Essex Heritage Supports
the Community Preservation Act and
Reports on the New Regional Vocational Technical School

As we approach the end of another year, all of the staff of the Essex Heritage wants to offer our best wishes for a pleasant holiday season to all of the partners and residents of the region that we serve. We are grateful to the Community Newspaper group for their wonderful support in 2009, and will continue to provide updates on the work of Essex Heritage in the New Year. Today, we want to provide an update on a regional program that provides support for many projects in numerous communities that helps Essex Heritage as we work with the region to advance our mission. We also want to close with an update on the progress of a regional school project to be located in Danvers that Essex Heritage has supported since it was first identified as important to the region.

Community Preservation Act Bill Gains Legislative Support
Communities in this region that have adopted the Community Preservation Act have been the beneficiary of matching funds from the Commonwealth that have allowed many worthwhile regional projects to be completed. The preservation of many buildings of historical significance along with the acquisition and protection of many critical parcels of land in the region has been achieved with this funding. In addition several communities in the region have addressed affordable housing needs that today seem even more important than in the past. Essex Heritage has always supported the efforts to increase the number of communities in the region who have enacted the Community preservation Act as the funding can be put to such positive uses, virtually all of which focus on the mission of Essex Heritage. At this time about half of the communities in the region served by Essex Heritage have access to state funding through the adoption of this act and we have always encouraged additional communities to consider the benefits of enacting the legislation. We certainly understand the difficulty that communities face when considering measures that call for new taxes to be imposed on already hard pressed residents, but the benefits of passage are so positive that we continue to urge communities that have not enacted the legislation to consider the potential uses of the funding.

In the most current year the average state match to participating communities has fallen to 40% and that is the lowest match since the program began eight years ago. The match is down from 100% just two years ago before the current financial crisis hit the Commonwealth. Even though the match is down substantially most communities were generally pleased with any level of funding as the funds can be put to so many positive uses.

We are also pleased to report that legislation supported by the Community Preservation Coalition to sustain CPA funding has recently cleared an important legislative hurdle. The bill, SB 90, an act to Sustain Community Preservation was approved with a favorable recommendation by the joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business. This bill that would broaden participation in CPA by making it easier for communities to join and would guarantee a minimum annual CPA trust fund match of 75% for each community participating in the program,. The bill still has many hurdles to overcome before becoming law, as it must gain the approval of other legislative committees and also win passage by the full Massachusetts House and Senate.

Regional Vocational Technical High School Gaining Support
When a new Regional Vocational Technical High School was first proposed, the Essex National Heritage Commission was one of the first regional organizations to offer an endorsement of the concept.  It became very clear to the leadership of Essex Heritage that if there was a chance to have a new modern, spacious school replace the current facility that this would be a superb idea.  Essex Heritage saw the possibility of a new facility that would offer substantially more opportunities for the young men and woman in this region as a wonderful option for this region.  We saw more trained workers as a critical component of any regional economic recovery. We also viewed the opportunity to train more young people in the skills needed to continue to restore historic resources in this region as a most positive step. Essex Heritage offered its early endorsement of the new regional school concept and it now seems more and more likely that a new school will be built at a site in Danvers near the Middleton town line in the not too distant future.  We compliment all who have played a role in this effort and urge them to continue the good work to see this project through to completion.

In addition to a much broader use of the web site, Essex Heritage is also communicating using traditional methods like this monthly column and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linked in as well as using other non traditional methods like the Essex Happenings BLOG that I post information to three times a week that can be accessed at www.essexhappenings.blogspot.com.

Read more about the region from Tom Leonard on his blog.

Thomas M. Leonard is President Emeritus of the Essex National Heritage Commission, Inc., the nonprofit management entity of the Essex National Heritage Area, and can be reached by clicking here.