Early in the gubernatorial campaign you captured the essence of the argument for tax fairness. By reminding people that the discussion about”your money” is really a conversation about “your broken schools, your broken neighborhoods,” etc., you connected the dots. Many people (including those who had previously succumbed to the taxes-are-bad propaganda) listened and learned.
Eschewing the anti-tax rhetoric and providing instead a vision of a decent society, were hallmarks of our campaign; your message was authentic and honest. In addition, it was a major factor in persuading many of us to support and promote your candidacy.
Our campaign moved forward the debate about revenue sources and, perhaps more significantly, the wider debate about the common good. Victory in 2006 could have been the springboard into a meaningful statewide discussion about refashioning taxation so that it reflects and embodies our aspirations as a Commonwealth. For a brief moment,there was a chance to talk about restoring the income tax to its 2001 levels.There was even a chance to lead a conversation about establishing a progressive income tax. With the right leadership (including, but not necessarily limited to, your own) we may be able to revive that conversation.
The debate regarding casino gambling represents an opportunity to advocate for a more equitable tax system. After suffering a clear defeat in 2002, the opponents of the income tax have reemerged, putting their question back on the ballot. So, once again, those of us who share your vision are onthe defensive, fighting a rearguard action to defend the very existence of the income tax. Instead wecould have been taking the initiative and shaping the discourse.
Given our desire to see realistic levels of public funding, why do we oppose resort casino gambling?Because we are Democrats. The platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party commits the party to tax equity and responsible budgeting, special support for small businesses, sustainable development practices to foster economic stability for both urban and rural cities and towns, and the provision of a sustainable revenue source to finance state government that supports a healthy economy.
From what we observe in other states, casino gambling would not promote tax equity, responsible budgeting, sustainable development practices, or a sustainable revenue source,and likely would damage small businesses in Massachusetts. In short, it flies in the face of our party’s principles.
Resort casinos are a mechanism for transferring money from poor and middle class people to wealthy corporations. Any revenue that leaks out to the state via taxation along the way is far short of the amount necessary to ameliorate the social and economic damage that the industry causes.
Resort casino gambling would involve our state government in condoning and encouraging behavior that has led in far too many cases to personal financial ruin, the breakup of families, domestic violence, and child neglect. In addition to these social costs, resort casinos draw money away from local restaurants, stores, and farms, compounding the injury. So presenting resort casino gambling as a source of revenue that would benefit our communities is misleading. The academically documented experiences of other states suggest that resort casinos damage, rather than boost, local economies.
We remain committed to showing leadership in our communities and in our Democratic town, ward, and city committees. Day after day, week after week, month after month, we make the case for tax equity. We are asking you to show leadership as well, by abandoning the resort-casino proposal and focusing instead on a cause that is both more ambitious and more promising-fair and progressive taxation.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Seelig, Pelham
Pat Fiero, Leverett
Tom Hollocher, Sudbury
Jeanne Maloney, Sudbury
Kathleen Norbut, Monson
Carl Offner, Sudbury
Sharon Raymond, Shutesbury
Susan Triolo, Sunderland
Maxine Yarbrough, Sudbury
Please contact Judith Seelig at 413-259-1268 if you want to have your name included as a Deval Patrick coordinator. There are two more names on the list as of now (and presumably lynne as well):
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p>lolorb
ryan
I never actually posted it LOL.
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p>It is in a comment, from you, on a different post… but I think this deserves it’s own post.
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p>Also, I’m putting my name on this list, too, as a Deval’s campaign undergrad college coordinator at UMASS Dartmouth.
as a senate district coordinator. Whatever. People, if you were a coordinator on the DP campaign and oppose the casino plan, now is the time to put your name on the list. I know of at least a half dozen others who have already done so. The letter was drafted quickly without an opportunity to include many others. Because of the hearing tomorrow, now is the time to add you name to the ever growing list.
I think this letter really goes to show people how terrible a casino bill passing would be for the Patrick administration. I’ve been saying for a long time that it would completely turn off Patrick’s people-powered movement in a reelection campaign, and this just goes to show how right that feeling is.
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p>So many of us have worked tirelessly on Governor Patrick’s behalf. I obviously blogged ceaselessly, but I also did some of the all-important campaign work too – helping organize my campus, where we had several people who did phone calling every week, contacting the entire South Coast region… I helped organize South Coast events for the Governor, both before and after he was elected.
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p>Lynne, who was Lowell’s town coordinator, probably did even way more work than me. She was so dedicated that she more or less stopped blogging nearly as much on the campaign, because she had the wisdom to know that the phone calling, door knocking and organizing was far more important than writing a few blogs.
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p>I have a feeling this letter is about to be signed by MANY more campaign coordinators in Patrick’s campaign. There’s so many people who have been deeply disappointed in the Governor’s never-ending obsession with bringing casinos to this state; enough is enough. Charlie Baker, or whoever the Republicans throw at us, will be difficult enough to beat without having to deal with the fact that we have a Governor doing his best impression of them. It’s quite sad, really, because we used to have a Governor who joked about us becoming ‘the las vegas of New England,’ one that most of the state detested. Now we have a Governor doing his best to pursue it. Shame on the Governor – for wasting all of our time, for ignoring the real issues, and for picking such a divisive issue to pull out all the stops to pass, with absolutely no honest and non-partisan original research to back it up. I’m just in utter shock. The sooner this dies, the better, because I still do believe in the Governor, even if he’s making it really hard for me and tens of thousands of others to do so.
In terms of ceasing the blog.
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p>But yeah, I don’t know how someone who was brought to power with strong progressive grassroots thought this was the best idea.
he’s appearing at a rally on the commons tomorrow too. I’m beginning to think that these, indeed, will be “just words.”
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p>But the polls, momentum and facts are on our side. We’ll win tomorrow and in the future, hopefully saving the Governor from himself in the process.
that is exactly what I saw in Detroit as a result of the Greektown Casino. My son’s employer believes that Gov. Patrick’s casino business would put HIM out of business, as he operates a small side entertainment venue in Arlington.
is that one of our problems, as a society, is we actually spend more than we save. Casinos only encourage people to either spend money they don’t have, or spend the resources they need to pay for services that they require (housing, food, children, etc.). In the meanwhile, nothing is actually produced at a casino, so they don’t actually help grow the economy… they’re just vacuum that ends up in a few corporate pockets. Hell, the corporate leaders of Mohegan Sun infamously received more profits than the entire tribe did… whoopie! (Which, by the way, appears to be in violation of federal law). Imagine, that group is one of the groups that wants to invest in Massachusetts. I laugh so I don’t cry.
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p>In the meantime, every other sector of the economy gets bruised, and the local economy gets crushed. It’s not solid policy, it’s not solid revenue, it’s not even stable revenue… and we’re suddenly going to make it a corner stone of this state? Without so much as a nonpartisan commission to study it in depth? It passes neither the economic nor community sniff tests, and has served as a tremendous distraction in the face of the real issues, and real sectors of the economy, we must improve. Hopefully the Governor will get the message, and stop this futile crusade of his.
Put me down as a former Deval Patrick coordinator who doesn’t doesn’t see the big deal about casinos.
That Ryan’s supposition that I worked hard enough to affect my blogging is nothing compared to how hard you worked. You were in the thick of it a lot more and a lot longer than me.
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p>Didn’t mean to imply you had any certain opinion on casinos. đŸ™‚
If the Municipal Partnership Act,and the proposal to require telephone companies to pay their fair share of property taxes are the only accomplishments that you can point to after more than more than a year of governing this Commonwealth – it is indeed a pretty pathetic state of affairs.
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p>At this point lets face it – Deval’s administration will be remembered years from now for one thing and one thing only – his proposal to legalize casinos in Massachusetts.
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p>Its unbelievable that he has put so much of his politicial capitol into making slots and blackjack legal rather than all of the lofty things that he promised during the campaign.
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p>This Administration is off the track!
He issued oodles of executive orders resulting in state government using less fossil fuel and using more renewable energy.
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p>I’m sure loads of folks here could point to dozens of “invisible” acts like these. I don’t want a splashy governor; I want one who quietly and efficiently gets more out of each of our agencies and who moves government in the direction of helping the citizens who need that help.
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p>Is DP doing that? Dunno. I do know he’s got more accomplishments than you list.
And people who complain to me “he hasn’t accomplished anything” get an earful from me…the day to day running of the government and many of the executive initiatives he’s put out are good. However, he’s failed to bring the grassroots into governing, which was the biggest promise of his campaign of “checking back in.” I felt it long before he came out for casinos; as someone who is generally in tune with what’s going on, it seemed like we went from organized and ready up to his inauguration, to missing the leadership necessary to keep going. He could have brought many of us to bear in the Muni act he wanted; he totally ignored that power he had, until it was too late.
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p>I know it’s hard to begin a new administration, rebuilding government with your own ideals, etc. But just a little more effort to do citizen grassroots governing would have been a lot.
As one who not only worked in the Patrick campaign almost from it’s inception, but who also was one of the first to post positively of Patrick’s candidacy in this very blog, see “A Renaissance Man for the Commonwealth” 3/27/2005,
I sadly must agree with the sentiments expressed in this open letter.
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p>Surely our Commonwealth and our Governor can do better than this casino gambling proposal to boost our weakened economy and to create good jobs and sustainable economic growth.
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p>This proposal is pathetic and the results of diminished imagination. We can do better.
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p>I still believe in Deval, and that he can have a successful term as Governor, but he needs to listen to his friends and supporters who are telling him not what he may want to hear, but what he needs to hear.
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p>Abandon this proposal now and get back on the path promised in your campaign.
the Governor has a really bad idea, on the merits of the plan and in the fact that there’s no good casino in the state of Massachusetts.
I am afraid of coming to Lowell and hanging out with you! đŸ˜‰ All kidding aside the point of my admittedly snarky comment was to highlight the hive thinking that seems to be spreading. I think my favorite comment was by sco who chimed in to say that he was a Patrick supporter that wasn’t all worked up about casinos.
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p>The letter you and Lynne signed is indeed a powerful statement to our Governor. However, let’s not hold it up as evidence that all of his coordinators are jumping ship. I saw about 10 names; this is hardly even a fraction of the hundreds of hardcore volunteers Gov. Patrick had working for him. I will stand by for the Bill O’Reilly comparisons.
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p>On a totally unrelated note, the casinofacts.org site is simply pathetic. I found the site so horrible biased and outdated. Many links don’t work and most quotes are taken so far out of context as to be comical. The site often cites a national gambling study but doesn’t actually provide a link to the study allowing a person to read the section where the quote was taken from. That is pretty questionable.
I refer most curious people here if they want to learn more. It’s certainly a lot more organized and a better website, related to what’s currently going on.
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p>I know we’re a voice that’s just growing now, but believe me, it’s growing pretty quick: there are already a whole lot more people who have signed onto it since Lynne posted this diary (including myself).
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p>In the end, I think it’s important to view this entire debate through two lenses: there’s so many better things we could be doing with all this time and energy that, at best, all this casino nonsense represents an opportunity cost, even if the rosiest predictions came true. Furthermore, casinos in Massachusetts represent such a fundamental and irreversable change to the character and fabric of this state, that we ought to at least have a serious, year-long, non-partisan commission study the issue in depth before it gets rushed through our throats with spoons full of sugar, especially since it very likely could be anything but medicine coming down.
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p>Lastly, the meeting on April 19th will have nothing to do with casinos. I promise I’m 100% less heated in person than I am online; there’s something about a computer keyboard that brings the sarcastic twat out of me.
Get real.
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p>If you oppose the guv’s casino proposal, you aid and comfort the entrenched legislators who want to divert your attention from the fact that they are incapable of devising an environmentally-friendly, economic development agenda for our state.
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p>You’re aiding big business, which does not want to see its economic power and influence diversified, since resort casinos would create 20,000 fulltime employees in legislative districts across the state — employees who buy houses, spend their monies in their local communities, and vote. The stronger the Massachusetts recession, the stronger the clout big business will retain in our state since they will argue, ad nauseum, that any increase in taxes to the corporate world will threaten the state’s eventual economic recovery.
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p>You’re also aiding and abetting the major restaurant owners and hotel chains throughout the state who prefer to pay their employees minimum wage and provide little, if any, health care coverage.
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p>You’re supporting the evangelicals and religious zealots who want to dictate how we, as individuals, decide to spend our private time and our monies.
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p>And you’re supporting people like House Speaker Sal DiMasi and state Rep. Dan Bosley, who after 20 years in the Legislature, have proven themselves to be ineffectual, embarrassing dolts in putting together any coherent economic agenda.
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p>You’re also promoting a Massachusetts State Lottery that preys on those least able to afford to gamble. The highest percentage of lottery sales, per capita, comes from Massachusetts’ poorest communities. Resort casinos, ironically, lure middle-income and up patrons from higher socio-economic communities.
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p>So, if you;re so about economic equity and justice in our state, you ought to be supporting destination resort casinos, which create jobs, revenues and spread tourism — instead of tis mindless blather you spew that actually results in the status quo.
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p>Have you looked around you? D you even understand what the status quo is in the commonwealth?
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p>It’s an economy in freefall. And instead of assisting the governor in a real-world exercise to create a more visionary and diverse economy, you’re becoming one of the shcok troops for the status quo — DiMasi, Bosley, big business, and the evangelicals — all who prefer economic chaos and disorder, rather than a strong, competitive, fair-share economy that benefits people across socio-economic lines.
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p>”Yes we can” doesn’t really mean much when you’re embracing the House leadership and big business’ credo of: “influence and power for the few.”
Next time you should read a newspaper before you open your mouth. It helps make you look like, well, not a complete idiot. And stop drinking the rosy kool aid. There’s no way the jobs and numbers add up, especially when RI, CONN, NH and Maine create and expand slot gambling to compete.
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p>
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p>And destroy local economies, small businesses… not to mention over 350,000 Massachusetts lives, plus their families (that’s roughly the number of Massachusetts citizens who will become “problem gamblers” if a casino is built in Massachusetts).
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p>We’ve looked around – and done a fair bit more research on the matter than you, who parrots and spouts admin numbers that haven’t even been independently analyzed by a nonpartisan commission in this state. Casinos, believe it or not, will very likely hurt the most important parts of the economy of this state: the small businesses that keep communities alive, and are actually the quickest growing part of the economy in a healthy state. Casinos, on the other hand, smother those economies and send all their profits to a few shareholders, investors and corporate execs, whilst they create insurmountable problems that no amount of added revenue can cure.
Many of the jobs brought in by casinos are ones that may not bring union-style wages and perks. CT’s casinos have brought in an influx of immigrant workers to take low-paying service jobs, and because of this, CT has an increased burden of educating and integrating nonnative speakers. Now, I’m not opposed to immigration, nor do I demonize those who come to this country looking for a way out of poverty, but why start up a new industry that will increase the tax burden on local school systems because that new industry commences a new appetite for cheap immigrant labor? Doesn’t it make MORE sense to focus on initiatives like the green jobs or biotech jobs, where there’s a better, more even trickle down? For every scientist or engineer that’s hired, there’s marketing, sales, human resources, and other white collar jobs, as well as blue collar jobs in grounds/building maintenance, etc.
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p>How many white collar jobs will casinos bring in? In imagining what is needed to operate a casino, I see a LOT less need for skilled labor than biotech or green or nanotech or whatever.
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p>Casino jobs != good jobs necessarily. There are better jobs in better industries we can promote that will produce actually product which will be better overall, and to boot, products that will improve our lives. What do casinos produce other than a sapping of wealth of a community?
I’ve noted before that I don’t really care one way or the other about casinos. That said, we can’t have a recovery without the addition of unskilled labor jobs. Not everyone can be a bio-engineer. Dumping money into Masters or even PhD-level tech jobs doesn’t do much to help the guy who just got his GED. The one thing I like most about casinos is that it will create unskilled and potentially unionized jobs in Massachusetts.
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p>And the Corporate Casino Complex is the anti-dote?
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p>BWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Your assertion that bringing the casino industry to Mass will lead to a wider–not more concentrated–distribution of economic and political power is hilarious.
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p>Just look at NV- while it is a wealthy state by general measures it features the most inequal distribution of wealth and political power. Patron-client capitalism at its worst in America.
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p>Proudlib, it is quite clear that you came on this board to shill for casinos. I recommend that the Editors close your acct. b/c of your lack of disclosure.
What you say about Nevada is true. The casino interests have a large voice in politics. But, Nevada’s kind of an odd duck, what with the single United State where casinos are one of the largest businesses. The mining interest also has large voice in Nevado too.
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p>But, what about Massachusetts? Can the income gap become larger?
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p>The income gap is already quite large. Its “inequality” gap.. Probably, for the most part, it’s the more affluent, landed gentry NIMBYs who have the money, time and influence who are driving the anti-casino bus under the premise that it’s best for everyone when in reality, they are striving to preserve their backyard view, same as the windfarm folks.
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p>
… yeah, right. Dan Kennedy, Lynne and Ryan… landed gentry indeed. LOL.
But, Dan Kennedy, Lynne and Ryan, aren’t really the movers and shakers behind the anti-casino movement.
… who are?
The usual Bootleggers and Baptists.
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p>Bootleggers have the money interest; Baptists are the schmucks.
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p>The bootleggers are Foxwoods and Mohegan (in the form of Trading Cove and Chisholm Creek Ventures); the Baptists are the well intended, ernest lefties and the NIMBYs.
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p>The Bootlegger and Baptists, together form a coalition that keeps casinos fat and happy in Connecticut.
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p>Options for the Bootleggers:
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p>Option 1: The best thing to happen to the CT casinos is for Foxwoods and Mohegan to keep their monopolies in Connecticut.
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p>Option 2: The second best thing for the existing casinos is for no other competitors to enter New England. That’s why the CT casinos don’t like the Patrick deal. There are 3 (or more), and therefore too much competition. It allows Steve Wynn or Donald Trump in the picture. Indian Casinos are limited in number; Patrick’s plan is too many.
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p>Sol Kernzer (Mohegan) via Trading Cove is trying to end run options 1 and 2 by getting ONLY Middleboro (albeit he is hedging his bet with the longshot casino in Palmer). Along the way, he’s helping the Patrick deal die.
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p>Foxwoods is fighting Middleboro and the Patrick deal, first because Foxwoods is late to the table. But, more importantly, Foxwoods is talking to Charlie Sarkis and is pushing the Racino deal, all the while pushing for the Patrick plan to die.
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p>Both, are pushing the Patrick Plan over the cliff.
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p>The irony is this: Patrick’s plan is NOT the insiders plan and all his grassroots supporter are hanging him out to dry for it. Meanwhile the bootleggers are visiting their friendly Legislators and pushing their agendas while the Baptists (you) are cheering them on.
I shake every time I move.
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p>margaret mead.
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p>Margaret Mead’s Congressman
I’m neither a supporter nor an enemy of Patrick — just an opinionated observer. It is absolutely terrific to see so many of his supporters making a fact-based case against the governor’s miserable plan to bring casinos and all of their associated social ills to Massachusetts. DiMasi’s opposition is often characterized as “personal,” so it’s pretty interesting to see Patrick supporters making exactly the same arguments.
Dan, the letter has NINE NAMES.
has probably doubled or more since this was posted. What you don’t seem to understand is that the people who are signing are those who worked endless hours and with endless numbers of volunteers to get the Gov elected. These were the people who made the campaign. They “believed” long before most people even knew who Deval Patrick was and organized their communities. These are the people who checked back in first to lead the way.
Actually, I STILL believe. He has made a decision or two I disagree with but he hasn’t let me down at all. If you scroll up to an earlier I comment I made you will see that I think this letter has tremendous weight given the source of the signers. However, I still maintain that even if, as you say, the list “doubled,” I am not sure we are at earth shaking levels yet.
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p>The thing that “worries” me most about the letter, and frankly about the tone of the debate among progressives, is the way people are so rapidly abandoning ship. With friends like these, who needs Sal DiMasi?
but I can say that I still believe in the Deval Patrick who listened carefully to people and responded to their input. I hope he’s still there listening to the people who will be truly impacted by his decisions rather than the people who go out of their way to convince him that lobbyists know best.
Let’s see how many names the letter has by the end of the week.
Okay, you don’t want resort casinos. Granted. Then list your DOABLE action plan to create 20,000 new jobs and generate $400M in new additional tax revenues — without resorting to higher taxes?
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p>Don’t give me the lifesciences blather. Why should we create tax giveaways for biotech firms that should already be doing R&D as a normal part of their business model? Or do you think every economic stimulus initiative ought to include a tax giveaway?
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p>And forgive me on the windfarm advocacy, but that’s not going to happen when the powerful landed gentry on the coast don’t want their ocean views obscured. You realize, of course, that the restaurateurs who oppose the casino bill also oppose windfarms because it’ll hurt their business — or say they claim.
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p>And since many of the wealthy and powerful live on the coast — or have second homes there — you can be sure they’ll be lobbying their federal and state legislators to kill any windfarm initiative.
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p>So, how do you create those 20,000 new jobs?
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p>And please don’t parrot that DiMasi and Bosley blather either. They’ve been in for over 20 years and haven’t done a thing to make our state more competitive — unless, of course, you count sweetheart legislation and tax giveaways for the energy companies, big biz like Fidelity and Raytheon, and the speaker’s friend Jay Cashman.
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p>Our state is in economic distress. People are being foreclosed on in growing numbers. Many can’t afford health care. Unemployment is rising. Jobs are being moved to other states. Residents are fleeing our state. Legislators keep “talking” about “real” economic development, but they aren’t doing anything to create it.
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p>We’re spending over $1 billion a year at the CT casinos and RI slot parlors. We’re sending more than $200M a year in tax revenues to RI & CT state government because of those gaming venues. In southeastern Connecticut, they have the lowest unemployment rate of any region in New England. It’s also the region’s number one tourism destination in the six-state region — more than Cape Cod, Cape Ann, and the Berkshires rolled into one.
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p>Okay, so you don’t want casinos. Save me the litany of what we “might” do to create sustainable jobs that pay well, offer affordable health care, and generate millions in new tax revenues — and give me one tangible initiative that the incompetent DiMasi-Bosley Legislature WILL succeed in creating. Not what you hope; not what THEY pledge; but a real, tangible initiative that’ll accomplish those fiscal and economic needs that, if pressed, you’d be willing to BET YOUR HOUSE on?
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p>The truth is, Bosley and DiMasi will be talking about creating a more competitive economy next year and the year after and the year after, without having accomplished one tangible successful initiative. In fact, they’ll be talking about what they’re “going to do” to create a more competitive and resilient MA economy up to the day that they retire from the Legislature, file for their pension, and receive their 80% handout via the monthly kiss from the postman.
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p>But you keep kidding yourselves, and keep drinking the Kool-aid that big business and all the media dolts keep ladeling out to the politically correct and uninformed. Yeah, when the state hits rock bottom, and there’s no one left in Massachusetts but the rich, elderly, college students, and those too poor and unemployed to move anywhere else, please don’t forget to turn out the lights.
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p>
wow, nice job.
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p>Now let’s get this defeat over with so the Gov can get onto more important things. He has to get a handle on Transportation because left unattended it will eat up all of the States capital budget and it that happens the Gov is cooked.
Insanity. Keep branding the casino opposition. I’ve yet to see your stereotype; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m far from anything you described: just finished college, in between jobs and I have, literally, about $50 to my name and 25k in college loans. But, that’s right, I’m a liberal, coastal elitist. It’s time you stop your games and list your disclosure: youre game of shilling is getting old.
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p>The fact of the matter is to come up with a plan, or many plans, that will create real jobs that bring real economic growth, is going to take a lot of time. Casinos were never that solution, by the way, because they create even more problems than they solve: costing people their jobs, their communities and even their lives, in many cases.
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p>But we can create those new, big ideas. Renewable energy is certainly part of the solution – and lo and behold, the Speaker just unveiled a plan to invest in renewable technologies that would bring in over 10,000 jobs, many of which I’m sure will be blue collar. It’s a small step in the right direction, but it goes to show you that the Governor and the Legislature can come together and work on common solutions to our common problems, and they’ll be a helluva lot more effective in doing so once this casino distraction is out of the way.
SOLD PUT!
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p>
Casinos cause global warming and make my dog sad.
I have heard a lot of other awful things about them too.
They must be stopped.
We are the Knights of Ni and you will cease and dissist thinking any such thoughts about actualy building anything and get back to grandious promising of stuff that noone believes will ever actualy happen.
You will do this NOW or else we will continue to SAY NI TO YOU
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p>Geesh …
Its times like these that remind me of New England’s reputation as a stodgy puritanical shithole where rules of proper morality are detemined by the personal preferences of the loudest whiners. The land that time forgot …
This is an updated ist of signers, now 23. I have read the posted comments and am dismayed to see that people are not getting the message. The letter is about using the casino debate as a springboard to a discussion about tax equity. We need to have a new conversation about taxes, one that includes the Gov. Re-read the letter and start talking about the work we can do together
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p>Judith Seelig, Pelham
Ryan Adams, UMass Dartmouth
Lori Bonatakis, Longmeadow
Michelle Collette, Groton
Susan Falcoff, Watertown
Pat Fiero, Leverett
Saul Finestone, Longmeadow
Lou Franco, Northampton
Barbara E. Gray, Wellfleet
Albert Hartheimer, Lanesboro
Tom Hollocher, Sudbury
Lynn Lupien, Lowell
Jeanne Maloney, Sudbury
Tom Mason, Lunenburg
Kathleen Norbut, Monson
Vera O’Connor, Springfield
Carl Offner, Sudbury
Steve Owens, Watertown
Sharon Raymond, Shutesbury
Susan Triolo, Sunderland
Bob Wallhagen, Carlisle
Marge Ware, Williamstown
Maxine Yarbrough, Sudbury