It's Time: Put the Berkshires on a Business Footing/August 12

Patrick White for State Representative

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Looking forward to teaching an OLLI class this fall with Town Administrator Michael Canales. There's an open house Tuesday, October 13 at 10am at the BCC campus. Stop by and say hi! You can register for the class on the OLLI website

In This Issue:

Teaching a class on local government at OLLI

It's Time: Put the Berkshires on a Business Footing

Embrace Complexity

Writing the EMS Business Plan

Here's My Pledge to Voters

Letters to the Editor

It's Time: Put the Berkshires on a Business Footing

At its peak, the Berkshires had well over 150,000 full-time residents. We now have around 125,000. Berkshire Regional Planning has predicted that, without a course correction, we are likely to drop to 80,000 by 2060.

We are an aging population. The Berkshires are not attracting and retaining the young people we need to thrive as a community. We must embrace policies that stabilize and grow our population.

Here's a simple fact: good jobs stabilize a community. Larger businesses can be great employers, paying a living wage to raise a family. Small business formation is a tried-and-true method of growing an economy as well. We simply must let the private sector thrive. This is an area where government absolutely can be a force for good.

Here are three ways we put the Berkshires on a business footing:

1. Embrace tax incentives. Let's encourage business formation with tax incentives, regardless of business size. Towns need to know and understand incentives and the available grant/low-interest loan programs. Business owners need training in how to access those programs. The Legislature needs to strengthen these incentives.

2. Recruit next-gen tech. With the climate crisis, living in the south and west may become unbearably hot over the coming decades. The Berkshires' environment is projected to remain relatively mild. Let's use this fact to try and recruit one or two medium-sized employers in clean tech or software development. How about, as Doug Newman, the Chair of the New Marlborough Finance Committee, has suggested, we market the Berkshires to a tech firm for a campus? It's like a mall strategy: one or two anchor tenants can make all the difference in viability. Let's put in place a 20-year strategy to build out great jobs.

3. Continue the mall strategy. With a tech leader in place, we create new opportunities for small business. Create a hub of innovation and the market will foster smaller business formation, startups that can thrive in an ecosystem created by proximity to a leading tech industry player.

An investment in business is an investment in jobs. It puts folks to work. It is the only path to repopulating the Berkshires. Let's put the Berkshires on a solid business footing.

Meeting Mr. Snack Attack at the Lee Crafts Fair. He gave me a hat! Is that an in kind campaign contribution?

Embrace Complexity

I hear a lot about housing in this race. You can build all the homes and ADUs you want, but if there aren't middle-class jobs, we are mostly building more seasonal homes, not the workforce homes for, you know, the folks working in the jobs that keep the Berkshires strong. Of course, this does not apply to subsidized housing, but even with the big taxpayer investment in the Affordable Homes Act, the administration projects it will build just 20% of the homes needed statewide. And I for one don't want even more income inequality than we already have around here. I just don't.

We've got a short-term housing crisis for sure. We also have significant predictions for a drastic population decline. Which suggests a glut of empty houses, unless we embark on a significant course correction. Housing and jobs aren't two different strategies: they are all part of the same puzzle. We all need to recognize that sound bites aren't plans, and plans aren't results. These issues are all interrelated and incredibly complex. Let's roll up our sleeves, embrace the complexity, and solve this.

Offering a free chocolate to first responders at the West Stockbridge Zucchini Festival

Writing the EMS Business Plan

This week, I'm helping two wonderful EMS professionals write their business plan. This is the first step to put the pieces in place to get an EMS training initiative launched.

These first responders want to create an organization to help train the next generation of EMS staff in Berkshire County. Our goal is to have a draft of the plan ready within several weeks. It's a tall order, but this one is important to me on a personal level.

You see, 15 years ago I got a pretty tough cancer diagnosis. I was being treated at Mass General for cancer that had spread to my brain, spinal cord, and heart. Between chemo, I would come out here and my wonderful dad Russ would take care of me, along with my awesome sister Kathy, who spent a week or two a month traveling out here to help me from her home in Los Angeles. The doctors told me if they didn't get it all, I'd be dead in six months, that I should get my affairs in order. Lucky for me they did!

Chemo is fraught with peril, as you become susceptible to infections due to impacts on your immune system. Sure enough, I was out here recuperating and I caught something. I woke up, if you can call it that, with a 104° fever. My family rushed me to the emergency room, and in consultation with the doctors at Mass. General, the decision was made to transport me back in Boston. One of the local ambulance services strapped me in and drove me to Boston. I even helped them with directions on Storrow Drive to Mass. General while staring at the top of the ambulance!

I lived to write another day.

For me, it's a pay-it-forward thing. Helping these folks with their business plan is the least I can do, after what EMS workers did for me 15 years ago: maybe they helped saved my life. Like these first responders do for countless others day after day, year after year. Thank you for your service. We're all relying on you.

Somebody posted that my ideas were the "same ole b.s." on social media. I thought I'd give him a photo to post with his comments. :)

Here's My Pledge to Voters

There's only one lens I will use when evaluating legislation before the General Court. Is the proposal in my constituents' best interest?

Here's what I've done: It takes money to run a campaign like this and I've raised some. That said, not a single donation came from someone with business before the town currently or to my knowledge in the future. Had I received one, I would have returned it. Why? To avoid a conflict of interest—or even an appearance of one.

I know of one developer who plans to bring business before the Stockbridge Select Board this summer. I told him in no uncertain terms that I would not accept a donation.

Builders build housing. They come before boards. I sit on two of the boards that review proposals, our Affordable Housing Trust and Select Board. The Select Board is especially consequential, because it takes just one vote out of three to scuttle a proposal.

I don't love the relationship between money and politics. The good news is I don't feel I owe anyone any favors. I'm not worried about choosing between special interests and the public interest. I've tried really hard to avoid the conflict.

Panel discussion at the Music Inn Reunion Sunday at the Triplex. That's me flanked by Main Street Hospitality's Sarah Eustis and Lenox's amazing Olga Weiss. I grew up a stone's throw from the old concert venue.

Letters to the Editor

Thanks to everyone who wrote such great letters in support of my campaign. You can read them at this link:

https://www.patrickwhiteberkshires.com/letters.html

I also included some great ones that came in last year when I ran for reelection. Those heartfelt letters helped propel me to a historic win with the highest voter count and turn-out in my Town's modern history.

Campaigns are a team effort. We only have three weeks left until election day. I could use more help with phone calls, door knocking, and especially at the polls in all 18 towns on election day. And of course, write a letter if you have something to share! Let me know if you can help.

Please fill out this form linked here or reply to this email to sign up! Once you do, my campaign manager, Bridget, will set up a time to walk you through the process, answer any questions, and get you started.

Discussing the Housatonic River with Tim Gray of Housatonic River Initiative. Thanks Tim for your support in this campaign.