Tosado searches for solutions to stop flight from cities

Date: 4/18/2011

April 18, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

SPRINGFIELD — City Council President and mayoral candidate Jose Tosado is traveling around the Northeast seeking solutions that have worked for other cities that he would bring here as mayor.

Tosado believes that if bold steps aren't taken the flight from cities in the North will continue.

Tosado recently met with Mo Butler, the chief of staff and housing commission for Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., as part to his effort to share information. He also met with Newark Police Director Gary McCarthy.

There is an emphasis in establishing market rate housing in the city and Tosado said one project is renovating a warehouse into apartments that will be available for city school teachers.

This project will bring "a middle class population into the urban core," he said.

Newark officials are also encouraging the spread of community gardens around the city. Tosado said the gardens not only add beauty to the city, but also provide a source of healthy fresh foods.

He acknowledged there are gardening efforts already in Springfield and he said that by demolishing some derelict buildings there would be even more space for community gardens to grow here.

Tosado also believes a project such as the one providing housing for teachers is possible here as well.

He also visited the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, a 2,800-seat facility that cost more than $200 million. Tosado said he has looked at how Pittsfield has included the arts as part of a economic revival package and said that while some things are being done here, more could be done.

Tosado has had one meeting with Mayor Joseph O'Brien of Worcester and plans to meet again with him and is interested in learning more about MOJO, a newly formed organization in Lowell and Boston that provides employment opportunities for single mothers in apparel manufacturing.

The candidate recently was part of a forum on participatory budget, a format for municipal budgeting that would include the opinions of residents on how money would be spent.

Tosado believes that Springfield has "been in a decline for a very long time" and that the same strategies have been employed over and over to address the city's problems.

"We've been trading water since the Finance Control Boards left," Tosado charged.