Opinion: Springfield Needs To Go All In

I am running for the Selectboard, and I have been asked whether I thought Springfield was going in the right direction...

I am running for the Selectboard, and I have been asked whether I thought Springfield was going in the right direction. My response was that I could not discern any direction, well except for possibly a downward economic spiral. But let me clarify what I mean.

Springfield has been drifting without any purposeful local direction. As a result it is now heavily invested in certain fields of endeavor. What it needs now, is not so much a “new” direction, but an attitude adjustment and a new look at where it is. I call this “going all in”. What it requires is an honest assessment of where you are, and then a determination to make the best of it. Let me give you a few examples.

Whether it is wanted to or not, Springfield is a regional center for providing housing and providing services to those in need of rehabilitation. The location of the State social services offices, the prison, and various “not for profit” rehabilitation centers in Springfield has anchored the people in need of such services here. The variety of groups providing such services tend to have directors and upper level staff who do not live in Springfield. This is usually demonstrated by their need to get special permission to speak at Town meetings.

These facts are generally looked upon as a negative for the Town, but they are not facts that are going away anytime soon. It is time to start changing this particular set of facts to a positive, by going all in on the industry. Currently, those able to earn a living wage in this industry, have at least a bachelor’s degree, and more often it requires a masters degree to make a sustainable living in this industry.

Does Vermont have post-secondary institutions where such degrees are offered? Yes. Are they offered in Springfield? No. Do the people working in this industry at the poverty or just above the poverty level have a place to get the degrees to move up in the ranks? No. So Springfield anchors the recipients of the services and the lowest paid service providers in Springfield, but the significant academic staff, students and opportunities are located elsewhere. We provide the subjects for short clinicals and possibly some internships for students, but other areas get the economic benefit of having students and faculty, living, eating and buying things in their area.

If Springfield is going to be the regional center for this industry, which we undoubtedly are, then we need to demand that we be the regional educational center for that industry as well. The counselors, therapists, technicians, etc. need to be educated here at either a college or a graduate institute where they can attend day and night classes and obtain a four year degree in four or three years without having to travel elsewhere. The school needs to be governed locally, and needs to be a real degree offering institution, not a teaser college where the degrees have to be completed elsewhere.

Related to this we have houses which are variously dubbed group homes, half-way houses, and sober houses. These tend to be resented by the neighborhoods they are located within. The better operators of these homes, would prefer to interact with the neighborhood and have their occupants interacting in a positive way with the neighborhood. The Town needs to make sure this happens. We need to go all in.

Because of well-intended protective legislation which restricts where certain convicts can live after completing their sentences, and notification requirement on a pending release – the local community goes into various levels of hysteria everytime a release occurs. Without necessarily condoning this reaction, the Town could help. For example, it is well known that a neighborhood can insulate itself from such a release by the strategic location of pocket parks and playgrounds utilized by children. If a neighborhood insists upon such insulation, then the Town needs to get involved with that neighborhood in creating pocket community gardens and playgrounds strategically located so that a such person upon being released cannot comply with his or her housing distance requirements. The hysteria is not a good thing, but it could produce a rehabilitation of a neighborhood so that the hysteria does not happen.

The largest landlord in Springfield is the Housing Authority, and many, if not quite all, of the remaining landlords have subsidized tenants. This is a community fact that is not going to change anytime soon. Meanwhile, we have various community activists calling for community gardens, and garden themed districts in the town. Grants are available. If we want the Town to be spruced up, greened up, and to become a gardening Town, then we need to go all in and concentrate on these landlords to set the example.

Turning to a positive asset, Springfield is blessed with excellent internet services. We also have a good supply of computer technicians, and educational back-up at the River Valley Technical Center. In addition, we have a multitude of people who either have small struggling businesses, or farms that make products which could be sold on the internet. Our goal should be, although it would be hard to measure, to have more being sold out of Springfield on the internet than is being bought on the internet.

The Town government through its Parks and Recreation and its library, in cooperation with RVTC and the schools should be a major player in creating a cyber center where teens could assemble computers and LAN systems for gaming, adults could be trained with website maintenance, and hooked up with local consultants, internet publishing could be sponsored, and community marketing could be developed. We need to be out in front of looming problems like the loss of net neutrality, to make sure that our businesses and our authors are not slighted, and that Springfield, Vermont is writ large on the net.

The Town could be and should be in the game to make sure facilities are created and to help cut through the obstacles, and as a financial funnel for grants. This is something that could be done if we go all in.

Quietly mostly on their own, we have small entrepeneurs trying to develop value added agriculture in and around Springfield. They are doing it against considerable odds because of capital costs, regulation, and climate. Because it is a major part of Vermont’s brand, the State has devoted considerable attention and funding to this industry.

A certified processing kitchen is needed for the small producers. The small producers cannot fund the cost involved in meeting regulations, but if the initial cost of obtaining the location and equipment necessary to meet the regulation could be grant funded, they could cover the maintenance, depreciation, taxes and operation costs. This would allow local producers to expand beyond farmer markets to stores and internet sales. This needs to happen, it has been repeatedly called for, but no action taken.

In addition, there are Vermont restaurants which would like to cater to locavores, but cannot do so completely because of a lack of product. Springfield needs a year round farmers market at a stable fixed location, and a cooperative greenhouse where local produce farmers can produce on a year round basis. This is needed now, but the same financial constraints apply.

We need to go all in. We have plenty of vacant industrial buildings, some of which will never be able to be used as factories again. The State holds contaminated land up near the prison which was designated for economic development. Its time to figure this out and go all in. The Town needs to assist in locating the grants and navigating through the permits.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of projects out there. Many others such as the conversion of Park Street School have been touched upon elsewhere. The Town government can play a role in many ways, including, applying political pressure where necessary to cut through inane State generated requirements and obstacles. The fact that the recreational center was forced by the State to install a $200,000.00 sprinkler system over its swimming pool, when a similar pool in Woodstock was not – is a testimony that our Town government tends to sit back while a project are stymied. We can attend plays and performances in Claremont at the Opera House with its grand open staircases, but in Springfield we get stuck in a cramped pole barn while the State imposes ridiculous obstacles to the renovation of Park Street School with its grand stairways encased in tacky walls, and restrictions on its beautiful theater. Why because we lack the leadership that will advocate, tackle obstacles, and cause things to happen. We need to have the Town go all in to help where it can to make major projects happen.

It is a choice we have to make. Do we want to go all in, or do we want to stand with one foot in the boat and one on the dock while the boat drifts away? We can overcome the downward spiral, but its going to take political will – there is no private sector tooth fairy coming to the rescue.


George T. McNaughton

Candidate for Selectboard

Springfield, Vermont