Guest Column by John A. Michitson
Haverhill City Council President
Haverhill City Council President John A. Michitson.
Haverhill needs to significantly improve public education, public safety, and to attract and retain diverse jobs at all levels to reach its potential and build stronger neighborhoods. All three impact one another. Businesses and good jobs will come to Haverhill if the neighborhoods are safe with excellent schools.
Currently the burden on both public safety and the schools is increasing as more families in the school district are disadvantaged financially and are struggling. We need to explore the best ways to not only attract the right workforce, but also grow it within our city.
The first step is to develop a long term comprehensive strategy and action plan that addresses these topics in addition to many other quality of life factors such as housing. Now more than ever, neighborhood and education advocates across Haverhill are seeking a blueprint for Haverhill’s future! The next steps are to build budgets that meet the plan and to track performance for continuous improvement of city services and school results.
I successfully advocated for this year’s five-year plan from the Haverhill Police Department, which had a direct impact on the successful challenge by the City Council for additional police officers in the FY2018 budget.
However, this incremental success is not good enough. We need an integrated five-year comprehensive plan for Haverhill developed by the entire community, as supported by the City Council. We learned during this year’s budgeting process that we need goals and measures to enable effective debate for limited funds. No more excuses.
Michitson has been around too long. No one listens when he talks anymore. Not just because it puts you to sleep but because it’s the same thing
it must be election year. michitson comes out with his latest 10 year plan. all this is hot air. 10 terms on the city council 10 ten year plans.
Well done Mr Mitchison.
There is really not that much money left over the tax base gets emptyy pretty fast when they are supporting so many people many whom are not citicen this is how sanctuary cities get dryed up.for funds the homeowners the taxpayers can’t keep up.there is only so much taxable money.schools,housing, elderly,the burdens are way to high.you can’t expect to attract new business when the tax burdens are so high.
The other half of public safety is in desperate need of help and equipment. There are several vehicles that the fire department and the city rely on that are decades old and are in constant need of maintenance. The same arguments the City Council made for the police can be made for the fire department. Call volumes are up, overdoses impact them heavily and the city is expanding it’s footprint without strengthening the agencies most responsible for protecting the people and property in Haverhill. People and businesses looking to move to and invest in our town deserve to have a consistent level of protection.
Most people only care about nice trees, rail trails, pot holes and streetlights. Please don;t bother them with all of these so-called issues because it is to hard to do those things. It takes money away from all of those touchy feely things that make us feel so good. They want more umbrellas, dog parks, AND more of those useless tables and chairs that are taking up parking spots downtown. Yeah, more of that stuff please !