Healey, Driscoll's Campaign Stop Talks Housing, Health and ICE
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Gov. Maura Healey acknowledged challenges and touted successes on Tuesday to a packed room at the former Johnson School on Tuesday.
Healey, standing with running mate Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Mayor Jennifer Macksey in front of a background "Team Healey Driscoll" logos, the governor spoke to housing, health care, education, energy, infrastructure, and public safety — declaring ICE had to "stay out" to loud applause.
"You know, there's a lot of work ahead. There's a lot of challenge out there. There's a lot of work in communities here in the state and around this country," she said, recalling how she'd stood with Mayor Jennifer Macksey at a "massive sinkhole" in the days following the extreme rain in 2023.
"I'll never forget that moment. And, you know, what can we do as a government to help and that's our job, actually, in government. DC doesn't understand but our job actually is to work together to deliver for people. That means working state and local, really tight. It means also working with our community leaders, our businesses, our not-for-profits, our schools, our hospitals and health-care systems."
Healey is running for a second four-year term as governor. On Tuesday, the Democrat released a list of mayors and legislative leaders backing her, including Macksey and Pittsfield Mayor Peter Marchetti and the entire Berkshire state delegation.
The hall at what is now called the Residences at Amity Square was filled with former and current elected officials including city councilors, School Committee members, mayors, Select Board members from neighboring communities, as well as residents and educational, cultural and business leaders.
"The governor promised four years ago that she would not forget North Adams and not forget Western Mass, and she certainly hasn't," said Macksey in endorsing the governor. "She supported us through floods, she supported us through grants, and she is a trusted, trusted colleague in Boston who knows how to get to North Adams."
The use of Johnson School was one way to convey the Healey-Driscoll administration's focus on housing. They had just arrived from Pittsfield, where'd they'd seen the plans to transform the Berkshire County Savings Bank into housing and announced $140 million in tax credits to support housing development.
David Moresi poured $2.5 million into creating 14 one- and two-bedroom apartments and a studio in the 1896 building.
"Unbelievable, what you've done here at the school, and it's just a beautiful example of the kind of housing that's possible," said Healey, recognizing Moresi and his wife, Amy. "How you turn something so wonderful, but not utilized, into something we really, really need, which is wonderful housing."
She pointed to a study last year that called for 220,000 units of housing by 2035 to meet the state's needs.
"We've got 100,000 housing units built, permitted or under construction. So that's a good start, and we need to build on that," the governor said. "They gave us a total that it was going to be 220,000 units we had to build by 2035, and we're going to beat that."
The administration is subsidizing rebates on electric and gas bills, filed a bill to allow utilities to purchase energy when it's cheaper and recently flipped the switch on power line from Hydro Quebec expected to supply 20 percent of the state's electricity. Healey said she's opposed to Berkshire Gas's rate hike proposal because "people cannot afford it."
"Health care is broken in America," she said, but the administration has capped deductibles, eliminated a lot of prior authorizations for prescription and made insurance cover vaccines.
"I've got a health-care affordability group working right now. I've got employers, insurers and providers in a room right now to try to figure out some different ways of doing things," she said. "Massachusetts invented universal health care 20 years ago, right? And so we should be able to figure out what we need to do in this moment to deliver health care to our people."
As for ICE, Healey said for years she had worked with federal authorities as attorney general to prosecute criminals trafficking in guns, drugs and people.
"But unfortunately, what we've seen in ICE is an agency that's just creating more problems for public safety. It's a public safety threat to too many, instead of a law enforcement agency that's helping people," she said. "The vast, vast, vast majority of folks they picked up in Massachusetts — no criminal record ...
"So it just doesn't make any sense, and that's why I issued the executive order saying, 'ICE, you've got to stay out. You've got to stay out. You've got to stay out schools. You've got to stay out ... . (her words were drowned out in applause.)"
Greylock Together handed the governor a letter signed by supporters to terminate the 287(g) agreement with federal authorities to hand over released convicts with deportation orders; and to create a reporting portal for evidence of unlawful or harmful ICE conduct. A resident also asked about 287(g), and the governor said immigration detainers were not uncommon and related to people who had committed serous crimes.
"That's very different from what we're seeing in terms of ice activity in our neighborhoods, in our community. So that's where that stands, but it's something that we're looking at," she said.
Both the governor and lieutenant governor said communities have to work with the state, and Massachusetts with other states and commonwealths, since there's little help coming from Washington, D.C.
"No city or town can do it on its own, whether it's educating kids, investing in those big infrastructure projects, developing an economic development strategy, leading a creative economy effort," said Driscoll. "There's so many great bones here in North Adams, and we want you to leverage them all, and it takes partnership, and unfortunately, we don't have a partner in Washington.
"There's no cavalry coming from Washington to help us solve these challenges. And so now more than ever, we have to stand together and find ways to solve tough challenges."
Two former Baker administration officials, MBTA administrator Brian Shortsleeve and economic development chief Michael Kennealy, and biotech executive Michael Minogue are vying in the Republican primary to challenge the former attorney general.
Healey described them as multi-millionaires being supported by big political action committees who would tow the line for the Trump administration. It was a clear choice going into the November election, no matter which of the candidates emerge, she said.
"It's not about the money. For me, in the face of a president and Congress starving our people, taking away health care from our people, letting our seniors go without heat, defunding science and research and so much of what fuels the Massachusetts economy, you know, not one of them has stood up and said, 'that's wrong' — not one of them," she said.
Tags: campaign event, healey,
