scottieducati t1_j5u6bwd wrote on January 25, 2023 at 4:24 PM

Reply to comment by Melbonie in My high school in Wilbraham, MA, got the 'Saturday Night Live' treatment due to lighting issue. The school has a server to control the lights with no manual override. The server got hacked and the school hasn't been able to turn off lights since 2021. Still not fixed. by The_Sloth_Racer

Totally down for better social safety nets and yeah that’s a huge plus for MA vs NH.

We’re also home to big pharma and healthcare so indirectly benefit from it at perhaps the expense of having serious discussions of universal healthcare.

It’s a weird place to be here, so much progressive potential but so much old money, corruption and nimbyism holding things back.

I intended that list more as a list of opportunities to improve things here and less of grievances but realize it may have come across poorly.

I’ve owned a business here and there is a LOT to be done to make things better for small business.

Don’t have to look far from Boston to see them closing and being forced further away… we get banks and chains now. I’ve lost count of shuttered local business in metro west.

The financial burdens to the little guys (but maybe not those in “need”) is astronomical these days. Something needs to change or folks won’t like where we end up.

Melbonie t1_j5u9xbg wrote on January 25, 2023 at 4:47 PM

DEFINITELY need to cultivate a way better environment for small business. I'd love to use my public sector skills to craft similar programming for anyone who could use it, not just MassHealth qualified folks. Given the trend toward corporatization of everything, we should really try to be progressive leaders in making small business more achievable. We talk a big game about local source in Western MA, but not a lot of action. I was really disappointed to see the crony capitalism in the MassHealth sector when Baker brought Optum on board- another layer of administration and bureaucracy is not what the system needed, and their services can't be cheap, given all their advertising at Fenway and Gilette. (seriously- what are they even selling, exactly? and to whom?) Don't even get me started on the outsourcing of MassHealth customer service to places like Indiana and Wisconsin...

I was driving to the store a couple weeks ago and saw the Repubic waste management garbage trucks picking up in town and wondered whatever happened to local DPWs-- thinking yeah, they saved money going to the corpo, but now that Republic is the only game in town, they can pretty much name their price, can't they?

I digress for sure, but looking to big business for everything is eventually going to be a losing proposition.