Olver Tasks County Planners With Continuing Economic Growth
 Retiring U.S. Rep. John W. Olver reviewed his many years working with the county's Regional Planning Commission at its annual dinner on Thursday. |
Olver, as the keynote speaker at BRPC's annual dinner held at the Country Club of Pittsfield on Thursday night.
"I wish you very good luck with your sustainability plan and I await that plan to see what you are going to come up with. I suspect that the thing that is missing is somewhere in the job development area," Olver told the planners, BRPC volunteers and others in the filled room. "With all the other factors that are there, that must be a major thing and there must be ways to get at that."
With a new representative in the wings, Olver said county planners are going to have to focus on economic development and bring those diverse efforts outside of their area into a complete plan for the county.
Recounting where he has helped and where he's come up short, Olver said life in the Berkshires is so good that he "can't fathom" why the county losses population every year.
The veteran Democrat has worked with the BRPC on everything from the environment to transportation to land redevelopment over the past 21 years. He has had particular success in securing funds for transportation projects. A longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee, he has been chairman and is currently ranking member of its transportation and housing subcommittee.
His efforts have included the 8-year-old Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center in Pittsfield and the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail from Lanesborough to Adams, expanding the scenic byway areas, securing funding for Pittsfield's streetscape project and redistributing funds for road projects, which he said is currently under way. But Olver said the rail trail is not nearly as complete as he hoped it to be, 10 years from the groundbreaking, and encouraged the BRPC to continue to stretch it across the county.
He also reflected on water issues such as the Housatonic River cleanup. But again, he said BRPC is going to have to continue working on projects he wasn't able to make come to fruition, such as the renovating the flood chutes in Adams to make them more hospitable to cold water fish.
"People in the sporting field have been concerned about that and in 10 years, we've been trying to do something about it. But the law requires that if you have a correction measure then the community would have to put in 35 percent matching funds. The redirection is quite an expensive process as far as I've been able to discern and it would cost the town of Adams $1.5 million for that match," Olver said. "There is no incentive to complete the design because they know Adams would not be able to come up with the money so the whole project is just languishing."
Olver added that he has also secured funding for the local public colleges, for Soldier On to build housing for veterans, for local health care systems and the tourism industry. All of that is part of economic development, he said.
"None of these has a nexus with the mission of BRPC but they improve the quality of life," he said, and now "everything has been thrown in your lap."
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