Thoughts on Issues Springfield Faces:

Blight

Blight is a significant problem in many neighborhoods in Springfield. We need to expand our code enforcement efforts. I am particularly fond of the "clean and lien" program. While expansion of that program will require a significant initial investment, over the years, as liens are paid off, the program will pay for itself. Obviously, in the meantime, an expanded clean and lien program will have a significant positive impact on the morale of those living in neighborhoods where blight is currently a problem.

Crime

Public safety and the perception of public safety are also issues in Springfield. I like the idea of the police department dividing the city into sectors with one high ranking officer responsible for each such sector. The buck stops with that high ranking officer. If crime goes up, he or she gets the blame, if crime goes down, he or she gets the praise. This sort of management structure forces officers to take an ownership interest in particular neighborhoods. I am also a big fan of surveillance cameras. I understand that they have been hugely successful in deterring crime in other cities.

Economic Development

Economic development is a huge issue in Springfield. The idea that a major corporation will come in on a white horse to save us is attractive. I do not think, however, that it is particularly realistic. We need to help grow large enterprises like Massmutual, Baystate and Smith & Wesson that already call Springfield home. We also need to focus significant energies on small businesses. Future economic growth in Springfield is more likely to result from small business expansion than it is from a white knight moving to town. Many, perhaps most, people in Springfield work at businesses that employ three, four and five people. We need to help those three, four and five employee businesses grow into ten, eleven and twelve employee businesses and beyond. We ought to streamline the permitting process. We should also create responsible incentives to help our existing small businesses grow and to make Springfield an attractive place for new small businesses to set up shop.

Casinos

I do not view casino gambling as useful economic development. Some fantasize that a casino in Springfield will have the same sort of economic impact on the local economy that the Connecticut casinos have had on the Connecticut economy. I fear that a casino in Springfield is more likely to resemble the casinos in Atlantic City, the casinos in Michigan, and the riverboat gambling enterprises in states along the shores of the Mississippi River. Those casinos and gambling enterprises look nice; but walk a few blocks from where they are located and you see how ineffective they have been at transforming the economies of their host cities.

I also expect that the bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues in a new casino would compete with and perhaps ultimately replace existing bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Just as businesses neighboring shopping malls and business neighboring all-inclusive resort destinations do not benefit from any spillover effect, existing bars, restaurants and entertainment venues in Springfield would not benefit from a casino. The objective with casinos is to convince patrons to spend their money gambling, eating, drinking and attending shows at the casino itself rather than anywhere outside of the casino. We need the sort of economic development that encourages people to spend their money in existing locally owned businesses.

Deval Patrick envisions that some portion of the profits from state run casinos would be shared with cities and towns in Massachusetts. The issues of how much would be shared with all cities and towns and whether host cities would get more than other cities and towns will be the subject of future debate. I fear that that the social costs attendant to having a casino here in Springfield coupled with the negative impact that a casino would have on existing businesses outweigh the benefit of additional assistance that casinos might bring to our city government.

Impending Retirement Crisis

During my years as a member of the City Retirement Board, I was confronted with a frightening fact. Springfield's Retirement System is under 50% funded. This means that Springfield has on hand less than $.50 for every dollar that it owes to its retirees. We are currently on a strict schedule that will have us fully funded by the late 2020s. That schedule, however, calls for ever increasing and painful contributions from the city to the retirement system. The city currently contributes over $30 million per year to the retirement system. That is roughly 1/3 of what it collects annually in local taxes. The current schedule requires contributions of over $60 million per year in the 2020s. We, like other cities and states, are headed for a crisis. Unless our tax base increases dramatically and rapidly, we will soon find ourselves in a circumstance where we will have to choose between funding retirements and funding municipal services.

Early retirements and a history of putting off the day of reckoning have contributed to put us in this situation. Shifting demographics have played an even larger role. Today, people consistently live in to their 80s. State, county and municipal retirement systems were set up at a time when average lifespans were sufficiently shorter. In the early years of our retirement system, typical retirees collected for only a few years after they stopped working. Today, workers who retire at 55 or 60 are living longer and collecting benefits for twenty and thirty years -- nearly as long, or longer, than they worked.

While we are all delighted that improvements in health care have allowed us to live longer and better, the burden that long retirements place on municipalities like ours is significant. We need to take our heads out of the sand and confront the looming crisis in our retirement system. For the sake of current and future retirees, we need to take steps now to ensure that the system doesn't crash. For the sake of our other tax payers, we need to ensure that retirement obligations don't someday prevent us from providing city services. The time for hard decisions is upon us. We need to think creatively. I don't have any silver bullet solutions to this problem. I do believe, however, that for future hires, at a minimum, we must consider increasing the minimum retirement age or decreasing annual retirement benefits.