June 18, 2021
Blog: www.smg4gardner.com/blog
978-884-6596
For Immediate Release
Scott Michael Graves, owner of SMGraves Associates and former Executive Director of the Wachusett Business Incubator announces a run for City Council-at-Large for Gardner.
In his introductory campaign speech, Mr. Graves opens with a message of empowerment,
“Now as never before, cities have the focus and the drive to propel our economy forward, to ensure equity before the law; a society for ALL of their citizens and to drive a bottom/up approach to making life better.”
He proposes a focus on economic development initiatives, stating, “to focus on projects and programming that optimize our commercial tax base through home-grown economic development programming. Only through tireless effort at building a renewed commercial tax base focused on existing business ready to go and entrepreneurs seeking opportunity from within our border; that bottom-up approach I referred to, can we make the civic improvements we need; no more street-lamps and banners to go along with empty storefronts.”
Some of Scott’s policy positions or priorities for the city.
- Successfully block expansion of the sludge landfill and push to seek an economically and environmentally beneficial alternative.
- Aggressively seek to revitalize the Dept. of Planning and Development. Re-focus efforts on home-grown business development, the formation of a small business enterprise fund and other resources to bolster commercial tax base.
- Stop the municipality from development that remains non-responsive to the desires and needs of our neighborhoods. The Leo Dr. Soccer field being top priority.
- Assess efficacy of municipal departments and seek improvements where desired.
- Demand the city properly mitigate the issues with our water supply. Lead in determining responsible parties and seeking justice for our 18,000+ neighbors.
Scott is also founder of M the Media Project. His ideas for economic development, urban planning, politics and culture may be found here.
