Economic Development.

The Council needs to go and talk to businesses and actively promote Springfield as a place to do business, including offering tax incentives. Many businesses are getting priced out of Boston and eastern Massachusetts; we could provide them with a better environment, cheaper real estate, and an educated workforce thanks to our many fine area colleges.

One of the ways this could be accomplished is to lower the commercial tax rate. Some people will say that this will cost the city desperately needed tax revenue, and it will for the first year or so. But in the long run, it will attract businesses to our city and drastically increase our tax base.

Other ways would be tax break incentives to companies who move in to Springfield and hire at least 50% of their workforce from city residents.

Auxiliary Police. 

An auxiliary police force is made up of people who have received academy training, but are not hired by a police department yet. They maintain their own uniforms, already have the training in place, and work for free. This is a win-win for both the auxiliaries and the city. We gain more of a police presence without the higher cost of putting more police officers on the payroll, and the auxiliaries gain experience that could help them when seeking employment with a police department.

I would use the auxiliaries to handle quality of life issues, like noise complaints, which would free up our regular officers so that they could handle more serious crimes. Some other cities and towns that use auxiliary police forces are Ludlow, West Springfield, Southwick, Holyoke, and many major cities throughout the nation, such as New York City.