Marlborough 2010 already progressing
By Ken Powers Contributing Writer

Marlborough - The inaugural year of Marlborough 2010 was one of much hard work and progress, according to local and state politicians on hand at the organization's 2007 annual meeting, held Sept. 17 at the Best Western Royal Plaza and Trade Center.

Mayor Nancy Stevens; State Rep. Stephen P. LeDuc, D-Marlborough; State Sen. Pamela P. Resor, D-Acton; and Dan O'Connell, Massachusetts secretary of Housing and Economic Development, all lauded the eff orts of the new redevelopment campaign whose main focus is keeping and growing businesses which currently exist in the city, as well as bringing new ones to Marlborough.

Stevens commended the eff orts of everyone involved in Marlborough 2010, including city councilors, and cited the first-year corporation as the reason that the city received nearly $11 million in one day in grants from the state.

"The $10 million grant for repairs for the wastewater treatment plant is incredibly important to our desire and need to move forward as a viable city for businesses to invest in and bring their companies to," Stevens said, "but the $750,000 we received that same day for new windows at 240 Main Street [a senior housing project] is just as important ."

The wastewater treatment plant grant was earmarked to go toward Marlborough's building of a new westerly plant to meet revised federal limits on contaminants in treated sewage.

Of all the things on the city's plate at this time, Stevens believes improvements in the infrastructure of Marlborough are among the most pressing needs.

"If you don't have infrastructure in place then it's impossible to move forward," Stevens said. "There can't be economic redevelopment without putting resources into infrastructure."

During O'Connell's keynote address to the group, which included many of the city's business leaders and owners who are involved in or interested in the eff orts of Marlborough 2010, he talked about key issues facing the area.

O'Connell believes Marlborough's main focus should be on keeping current businesses and attracting new ones by highlighting all the state has to off er - and, by extension, New England. He said Massachusetts's large number of college graduates, ranked among the highest in the country, is another selling point that should be stressed and highlighted as an available and capable work force.

O'Connell said those were the two main factors that kept Evergreen Solar Inc. in Marlborough.

"The state and the region, and the available work force are what kept Evergreen in Massachusetts when it had a chance to go to Oregon, New Mexico or even Germany," O'Connell said. "We've reached a point where we progressing

always have to remember that we're not just competing against North Carolina and Texas, but also against India, China, Mexico, Korea, Vietnam, Ireland and Singapore."

O'Connell said issues facing Marlborough, central Massachusetts and the state as a whole include the need for clean energy, the rise in foreclosures, a need to increase the number of companies offering auto insurance in the state as well as how and where gambling will come to the commonwealth.