Washington, DC
Neal stopped into Great Barrington in the morning, Williamstown in the early afternoon, and from there went to North Adams. He was in each town to announce more than $1.2 million in federal funding for affordable housing, fire-fighting equipment and EPA Brownfield clean-up projects.
But in Williamstown, he also addressed Wednesday’s shooting at the GOP baseball practice in Washington D.C.
“Rep. Steve Scalise and I couldn’t agree on where the sun sets, but we all wish him and everyone else involved a healthy and speedy recovery,” Neal said. “What has been done to them, we should all be outraged.”
He said the “tone of discourse” has become so divisive that it serves to encourage extreme reaction.
“Incendiary language draws quotes,” Neal said. “It’s not a good idea to be bombastic. As an elected representative, you have to be at your best when others are at their worst. You can disagree in civil tones. Men and women of good will can have constructive discussions.”
In Great Barrington, Neal was met at Town Hall by officials who, struggling to expand the tax base, are looking to get vacant buildings back on the tax rolls.
Neal and Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin said the $300,000 EPA grant to the town would help with some mill buildings in Housatonic, and possibly the heavily contaminated Ried Cleaners site in downtown Great Barrington.
“There’s been a very stubborn problem, particularly in New England, because everything is old,” Neal said, noting that towns and prospective developers of these polluted sites need the federal government’s help.
Neal said years ago, he “had the quaint little notion that the polluter pays … through criminal and civil litigation …” All this has changed, he added, since the contamination often goes back decades and the polluter is long gone.
Neal praised the EPA’s work since President Richard Nixon created the agency in 1970, but said he is concerned about new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
“I’m suspect of his intentions,” he said.
Neal also said he has requested a meeting with Pruitt about the Housatonic River Rest of River cleanup, in which the General Electric Co. is fighting the EPA over where to dispose of PCB waste the company had discharged into the river from its Pittsfield transformer-manufacturing plant.
“Any decision that would reverse the progress that is being made and previously agreed to would be a setback,” he said.
Later, Neal met with representatives of Williamstown and the Berkshire Housing Development Corp. which is the recipient of a $200,000 EPA Brownfields cleanup grant to help fund the construction of affordable housing at the former Photech mill site on Cole Avenue.
There, in the chambers of the Williamstown Select Board, Neal chatted with town officials and about a dozen constituents who came by to see him.
He commended the grant writers for successfully applying for the federal funds.
“Affordable housing is essential, and getting these properties back into use, I think, is important,” Neal said. “So congratulations.”
Elton Ogden, president of the Berkshire Housing Development Corporation, was happy to thank the Congressman.
“This $200,000 is like the first brick in the wall,” he said. “It helps us put together the rest of the funding formula. Irene wiped out far more housing than we’ve been able to replace and this is a step in the right direction.”
Neal next paid a visit to North Adams, where he stopped into the firehouse to confirm that a $300,000 EPA Brownfields communitywide assessment grant and a $452,900 Department of Homeland Security Assistance to Firefighters Grant are on the way.
The Homeland Security grant will be administered by the North Adams Fire Department to buy 73 firefighter air packs and seven intervention packs to be distributed among seven north county fire departments.
Fire Department Director Stephen Meranti said that grants are essential to the fire department for keeping up with advances in safety equipment and staffing needs.
“In the past 15 years, every major purchase was funded at least in part by grant funding,” he said.
Neal said the $300,000 from the EPA to North Adams will be used for brownfield cleanup at sites across the city.
