jobs

By Lee Ketelsen, ONE Massachusetts founding member and guest blogger

Governor Patrick's decision to retain the moratorium against new waste incineration is the right decision.

He has committed the state to green solutions that protect public health, promote energy and resource conservation, and create green jobs. Recycling creates more jobs and saves more energy by far than waste incineration.

Instead of destroying discarded resources in incinerators, we need to make the most of them through reuse, recycling, and composting. Recycling saves three to five times the energy that can be captured by incineration, and without the harmful impacts on public health and the environment.

An article in Saturday's Boston Globe shows the reciprocal relationship between the investments we make in public education, job training and public higher education and the businesses and jobs that make our economy thrive.

As the article points out, many high-tech businesses are refusing to relocate to states where wages are 20 to 30 percent lower because the Massachusetts workforce is better trained and more skilled:

“Among the reasons that we have continued to expand is we have access to high quality, educated employees, many with biotech and pharmaceutical backgrounds,’’ chief financial officer David Arkowitz. “Our intellectual capital resides here in Massachusetts, and it’s too precious to relocate.’’

This article also underscores the importance of investing in the state's educations system, k-graduate school.

BRAINTREE — The Braintree Planning Board has gotten its first peek at the proposed expansion of South Shore Plaza, a project that is expected to generate more than $1 million in annual property-tax revenue for the town and create about 800 full- and part-time retail jobs.

A Simon consultant, John Connery of John J. Connery Associates in Melrose, told planners that the project would generate more than $1 million a year in property tax revenues and $1.2 million in one-time building permit fees.Connery said there would also be 300 jobs during construction in addition to 320 full-time retail jobs and 480 part-time jobs when the stores open.

After all this good work by the planning board is there opportunity for input from residents?