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By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Staff
Lt. Governor Karyn Polito stood in Powers Hall, flanked by local and state dignitaries. "Thank you for going through the exercise with your selectmen to figure out what is it in this Community Compact program that Needham wants to focus on," she told the assembled.
"It gets your team together to say: 'Where do we want to focus our energies going forward?' What maybe's been on the back burner that we could maybe put on the front burner, because the state will provide some assistance and some resources and a grant to make this happen."
Lt. Governor Polito was in Needham to sign the Commonwealth Community Compact. The Compact, which was signed into law by Governor (and Needham native son) Charlie Baker, seeks to "elevate the Administration's partnerships with cities and towns in all communities of the Commonwealth."
"You have a Governor and Lieutenant Governor who are trying really hard on all ends to strengthen this partnership, this relationship with you," Lt. Gov. Polito told the assembled.
As a participant in the Community Compact Best Practices program, Needham committed itself to evaluating its existing information technology (IT) structure and current staffing level against the town's long and short term strategies and needs.
In exchange for its IT commitment, Needham will receive "bonus points on selected state grant programs and will be prioritized for various technical assistance programs."
"We want to incentivize good decision-making," Lt. Gov. Polito explained. "You get bonus points for the largest statewide grants that are available, whether it's a MassWorks grant that you might want to apply to for underground utilities … or a Parks grant, or a Complete Streets grant, you have bonus points on those scoring sheets when you apply. It's a really good, complete program, and it's complete because we have our partners in the legislature that understand the priority of this program, the importance of it, and have funded it."
"Now, it's a set of tools for you to be able to use, from procurements to how you assess properties to the law enforcement over there," she said, motioning to a uniformed officer. "You can use electronic ticketing - watch out to all the drivers and people parking in the streets here," she continued as the crowd chuckled.
"A home run today for Needham and our Commonwealth," she concluded. "Thank you all very much for what you do, and for all of use working together to make something positive happen. Congratulations."
