Meeting with small business owners and farmers to learn how Beacon Hill can better serve them.
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Yesterday, we made the 8th stop on my committee’s state wide listening tour. A year ago my co-chair, Senator Michael Moore, and I decided to travel the state in an effort to make government more accessible to small business owners and to learn how Beacon Hill can better work for them. Yesterday we had the privilege of being hosted by Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera in Springfield and Rep. Kate Hogan in Bolton. At each stop we met with small business owners, listened to them, and gained valuable insight about what our committee can do to help our economy grow.
In Springfield, we met with the Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce, which is a small business incubator for businesses around the state. By providing technical assistance and other resources, the Chamber, under the direction of Carlos Gonzalez, is helping entrepreneurs get on their feet and start making money. Among the most pressing issues we heard from those in attendance was the difficulty in accessing capital during the current economic downturn.
In Bolton, Rep. Hogan hosted us at the beautiful Nashoba Valley Winery, where owners Rich and Cindy Pelletier and representatives from the agricultural community met with the committee. This was incredibly informative because it was a sector of the small business economy we hadn’t yet met with on the tour. Increasing awareness about the importance of locally grown foods has transformed the Massachusetts agricultural sector. This was one of the reasons I filed a bill to create a Massachusetts Food Policy Council. Formerly, the agricultural community was 80% wholesale and 20% retail. In recent years these percentages have flipped. I look forward to incorporating the feedback we received at both stops into our tour report, which we will be releasing in the coming months.
Thanks again to Rep. Coakley-Rivera and Rep. Hogan for helping to organize this tour, to Rep. Jennifer Callahan and Rep. Carolyn Dykema who came out and to all the small business owners who took time out of their days to talk to us and explain how we can better serve them.
