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As Gobi becomes the first Mass. Director of Rural Affairs, State Sen. Mark offers perspective on new role

Anne Gobi.
State Senator Anne M. Gobi
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https://www.facebook.com/SenatorAnneGobi
Anne Gobi.

Today, Anne Gobi begins work as the first ever Massachusetts Director of Rural Affairs in the Executive Office of Economic Development. From 2001 to 2014, the Democrat served in the House of Representatives before moving to the State Senate representing the Worcester and Hampshire district in 2015. Democratic Governor Maura Healey announced Gobi would fill the role in May. Democratic State Senator Paul Mark of the Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden district is familiar with Gobi as a colleague and with the needs of rural communities from his many years representing Western Massachusetts on Beacon Hill. WAMC spoke to Mark about what Gobi should prioritize.

MARK: I think for Anne Gobi, what's going to be top of her mind is how does she get out there and introduce herself to as many communities as possible. I've already talked about during budget week, I sit like two seats away from her in the Senate, about her potentially coming to the Berkshires, even in the month of June, to have a couple of meetings. So, I think she wants to make sure people know the new position exists. She wants to make sure people know that she's approachable. She has a great legislative background, she now has this connection into the executive branch and can act as a go-between and then I think she wants to really understand, yes, she's represented a lot of rural areas for a long time. But I think she wants to understand, what is going to be the most useful components of this new position? Is it going to be helping small towns understand how to process grants? Is it going to be having a direct advocate to work directly with legislators in the rural caucus, but also going to cabinet level meetings and discuss with other secretaries and commissioners and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor themselves? You know, what's going on, how is it bill that's being proposed going to be interpreted differently or at least need to be funded differently in rural areas? And so, I have a lot of hope, because I've worked with Anne for a very long time in both the House and Senate. I know she's committed to rural communities, agriculture, the environment, and I think she's going to do a really great job and be a friend for us here in Western Massachusetts.

WAMC: Gobi’s history in state government has largely been focused on Eastern Massachusetts, which, while it certainly has its share of rural environments, is much closer to the population center that is the greater Boston metropolitan area. What are your thoughts on the Healey-Driscoll administration going with a more Eastern focused representative to serve as the Rural Affairs Director?

I think it's important that whoever the person is pays attention to the whole state. So yeah, obviously, representing all four counties in Western Massachusetts, my focus is going to make sure that, it's going to be Anne Gobi, but even if it were someone else, that they're out in Western Massachusetts as much as I can get them out there, and that, yeah, we have some of the smallest communities, most rural communities in the entire state. But having been a co-chair of the rural caucus for a long time, having been the House appointee to the Rural Policy Advisory Commission, I also understand and respect that there's a lot of rural areas on the Cape, on the islands, on the North Shore, in Central Massachusetts. And so, I guess the benefit of her coming from a town like Spencer is that she's pretty in the middle of the entire Commonwealth. And so, she's going to be able to pivot easily to any direction that she wants. And I appreciate what you're saying about Worchester, but people can say to me, well, you represent Pittsfield, which is a gateway city. So, we try to balance that out with, whether it's Mount Washington, Monroe, or any community in between, up to Pittsfield, which has about 41,000, 42,000 people. It's important as rural representatives that we balance our needs and understand how they complement and work together well with gateway cities, with urban communities, because surprisingly, especially in terms of poverty and the need to address poverty and fix and escape poverty, we have a lot of similarities with the inner cities that I think can result in a great partnership that can get a lot of serious results done. So hopefully, she'll take that experience and put it into practice in a way that's going to benefit everybody.

What do you see as the benchmarks for this new position? How do you evaluate the impact of this new body put together by the governor? When you think about what's going to reflect actual results of this, what are you looking at?

It's interesting. So, I had this talk with Anne Gobi herself, and we kind of came to the conclusion, she's like the George Washington of this position. She's going to set the precedent on what people expect. And I think in terms of like being available in all the communities, that's going to be important. So, but beyond just being present, being available, which is a big thing, I think the way I would judge this as successful is, do local communities, do local organizations, do county governments where they exist, or county, quasi-county governments where they exist, do they feel that they now have this direct connection into the governor's office? And as a result of that, do they see policies that are being tempered by, yeah, we want to do something that's really important at a policy level, but we want to make sure that it works in the smallest towns as well as it's going to work in the city of Boston. And I think if we have that understanding, and then, in terms of a legislator, specifically, if I feel that I can call Director Gobi, get an answer, have her meet with constituents in these different towns, and just feel like yeah, I have an active partner in the governor's office, I think that's going to be a big win. And then as the position continues, hopefully we'll be able to expand it, and maybe there'll be extra staff at some point that can do regionalized work in terms of like, grant applications, but I think it's a big experiment. It’s an experiment I've been pushing for a very long time and I'm really hopeful that it's going to be worthwhile.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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