Berkshire Planners Object to Transportation, Development CutsBy Andy McKeever, iBerkshires Staff
05:23PM / Friday, March 18, 2016 | |
 The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission is objecting to state transportation cuts that would hurt the BRTA. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission is taking aim at Gov. Charlie Baker's proposed fiscal 2017 budget.
The commission on Thursday approved sending a letter to state lawmakers outlining its opposition to cuts that will affect transportation and development issues in the region. Executive Director Nathaniel Karns took aim at four areas of the budget: public transportation, environmental protection, brownfields funding, and money for economic development organizations.
The governor has proposed cuts to public transportation outside of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to the tune of $2 million, Karns said, which could even further hinder the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority's operations,
"If there is one thing, in almost any venue in the region, I hear over and over again, it is about the deplorable condition of public transportation," Karns said.
He said the current system is "as lean of a system they can possibly run."
"The lack of even a reasonable level of public transportation is constantly raised in the community as it affects almost every topic including education, child care, employment, access to health services, and recreation," Karns wrote in the letter he plans to send to lawmakers. "The funding for public transportation outside of the MBTA system has consistently been short-changed and it should be increased from current levels."
When it comes to environmental protection, Karns said spending on environmental agencies are eyed to drop by 7 percent in the proposal. Since 2008, he said, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Recreation have lost 30 percent of their staff.
"This isn't a partisan thing, Gov. [Deval] Patrick did the same thing to it. We need to start increasing it, not decreasing it," Karns said.
With such projects as the General Electric cleanup of the Housatonic River and the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline in the works, he said the environmental protection groups are needed now more than ever.
For brownfields funding, Karns said the proposal does not include money for the MassDevelopment fund, which is used to clean up contaminated sites and bring them back to productive uses. He said there are more than a thousand contaminated sites in the Berkshires so access to money to clean them is vitally important to the region.
Finally, Karns says there 1Berkshire is funded annually at $60,000 to pay for a part-time economic development specialist for the last two years but that has been cut. He is requesting the line be funded at $150,000.
"Given that the weaknesses in the Berkshire economy are a constant topic of analysis and commentary, it is vital that the state provide some level of direct financial support to regionally-based economic development in this region," Karns wrote.
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