Biomass, veterans benefits, high-speed rail, foreclosures and parking tickets were among the topics tossed at Murray.
Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins makes a point during a "summer conversation tour" meeting at the town hall annex with Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray on Friday night.
NORTHAMPTON – Biomass, veterans benefits, high speed rail and parking tickets were among the topics tossed at Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray Friday as he stopped in Northampton on the month-long “summer conversation tour” designed to bring the State House to the people.
Murray and Gov. Deval Patrick are visiting 10 communities across the state in July to get some unfiltered citizen input on a range of topics that includes education, health care and job creation.
Some 60 people, including several city councilors and state legislators, packed Council Chambers to pepper Murray with questions and get his take on some of the major issues facing the Commonwealth. They came from throughout the Pioneer Valley, from Chicopee to Amherst to Shelburne Falls.
A contingent from Concerned Citizens of Greenfield pressed Murray on regulations and subsidies for biomass generators. Department of Public Utilities Commissioner David W. Cash, who was traveling with the lieutenant governor, assured the group that Massachusetts is not relaxing regulations concerning fuel for those plants.
“We have by far the most protective regulations of any state,” Cash said, adding that subsidies are more likely to go toward small and efficient biomass operations such as the one that powers Cooley Dickinson Hospital than to the big plants proposed in Springfield, Russell and Greenfield.
Although he deferred to Cash on the biomass question, Murray fielded most of them himself, sometimes engaging in a back-and-forth with citizens. In response to several questions about job creation, Murray said the state’s decision to bond for transportation, higher education, broadband, bridge repair and other needs has paid off to the tune of about 30,000 jobs for every $1 billion in investment.
“Massachusetts is coming out of the economic downturn faster than other states because of the bond bills,” he said.
Leo Maley of Amherst asked Murray how the state is addressing a foreclosure crisis that is “ripping the heart out of neighborhoods, especially Springfield.”
Murray said the state has tried to be aggressive on the issue, prioritizing urban centers and funneling federal money to people facing foreclosure. He noted several times that decisions on the federal level affect the state’s ability to address financial issues. For example, Murray said the federal budget deadlock could create a new caseload of veterans eligible for state subsidies.
“If the federal government can’t deliver on its commitment to veterans, we’d have to look in the supplemental budget,” he said.
Greenfield resident Vincent Gillespie, the plaintiff in a law suit over the state’s parking ticket appeals system, asked Murray where he stands on the issue. The Supreme Judicial Court denied Gillespie on Thursday, ruling that the state has the right to use its superior courts to hear parking ticket appeals, even though the court costs are several times more than the actual fine. The state legislature is considering a proposal to relocate those hearings to small claims court.
Murray said he is not as “intimately familiar” with the issue as Gillespie but would look into it.
After the 75-minute session, Murray said the conversation tour has been valuable to him and the governor.
“You get to hear people’s concerns and criticisms,” he said. “It gives you a sense of what’s working and what isn’t working.”
Northampton was one of the last stops on the tour. Patrick is scheduled to make similar appearances in eastern Massachusetts later this month.