"Welcome to Millville, where budget fight means dark streets, no trash pickup, and a growing deficit" by Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff July 11, 2018
MILLVILLE — Trash trucks stopped rolling here at the end of June, and more than half of the town’s street lights are going dark. The senior center has shut its doors, and the library has only enough money to open eight hours a week.
Welcome to Millville, a bedroom community of about 3,000 residents on the Rhode Island border, where voters last month rejected a $1 million property tax increase. As a result, the town, which has a budget of about $6.2 million, is facing deep service cuts and a budget deficit that could exceed $286,000.
The fight over the proposed tax hike exposed deep divides in Millville, a working-class town on the Blackstone River that relies almost exclusively on residential property taxes to pay its bills. The town has just one traffic light and few businesses — the commercial district includes a pub, a pizzeria, and a general store.
Pamela Dean Kobetitsch, 63, a retired social worker who has lived in Millville her entire life and supported the tax hike, said she is discouraged by the town’s financial straits.
“We have hit rock bottom,” she said. “I’ve never seen it this bad.”
And this in the face of what we are told is an unprecedented 10-year expansion of the economy in a state that has allegedly done better than most -- unless we are being lied to again.
The proposed property tax increase, also known as a Proposition 2½ override, would have added about $914 to this year’s average bill of $4,141 for a single family home, and an additional $100 annually for the five following years, according to Justin Cole, Millville’s finance director. Town leaders initially sought a $1.8 million override, but residents rejected it at a Town Meeting in April.
When voters went to the polls on June 19, the $1 million override failed, 589-339, with about 43 percent of the town’s 2,163 registered voters casting ballots, the town said.
Despite the deficit and cuts in service that followed, some residents said they preferred sacrificing services to paying higher property tax bills.
“It would have cost me a couple thousand more in taxes and I’m really getting nothing more out of this town,” said Rick Vaillancourt, who has lived in Millville for 20 years and voted against the override. “I don’t see why they need more money and I’m getting less.”
Millville was among 20 Massachusetts communities that asked voters to raise property taxes for fiscal 2019 beyond the 2.5 percent allowed annually by law, according to the state. The measures passed everywhere but in Millville and Paxton.
Yeah, more taxes is always the answer.
Brendan Burke, who teaches at Suffolk University’s Institute for Public Service, said the size of Millville’s override likely intimidated voters.
“That immediately strikes me as pretty steep,” he said. “It isn’t surprising that citizens balked at such a large override.”
Town leaders said Millville needed the override to grow its tax base after years of patching the budget with one-time fixes and rising demands from the regional school system.
Options for raising revenue were limited, town officials said, because property values have declined and Millville lacks the water and sewer infrastructure needed to attract commercial development.
In 2016, Millville had a median household income of $91,250, $20,000 higher than the state median, census figures show, but real estate prices aren’t as strong.
In May, the median sale price of a single-family home was $250,000 compared with the state median price of $365,100, according to The Warren Group.
Those are working cla$$ prices, huh?
A committee known as Millville Citizens Against the Override led the effort to defeat the tax hike plan, raising more than $2,000 to spread their message. The group claimed that town leaders couldn’t explain how they planned to protect Millville from future tax increases if the override was approved; that the budget process was shrouded in secrecy; and that town leaders wouldn’t consider alternatives to raising taxes. The group also said the override would cost taxpayers more than town leaders estimated.
“The financial picture was never presented as a whole,” said Jennifer Gill, the committee’s chairwoman. “When I make a financial decision, I don’t just take someone’s word for it. . . . I need to see those numbers.”
Town leaders vigorously denied those claims and accused the anti-override group of spreading misinformation. Millville officials said they tried to balance the budget by scaling back services, renegotiating contracts, and securing more than $1.5 million in grants, but came up short.
“The people that were opposed to the override really don’t understand municipal government and what needs to be done to bring a balanced budget to Town Meeting,” said Joe Rapoza, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.
Then let 'em take over your job.
By the end of the summer, Millville’s deficit could worsen.
State Senator Ryan Fattman, whose district includes Millville, said he expects to secure state aid to help reopen the senior center, turn on some of the darkened street lights, and pay for other services.
In the meantime, residents have spent the last few weeks securing private trash haulers, waiting to hear whether the town will cut more services, and trying to find ways to help the town institutions they treasure.
Nine-year-old Clover Maloney said she sold lemonade for two days, raising more than $150, which she donated to the library.
Dean Kobetitsch, the former social worker who is a member of the Council on Aging, recalled how in 2016, Millville gathered to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The mood in town was so different then, she said.
“It was just two years ago and it was so wonderful. Everybody came together and we were so happy,” Dean Kobetitsch said. “This budget thing is horrendous.”
Where did all the $$$ go?
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"As older population grows, Massachusetts angles to become the Silicon Valley for ‘age-tech’" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff July 18, 2018
These “age-tech” pioneers are part of a Massachusetts cluster of entrepreneurs who are applying the state’s potent mix of brainpower and technology prowess to an ancient problem: easing the burdens of growing old. Government and business leaders believe the emerging industry could have huge potential for the state’s economy, and for aging populations around the world.
Last week, a consortium that includes General Electric and the MIT AgeLab, working with Governor Charlie Baker’s administration, unveiled a global innovation challenge seeking to generate new ideas for technology-assisted aging.
Baker outlined the “big opportunity” in an appearance before AARP’s annual volunteer meeting in Framingham last spring. Noting that Massachusetts has long been a high-tech and biotech center and a hub of universities and hospitals, Baker called for making the state the “Silicon Valley” for emerging products and services that reduce social isolation and loneliness for the older population.
Leave me alone.
“We need to think differently about aging,” he said.
??????????
It’s an unconventional approach to economic development, focused less on a particular set of technologies than on a fast-growing demographic of people who are living longer, have disposable income, and often are far from family members who might be first responders in health emergencies.
Oh, you want to get into my pocket!
“The real idea is to throw a lightning rod on the ground here in Massachusetts,” said Joe Coughlin, director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and a member of the governor’s council to address aging. “We see this as a chance to make us a living laboratory and to bring the culture of innovation” to the problems of aging.
There’s no shortage of demand. Scientific and economic advances have boosted life expectancy across the developed world, Coughlin wrote last year in a book called “The Longevity Economy.” American women who make it to 65 today can expect to live to 85, and men to nearly 83. Similar trends are seen in most western European countries, along with Japan and South Korea.
Because longer lives bring health and aging challenges, a multibillion-dollar industry has sprung up to meet them. The industry is highly fragmented, with giant companies like Boston-based GE and the Dutch conglomerate Philips dominating in areas like medical devices while a raft of startups turn out everything from video doorbells to voice-activated “smart” thermostats.
Keep eye on people, too.
The largest market segment, remote patient monitoring, is projected to draw reimbursement from health providers topping $2 billion this year, according to technology research firm IDC in Framingham. Other fast-expanding niches include “personal response systems,” typically activated by bracelets or clickers when older people fall, and “medication adherence” monitoring technology to make sure pills are taken at the right times and doses.
Interest in the age-tech field was galvanized last month, when e-commerce goliath Amazon plunked down nearly $1 billion to buy PillPack, a Somerville-based online pharmacy that delivers prescription drugs to patients’ homes.
See: Amazon to buy Somerville online pharmacy startup PillPack
Medicare, the government insurance for older Americans, could soon begin covering some patient monitoring systems, but many of the emerging technologies are consumer products, often purchased by adult children for their aging parents.
Alexa-style voice prompts nudging older folks to take pills, for instance, “can relieve you of having to ask your parents, ‘Are you taking your meds?’ ” said Lynne Dunbrack, research vice president at IDC Health Insights. “When the balance shifts and you’re parenting your parents, it can be very uncomfortable.”
Yeah, they will be listening, too.
Many age-tech entrepreneurs are inspired by firsthand experience with that shift. The idea for Pillo came from its cofounder and chief executive Emanuele Musini, whose father in Italy found it difficult to manage his medications and health care plan when relatives were living far away, said Aiden Feng, another cofounder.
Feng, who earned an MD-MBA degree from Harvard, said Massachusetts is the perfect place to develop robots as “patient empowerment tools.” Its robot, named Pillo, “has a face, it recognizes you, and it’s a companion,” he said.
Not everyone sees the age-tech boom as an unalloyed blessing. Alexandra Suchman, a management consultant in Washington, D.C., acknowledges some utility in the plethora of devices coming to market, but she worries that many may be too complicated for older folks to use and she doesn’t see them as a substitute for human contact.
“Technology overpromises,” Suchman said. “People think they can design a robot or write some code that will solve all problems. But only people can meet the emotional needs of other people.”
The company is experimenting with Luna Lights, whose mattress sensors detect when older residents get up at night and illuminate a path to the bathroom. Maplewood is also considering tele-monitoring devices that track blood pressure and other vital signs and transmit them to doctors.
On the happiness front, Maplewood has been trying out Rendever’s virtual reality software.
In a common space at its Weston senior living community last week, four residents sat on a couch and chairs wearing headsets while Rendever chief technology officer Tom Neumann gave them a whirlwind tour of the Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and a seaside cliff dotted with rockhopper penguins in Antarctica.
One resident, 81-year-old Anna Lisa Gotschlich, who lives with dementia, wore a bright dress from her native Sweden as Neumann guided her back to her hometown of Vasteras, west of Stockholm, and her childhood home. The immersive images triggered a flood of memories, a scenario that psychologists have labeled “reminiscence therapy.”
“That’s the house where we lived,” Gotschlich said, pointing excitedly as she tilted the headset upward. “It was a special neighborhood. We had swings that my father set up.”
Gotschlich, Suchman, Weisman, I'm sensing a theme.
As the field evolves and innovations proliferate, established players like GE are taking a broader view of its potential, said Ger Brophy, head of cell therapy in the life sciences unit of GE Healthcare in Marlborough. “There’s a sense that this is an underserved market,” he said.
The innovation challenge, which emerged from the governor’s aging council, will be managed by GE, using the same technology it’s deployed to crowdsource ideas in scores of other challenges sponsored by its far-flung businesses over the past six years.
Even though GE's taxpayer-subsided second-quarter profit was $800 million.
Up to four entrepreneurs or inventors will receive $5,000 each for the most promising ideas submitted by Sept. 28. More importantly, they’ll get their technology proposals in front of sponsors such as GE Healthcare and Benchmark, which runs a chain of senior living facilities throughout the Northeast. They, in turn, could help to test and commercialize potential products.
It's all about the money in the Globe, and it's getting old!
Massachusetts is already proving a fine testing ground for a diverse range of “age-tech” startups. Nesterly, which offers “intergenerational homesharing,” works with the city of Boston to match older empty nesters and their spare bedrooms with college students who are looking for a place to live and are willing to shovel snow or take out the garbage for their hosts.
What's wrong with the dorm?
Both the Rendever virtual-reality and the Eversound headphone systems are being piloted by Benchmark, which is based in Waltham and manages 56 senior living centers in the Northeast.
Founder Tom Grape, who is cosponsoring the innovation challenge with GE and MIT, said the next generation of age-tech systems will evolve from simply monitoring and recording health data to predicting and preventing mishaps.
“It’s interesting if technology tells me someone had a fall,” Grape said. “But it would be better if we had something that could tell me someone’s gait had changed and they were in danger of falling. Then we could do something about it before it happened.”
I'm sorry, readers, I can't get up for this anymore.
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