Hi, and welcome to Springfield 2100.

We're 75 years away from the next century, and we're 45 years past the loss of Precision Valley to Wall Street.

And today we have here a person who hopes to get on the select board and help us recover from that particular disaster.

Doug Johnson ought to be known to a whole lot of you viewers, and I'll let him introduce himself.

Hi, I'm Doug Johnston, and uh I've been a resident here in Springfield just about all my life.

I was born and raised here in Springfield and for a few years, uh a little uh attending college and spending some time up north.

Um I came back to Springfield uh as a uh uh police officer got hired as a police officer.

So were you one of the kids who was affected when the brand new high school burned down the week before it was supposed to open?

No, my sister was but I wasn't we're talking about a real long time guy here.

Um so what has your experience been?

Were you employed by the town at the time that Wall Street came in and took away the capital base?

Yeah, I uh uh yeah, it was in the mid mid-80s.

What was the effect on town employees when that was happening?

Well, the fact that town employees at the time, uh there was a period where the uh everything was tight, obviously, budget-wise, and there was a time period where I think it was like six years, there's no cost of living for employees.

Wow.

Well, at that time, uh a woman in the PTA, my son was at uh Union Street and and uh Park Street at the time, but one of the women in the PTA said that their house uh uh value you know had been reassessed from what was it, um $15,000 to 250,000.

It was one of those on Cherry Hill, and it had a bathroom for every bedroom, so I think the revaluation was appropriate.

But what you're also talking about is so much tax revenue was lost when Wall Street ripped the factories out of town that uh taxes went up 240%, and we're paying that now, and we complain about that now, but like this 40-year-old that I was talking to recently, uh they don't have any idea that maybe 240% might be worth complaining about, but it shouldn't be usual.

No, it should be.

Uh the the thing is is a lot of this industry went overseas, and and that was I think part of the the problem.

And unfortunately, the uh United States relied on the cheaper labor and stuff, but they came back, I think the bite by us.

Well, yeah, they obviously the people who moved it there didn't live here in town.

But this this uh ties in with uh what we're talking about today, which there are three big things Springfield Select Board is looking at.

One of them is the land uh the uh land ordinance uh development.

And you've had some some knowledge about that though.

What do you feel the select board can possibly do as far as revising uh Act 250 and uh ordinance uh here in town for development of industries?

I believe uh just recently uh Act 250 legislation allowed uh for several different levels, uh, allow you to develop without going through the full two Act 50 process on certain things.

And I think it was housing, it was like 50 units or below they allowed you to do uh with going through the town, I believe it was, uh on that process.

And I guess the the what could you could go through anything above that?

I guess you could go through the full Act 250.

Um then there was a section there where uh I don't know quite the details, but it would require the town to take over the the whole process and stuff like that.

But they went to the lower uh I think plan or A B and C.

I think they went to C where it was like 50 uh uh units or less they could approve on.

There was a family here in town that wanted to put in a solar panel farm on their land a few years back, and NIMBY played an awful big role in that.

Everybody uh around, you know, uh stood up to oppose it.

Um one of the select men at the time went out to visit the uh home of a family that was opposed to it, and he looked around and he said, You can't even see it from here, and you're raising an objection.

And now we have a quarry proposal.

Uh and I wonder if you heard anything about that, if you know what's going on, how you feel it could be dealt with.

Well, I I I know there's some concerns about that.

I don't know if it's about uh because I haven't followed that in detail by any means, but some of the stuff that I have heard was the the concerns about uh the noise uh coming from the quarry.

Also the residents in that area, uh they have Artesian wells.

And is that going to affect them?

Uh and if it does affect them, what's gonna happen and how is it going to be dealt with?

So there are concerns on both sides of the priority, and I think it's a matter of getting together and basically what are your concerns and what your con the other side of concerns when I want to develop it.

Oh and what they what they intend to do.

Um not too far up the road.

It was uh what to call what?

I think it was Ferguson's pits, they used to call it.

It was a quarry up there.

So there was one not too far away.

Okay.

Um does the town have any way of figuring out roughly how much revenue they would get from the operation like a quarry or another factory coming.

Is there some sort of procedure set up where they can project numbers and say, yeah, this makes it worth it, or this doesn't make it worth it?

I I don't know if there is uh uh a way to do that.

I think if you're building a building, obviously you could see the revenue coming in as far as that goes.

Um it sounds like maybe I'll have to ask Bob Flint that question.

Yeah, I mean he'd be better to develop educated uh to tell you on that.

Yeah.

Well okay.

Um another one is that they're talking about is the possible move of the town hall and the uh Rex and uh Parks and Rec department from their present locations in order to facilitate the bricks building, the old Park Street school building, um, in order to better facilitate the development of that as a as a capital gains uh or capital asset in Springfield.