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Morris: Springfield will focus on downtown plan
Rutland Herald | March 10, 2017
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
STAFF WRITER
Kristi Morris
Kristi Morris
SPRINGFIELD — The Select Board again unanimously elected Kristi Morris as its chairman.
Morris, who was elected to his fourth threeyear term at town meeting earlier in the week, was elected to the leadership post Wednesday.
He has been chairman for seven years.
An engineer at Lovejoy Tool Co., in downtown Springfield for his entire working life, Morris said he relished being involved in his hometown. Heis also an on-call firefighter.
“I like the idea of being involved in all the town issues and to try and move us forward,” he said. “I certainly enjoy the opportunity to be elected chair and will certainly try and live up to the expectations.”
Morris said the Select Board is gratified at the strong support for the $11 million town budget and various spending initiatives, including an extra $500,000 to pave dilapidated roads and creating a downtown revitalization fund with $100,000 in seed money.
“We received positive support from the community at the election and we need to get to work to deliver our perceived promises,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to show some successes.”
He cited the town’s purchase of buildings owned by Christopher Mason, including the Springfield Bakery building, which is largely vacant, and the old Visiting Nurse Association building.
The town wants to demolish the VNA building to open up access and views to the river, Morris said, and the new revitalization fund could be instrumental in getting the building torn down.
But Morris said preliminary estimates of demolishing the building are about triple the size of the new fund, but he stressed that was just a preliminary figure.
“That’s only seed money, there’s not enough there to tear it down,” he said.
Henoted the demolition is complicated by the fact that the building is on the banks of the Black River and any debris must be kept out of the water.
His priorities in the coming year working on the town-owned Mason buildings and continue the town’s attention blighted and nuisance buildings.
He said the town would focus on following its strategic downtown plan to make downtown Springfield more attractive to revitalize the economy.
Working with the town’s nongovernmental partners, Springfield on The Move and the Springfield Regional Development Corp., on a better marketing strategy for the town would also be a goal, Morris said.
The board also chose Selectwoman Stephanie Thompson to be vice chairman during its reorganization meeting.
Re: Working with the town’s nongovernmental partners, Springfield on The Move and the Springfield Regional Development Corp., on a better marketing strategy for the town would also be a goal, Morris said.
ReplyDeleteBoth of the above organizations need to be cut loose. Their cozy "partners" status is largely failing the town, but it continues to throw them money. It's high time the town looked elsewhere for assistance.
Between the Police Administration and now Morris, both are a day late and a dollar short. The chief finally makes a statement that something needs to be done with drug dealers and Morris finally says there needs to be a change in planning. SO FINALLY they are going to something differently, why today and not so many many years ago, the problems and lack of real leadership remain the same. The real problem is those two and the prevailing good old boy network.
ReplyDeleteMuch of this could be done by the Town itself, the Selectboard finally got the ball rolling, along with the Housing Authority. Whether they can keep it rolling remains to be seen, if Martin is a pusher like the man he replaced, then there is hope that he and Martone can keep the pressure on the Town Manager. If not the Selectboard may go back to sleep like it did the first nine years that Morris was on the board.
ReplyDeleteThis is why voters have to keep their eyes open + hold the selectboard accountable. Our town manager is having to clean up after years of neglect.
ReplyDeleteHa! Cleaning up after his predeccesor, who hopped, skiiped, and jumped his way to a seat in the state legislature after having managed the town deeper into the ditch.
DeleteThe Selectboard will have to keep pressure on the Town Manager. We cannot expect a 12 year veteran of the Selectboard to maintain pressure on the Town Manager, that pressure will have to come from the two Selectboard members who were not on the Selectboard while the mess accumulated.
DeleteYou got that right! The Movers+Shakers: Martone-Martin.
DeleteFor this town to have a marketing strategy, it must first have something to market. "When I hear "looking for investors" to fund improvement projects, I hear "please come here and fix up our town for us, we can't do it ourselves." Things like tearing down unuseable, blighted buildings, renovating useable ones, and paving roads MUST be done FIRST! Investors want to invest in a town that has its act together, not a "fixer-upper." I've seen a lot of progress in the three years I've been here, but it's been mostly individual property owners taking a chance on renovating run-down homes. The town needs to continue to improve infrastructure, and take a tougher stance on blighted properties, and their owners. And, yes, IT WILL COST MONEY! Relying on outside investors created a lot of the problems here; the proliferation of "low income" housing being a big one. I recommend we all stop looking for the "ideologically correct" solution and just get busy! We ALL live here, let's make it better for everyone!
ReplyDelete