vacation time they’ve earned? Norquist suggests that working non-stop is considered a sort of ‘badge of honor’ in today’s hyper-competitive work world, while others simply feel they can’t get away, with staffs reduced and individual work loads increased in the wake of the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted for travel website Hotwire reveals that a lack of time and money have dissuaded many Americans from going away on vacation, so many just keep working, some banking more time than they’ll ever use. And even employees who do decide to get away often stay connected to their jobs through e-mail and smartphones — and never enjoy the full wellness benefits of completely disengaging from their careers for a time.
Recognizing the benefits of happy, de-stressed employees, some companies have taken steps like making a minimum number of vacation days mandatory, or forbidding workers to use their work e-mail or remote devices to stay on the clock in any way. Others, like MassMutual in Springfield, simply strive to create a culture where employees — and their managers — recognize the myriad benefits of taking a break.
“We don’t believe in making it mandatory,” said Richard Goldstein, MassMutual’s vice president of Benefits, adding quickly that, “as with anything in life, it’s all about balance.”
Let’s hope that philosophy of work-life balance creeps into more workplaces in Western Mass. in 2014. After all, a healthy economy starts with healthy employees — in mind, body, and spirit.

Opinion

By BusinessWest Staff January 14, 2014

Opinion

Assessing the View From Downriver

By DAVID B. PANAGORE
When I relocated, personally and professionally, to Connecticut, I did so with some questions — would I be expected to like the Yankees, and would I now have to think like a New Yorker, not a Bostonian? — and some assumptions.
Indeed, my childhood produced a quiet Connecticut jealousy, notions that those who govern there are one step ahead of us, better dressed, and probably better by a little in a lot of things. Since stepping over the state border four years ago, however, I have learned how false that notion is.
My time has mostly been spent in the Interstate 91 to 95 corridor, working for Hartford and now New Haven. Overall, living is easier in spite of the government, and work is harder because of the government. What have I learned? That I long for the efficiency and effectiveness of Massachusetts state government.
While that may sound like sarcasm, it’s not. It’s the truth.
If you’re a person who wants or needs to get some work or business done in the Nutmeg State, let me say first that it takes time — more time than in Massachusetts, and perhaps double the time. In order to do business in Connecticut, in order to work with any city or town, you have to realize that the process-driven nature of the town meeting still permeates the mentality and decision-making process of the state, at each level of government.
Connecticut has 169 towns, and the overarching system and legislative mentality are built around the towns, not the cities. Massachusetts empowered its cities, creating uniform building codes, universal health and pension systems, uniform codes of ethics, and consistent procurement practices, and very often recognizing the operational differences between cities and towns.
Meanwhile, Connecticut has steadfastly kept to itself, allowing 169 different systems in so many areas of operation. In Hartford, for example, the city must track more than 150 separate retirement groups; you can count Springfield’s on one hand. The same goes for pensions and building codes.
Comparing the two state governments, keep in mind that while Connecticut’s is far more accessible, the Bay State’s is frankly more efficient, more modern, and has nothing as yet to fear from its southern neighbor. For example, it regularly takes the Connecticut Department of Transportation up to two years to review roadway-design documents; that’s twice as long as I recall it taking in Massachusetts. The current governor, Dannel Malloy, is trying to move the ball forward, but structurally he does not have the horses.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, Massachusetts does lead the pack in New England for job growth, while Connecticut remains relatively stagnant. Among the many reasons why, I believe, is the lack of a mature bureaucratic infrastructure, including, for example, the lack of agencies and systems like the MEPA process, the Mass. Office of Business Development, and MassDevelopment, each of which has, in its own way, made a telling difference in support of development.
In Connecticut, the governor has spearheaded a ‘First Five’ program of financial support in return for job creation. However, each deal has to be managed at the highest levels in order to occur. There is no real deep bench of staff and structure across the state.
Jackson Labs, a great coup for Connecticut, was a deal, again, negotiated and handled by the top-ranked state officials. This means that, when doing business, you go right to the corner offices, and although the number of helping hands is limited and the money more flexible with fewer restrictions, it is important to remember that, in Connecticut, there is no ban against a direct infusion of capital on public investment in private enterprise.
Simply put, working in and with the public sector in Connecticut is far more challenging than in Massachusetts — yet another way the quality of life in the Pioneer Valley benefits residents and businesses alike.

David B. Panagore is acting executive director of the New Haven Parking Authority and former chief development officer in Springfield.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff December 31, 2013

Opinion

Some Things We’d Like to See in 2014

It’s time to say goodbye to 2013.
It was an interesting year in many respects — especially with regard to the casino-gambling picture, which changed in ways that probably couldn’t have been imagined just one year ago when there were four projects still in the running for the Western Mass. license — but one that was not very remarkable from a business standpoint.
Indeed, with the exception of a soaring stock market, which had climbed nearly 25% for the year at press time, this was a year of relative stagnancy, in terms of everything from employment to the overall economy, although there were signs of life toward the end of the year (more on that in a bit).
So, without further ado, it’s time to look ahead and identify some of the things we’d like to see happen in 2014. If all or even most of them come to fruition, it could be quite a year.
• Game On. Let’s start with the casino. As the voters in West Springfield, Palmer, East Boston, and other communities voted thumbs down to casino plans for their communities — dramatically changing and diminishing the competition for coveted licenses as they did so — many began to question whether this state really wants or needs such facilities.
Pollsters would tell you that the numbers show that the majority of state residents still support casinos, but don’t want one in their community. Springfield, in fact, was one of the few communities that said yes, and we hope that cranes start to appear in the city’s South End by the end of next year and that MGM Springfield becomes reality a few years later.
As we’ve said many times, a casino will not, by itself, change the city’s fortunes. But it can become part of the process of bringing new vitality, new jobs, and a new attitude about Springfield. Let’s hope it happens.
• It’s About Time. For close to half a decade now, people have been saying, “this could be the year the economy finally breaks out of its funk.” Well, people are saying it again, and this time, there’s more reason to believe them. Indeed, there are some actual signs — falling unemployment and a rise in state GDP among them — that indicate better times ahead.
We hope those reading these tea leaves are on the money — literally and figuratively — because there hasn’t been much of a recovery in this region, and businesses that have fought through this time deserve some sustained momentum and a year when the books become truly good reading.
• Class Act. Several months ago, the talk about whether UMass would create a downtown Springfield ‘satellite facility’ (the school eschews the word ‘campus’) officially shifted to when it would. School officials announced that UMass Springfield would soon start to take shape on the second floor of Tower Square. As the new year begins, we hope that this news alone starts to create momentum in a downtown that sorely needs a spark, and that, as 2014 unfolds, the construction work and then the facility itself will become a catalyst for more retail development and other forms of progress in the city’s central business district.
• Getting Things Started. Lastly, we hope to see work in 2014 in the broad realm of promoting entrepreneurship and getting new ventures off the ground or to that proverbial next level. There are several programs in place that are addressing this challenge — from Valley Venture Mentors to the Grinspoon Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Initiative to the Business Growth Center at the Technology Park at STCC (see story on age 45)— and this work needs to continue and expand in 2014 and the years to follow.
As we’ve said on many occasions, while it is still possible that a major employer will decide to make Western Mass. home and thus create hundreds or perhaps thousands of new jobs, the more likely scenario is that growth in this region will come organically, through new startups that mature and eventually add to their payrolls.
There are many challenges facing this region, but perhaps the biggest is creating more fuel for the economy. Programs that encourage entrepreneurship and help young businesses grow are a vital part of that equation.

Editorial 2

By BusinessWest Staff December 31, 2013

Opinion

A Stern Challenge for the Region

If it seems like you’re spending more of your time reading about people retiring or going to functions where the guest of honor leaves the room with a rocking chair, gold watch, or gift certificate for a cruise, it is most definitely not your imagination.
Instead, it’s more evidence of a demographic phenomenon, one that reflects the size and influence of the Baby Boom generation.
Indeed, all that talk years ago about how this generation was going to start retiring — and in big numbers — is no longer talk. It’s reality.
And while this inevitable consequence of the passage of time is good for the people who handle IRAs, make watches and rocking chairs, host retirement parties, and operate cruise lines, it poses a huge challenge for this region as a whole and specific business sectors as well.
In just the past 12 to 18 months, this region has seen the retirement of several chamber of commerce directors, nonprofit managers (Gary McCarthy at the Springfield Boys & Girls Club is just one example), economic-development leaders (Bill Ward at the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County tops that list), and healthcare executives — Carol Katz, longtime director of Loomis Communities, retired in 2012, Holyoke Medical Center CEO Hank Porten stepped down earlier this year, and Mark Tolosky, president and CEO of Baystate Health; Peter Straley, president and CEO of Health New England; and Craig Melin, president and CEO of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, will leave their jobs in 2014.
And there have been countless people whose exploits didn’t make the pages of BusinessWest who have also moved on to that proverbial next stage of their lives, with tens of thousands more to do so in the next several years.
The challenge is obvious: these people must be replaced.
And while it would seem that this wouldn’t be a problem with a statewide unemployment rate of roughly 7% and a number closer to 10% in major urban areas in this region, the reality is that many of those who are unemployed simply do not have the skills to move into these positions.
This is especially true in sectors such as precision manufacturing and healthcare, where employers have openings — hundreds and perhaps thousands of them — that they cannot fill because of that skills gap that we keep reading about. Like those aforementioned retirements, that gap is real, not your imagination.
And while there will always be people who can step into the shoes of leaders like Ward, Lee, Tolosky, Melin, and Straley, it is fair to ask if those who will occupy their offices and those of executives across the region possess the leadership skills that enabled their successors to be so successful.
So, moving forward, this region has to continue its efforts to address this demographic challenge — which is no longer looming, but actually here — and accelerate and intensify them.
Programs like Leadership Pioneer Valley, created at the encouragement of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission with all these retirements in mind, must continue to educate area young people about this region and its strengths, weaknesses, and challenges, and prepare them to be the leaders of tomorrow.
Meanwhile, people like David Cruise, who will have the unenviable task of succeeding Ward at the REB, must work in collaboration with local employers, area colleges and universities, and other economic-development agencies to close that skills gap. If they don’t, employers will be increasingly challenged to find that most important ingredient in any business success story: talent.
In reality, it is mostly the very oldest of the Baby Boomers (and those who belong to the generation before it) who are retiring these days. The huge bubble is still to come, and it may be delayed somewhat by the need for many members of this generation to work longer to secure a comfortable retirement.
But while there is still time to address this challenge, that time is running out.

Editorial

By BusinessWest Staff December 17, 2013

Opinion

Maybe 2014 Will Be the Year

The recession of the late ’80s and early ’90s was memorable for many reasons.
For starters, there was the swiftness with which it brought an end to the go-go ’80s and the real-estate boom that changed this region in so many ways. The building stopped, the for-sale signs went up (and stayed up), and the properties eventually went to foreclosure and back to the banks and their OREO (other real estate owned) portfolios to wait for a better day.
As for those banks, some of them disappeared from the landscape entirely, while others were absorbed by larger institutions, with their names lost to history. For those that survived, it was a difficult time of intense scrutiny and tighter regulation that made day-to-day life exponentially more difficult.
There was also the collapse of the minicomputer and the end of the so-called Massachusetts Miracle, and a prolonged residential real-estate slump.
But for most who were in business then, the recession will be remembered for the recovery — if one could call it that — that followed and how painfully slow and meager it was. The common refrains were, alternately, ‘when are things going to get better?’ and ‘are things ever going to get better?’
The current recovery hasn’t been quite that bad, although we would say it comes close. Things are certainly better than they were in 2008 and early 2009, and conditions have improved from just a few years ago — they just haven’t improved as much as business owners would like.
There are many reasons why, but it boils down to two things. First, there’s general uncertainty about what will come next, which is still causing hesitation on the part of many when it comes to expansion, new initiatives, and projects that can absorb space in the region’s many industrial parks. Second, there has been only marginal improvement in the employment picture, especially in many of the larger communities in this region, such as Springfield and Holyoke.
We all know from our history, especially as it pertains to the Great Depression, that when people are not employed, they are not spending money. When they are employed, well, they’re more inclined to spend, which helps companies grow, which prompts investments and expansion, which puts more people to work, which prompts more spending … you know the cycle, and you watched it happen in the mid-’80s and again in the late ’90s.
As 2013 draws to a close, it appears that we’re perhaps, and finally, on the cusp of recovery that might prompt people to bring out the word ‘real.’ The economists we spoke with (see story, page 15) were careful to hedge their bets and offer caveats, especially those related to the dysfunctional government in Washington and a still-shaky global economy.
But there are ample signs, including an improved housing market, a solid November jobs report, and modest payroll growth in the Bay State, to indicate that the economy is in fact getting healthier, and this trend will continue and likely accelerate in the year to come.
Let’s hope the projections are right. This recovery hasn’t been quite as bad as the one in the early ’90s, but it has been long, slow, and for the most part unremarkable.
The year ahead will likely see the start of construction of an $800 million casino in the South End of Springfield, creation of a UMass satellite facility in Springfield, real progress on Union Station, and other initiatives. It would be helpful if all that was accompanied by an economic expansion that touched all sectors.
There’s still a great deal of uncertainty and turmoil to deal with, but it looks like it’s time to change the music to something a little more upbeat.
Let’s hope so.

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A Stern Challenge for the Region

Maybe 2014 Will Be the Year

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