It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Conston's new radio.
All Right, moving into the nine o'clock hour here on a Monday night. It is March tenth. Beautiful day in New England today, certainly in my part of New England, and I hope when you're part of New England as well, and we are going to talk about making it a
beautiful day for the Massachusetts economy. There's a new alliance group, a new group called the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance of involving frankly business leaders here in Massachusetts and with us as the president of the MOA, the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, Chris Anderson. Chris Anderson, welcome back to night said, how are you sir?
Hey Dan, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate being back with you, and just the correct I'm one of the founders of mass Opportunity Alliance in my role as president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council.
Okay, fine, okay, that's fine. I appreciate that correction because you don't like to be accurate and sometimes I know has written there. So anyway, no problem. Founder, okay, one of the founders. So tell us first of all, how the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance came to be and also describe to us what its goal is, what are we trying to do here?
So Massachusetts has historically had a ton of economic and quality of life advantages, including high media and income. We've got great research institutions, academic institutions, and a thriving and multi sector innovation economy, most notably in the tech and biotech areas. And that would include also terrific investment capabilities
here that correlates to what's become. We've all become accustomed to a really top notch quality of life, great healthcare, top rated edgecation system, rich cultural and other activities, including the natural beauty of just being in New England, and
a low climb rate a crime rate. But over the last few years, as pendulums do swing and economics and political environments shift, we've seen that those are the very benefits and attributes that are currently at risk as other states are increasingly going after with great success the types of jobs, residents, and industry that we have here in Massachusetts.
So organizations like the High Tech Council and others got together to create the mass Opportunity Alliance, a cross organizational effort to address these changes, strengthen and defend the business climate and its correlation on the quality of life here in the state for everybody before the horses out of.
The barn, Well, I think everybody knows that we have what's called then out migration problem in Massachusetts. That there are more people leaving Massachusetts than staying. And the people who are leaving are often cases either young people who are having trouble, you know, maybe finding housing close to where they work, or they're being wooed away by other states, or people who have retired and say, look, I can go to New Hampshire, I can go to Florida, I
go to Tennessee. That's all tax driven for the most part. So how do we address that what the Mass Opportunity Alliance suggests can be done.
Well, we certainly know, as you've just stated and COVID proved that the barriers to exiting high cost states like Massachusetts that are seeing a decline in the business climate are lower than ever. And so it is workers, working age, people with families, in addition to high wealth retirees that
are taking advantage of the opportunity to move. And so what happens as that trend accelerates, which it has in the last two years, the state loses access to those dollars that go to other states turn into philanthropy and
tax revenue in other states. So what we're going to focus on is engaging greater public awareness around the trends and the consequences of those trends, and then the actions that people who listen to your show, who live in work in Massachusetts can become engaged in in turning this sort of multi year trend that we're sitting around and return to a stronger, more robust economy in the years ahead. So there'll be a direct role for people if they
are better armed with information. And that's what the Mass Opportunity Alliance is delivering, a narrative communications apparatus that helps raise awareness among people that they might not think about issues in ways that affect them. We think they will when they look at the information on our website and listen to the data that we're putting out in ways that they will relate to.
Well. For example, you've done some polling. Now again I'm assuming you're going out and you're getting accurate information with your polling companies or else. The information isn't worth much you find your polling suggest that eighty two percent of residents believe their taxes are too high. There's a lot of people at massages who don't pay any taxes, and I would suspect.
But the ones that do, the ones that do, dan believe that they're paying way too much.
Okay, okay, And seventy one percent say the state income taxes their main concern. There's nothing that we can do about the federal income tax, because whether you live in Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Missouri, or whatever, any of the state that doesn't give the letter m you're paying the same federal income tax. And uh, but state state taxes in Massachusetts, as I say to my friends, Massachusetts tax is the only thing the government taxes.
Here are two things. Everything that moves, anything that doesn't move. It just seems that we've got candy tax. We got more taxes coming at us. We've had the millionaires tax for those who are lucky to be millionaires, which by the way, includes a lot of professional athletes, and that that might make our sports teams a little less competitive,
but we we'll see it will save that. What else are your surveys showing and when you get eighty two percent of people thinking that taxes, that's that's pretty big number.
What else do you know one of them? Yeah. One of the values of this effort is that we do get to do polling and focus group testing on a regular basis to find out what the pulse of the people really are on the issues and how that pulse changes when they become more aware about what states like Florida and New Hampshire are doing and benefiting from what's
going on here. The tax pole, Yeah, seventy one percent believe that their income taxes are too high, the local property tax fifty five percent, and then sales tax things start dropping off. But you know, we did another poll about why what's pushing people to leave Massachusetts to here out migration question, and the housing costs are up there
at nearly eighty percent. General costs of living concerns which would include energy which we've just been hearing about seventy six percent, and high taxes then come in as part of that mix at sixty five five percent. Those are the top three drivers about migration, and those are the things that Massachusetts can do something about and should be doing something about as opposed to proposing a whole slate of new taxes in the current year budget. You mentioned
a few of them, but there are others. So we think people are going to be responding to air their views, and hopefully the folks in the legislature, and there are some in the legislature that are sensitive to these issues, will be able to benefit from a crescendo of their constituents and a majority of other voters who are expressing their views on these things before they take action.
My guest is Christopher Anderson, Chris Anderson. He's a founder of a newly organized group. It's only been around since, I guess last September. The Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance is a coalition of several business leaders and we're going to open up phone lines. If you'd like to ask Chris a question or challenge him, we can have a polite conversation here at nightside. We do that every night of the week six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six
one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. We'll get you in queue and get some phone calls and get some conversation going. If you think that taxes are just perfect in Massachusetts and you want to try to persuade Chris to your point of view, You're more than welcome on to do that as well. Uh, there's some other issues we want to talk about, one of which is I was surprised today Chris mentioned to me that sixty four percent of the voters in Massachusetts are now neither neither
Republican nor Democrat. They make up the largest group of voters in Massachusetts. Technically they're called unenrolled. I guess you could call them independent as well. We'll get to some of those questions in your phone call six one seven tw ten thirty six point seven nine three one ten thirty. Coming back on Nightside with Chris Anderson of the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance right after this quick commercial break.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio with me.
It's Chris Anderson. He's one of the founders of the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance. Sixty four percent of Massachusetts registered voters choose neither to have a D or an R after their name. They preferred to be unenrolled or what used to be called independent. What what does that number? That's a number that that's not a poll number, that's that's a number that you present to me as a fact number. What does that say about the voters in Massachusetts.
Well, it underscores the independent decision making that voters have in Massachusetts, and given their given an opportunity, it's our best chance at addressing some of the issues that we see as challenging to our quality life and our economy. If a voter realizes that housing costs are high or that they can't downsize because the cost of downsize is
basically a lateral we'll probably get their attention. And with greater awareness and armed with information and the proliferation of balot questions that seem to be coming down the pike every two years for voter approval via direct democracy, we can begin getting their engagement in turning things around here.
So if they think taxes are too high, or the cost of business is too high, or that the outmigration is causing more pressure to tax them, we may be able to frame some of these issues a little differently and get some better outcomes. So sixty four percent of registered voters here are really a great target for us.
Yeah, that's two thirds, So I'm assuming your focus of this group, Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance is focused on the economy. The social issues are not issues that you folks are going to deal with, whether it be whether we should bring that capital punishment or what's the deal on abortion or whatever, or crime and punishment, all of those issues which might contribute to the quality of life, particularly crime and punishment and things like that. You're not going to
even go there. You want to deal with the cold hard numbers of why people are leaving and what should our tax structure be that makes this the opportunities in Massachusetts more readily available to everyone across the board.
Yeah, at the end of the day, regardless of what you think a quality of life priority is for you, and it may be social, if we're not generating state tax revenue in Massachusetts to fund government the way we are to do and to invest in things that people have shared priorities around, then those other things really don't matter. People are going to be heading out the doors faster
than they are today. We believe we have a terrific asset mix to regenerate a robust economy that for the last ten years was generating billion dollar state budget surpluses in Massachusetts. Without raising taxes, and then what happened in twenty twenty two, a series of tax proposals, the big one on the ballot that put a tax in the state constitution like no other state has began to tip
that scale in the opposite direction. And mass Opportunity is in part a response to what should be a more coordinated and unified effort among business leaders and residents who still want to call Massachusetts to work collaboratively to make sure that we don't see Massachusetts go the way of Connecticut ten or fifteen years ago, or the way of
Illinois California where New York are going today. We're we're on the tip of that road, but we believe we have an opportunity with the resource mix we have in terms of economic research and highly skilled workers and an independent stay resident mix that will be actively helpful in this effort.
All right, let's I don't want to short change any of the callers at this point. We have several calls waiting, so I'm going to ask Steve, Jack and John to hold on through the newscast at the bottom of the hour, so I don't short change any of you. We got one line open at six one seven, two, five, four, ten thirty and one line at six one, seven, nine, three ten thirty. Let me just ask you, Chris, a final question for me, and hopefully the rest of the
questions will come from the callers. U. Is there a specific task that you believe is first and foremost to be done here to sort of lay the foundation or do you feel the foundation for your work is already laid by just creating this organization the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance.
Well, creating mass Opportunity Alliance is at first and the commonwealth success story, and we've seen terrific impact already with our ability to respond quickly with fact checking when misleading information is provided by advocates that we don't believe are helping the state business climate. We also are growing the ability to reach people through those who sign up at our website Massopportunity dot org, where they can find all kinds of data and communications videos on what's going on
in the state and why they should be engaged. And then the process of really looks down the road over the next two to say how can MA drive proactive policy changes rather than playing defense, which a lot of business groups have done in the last few years. But let's be proactive in advancing programs and policies that we hope the legislature and the governor will be supportive of. But if they're not, we know we would expect that a majority of voters may be down the road at
some point. And so that's really the phase that we're in is continuing to build our communications infrastructure, raise awareness among people that care about their state and their job and their families and quality life, and will present a proactive agenda for them to get engaged in.
Okay, I assume as a dad or you're a five oh one C three, which means you're not going to be in the business of endorsing candidates. You're going to deal with issues as opposed to candidates.
Yeah, we're a five oh one C six, which is close, but still we're not going to be where so we can lobby, we can, but we we will not be supporting endorsing candidates, either by endorsement or financially. So this is really all about a core mission focused on business climate.
We're politically agnostic. We will work with any and all partners who want to strength in Massachusetts and provide the best future possible for people that live in work in Massachusetts, and especially those that we're creating economic and social mobility options for. If we have a strong economy people in the inner cities through a strength and education pipeline that's better aligned toward our skill requirements in this economy, we'll
have a path meaningful long term employment. And I think that's, you know, one of the one of the core benefits of this collaborated effort.
I know the difference between the five and one C three and is five O one C four?
What is?
What? What makes five or one C six? AM unfamiliar with exactly what how that is? It's three or four?
UH. Three is a charitable organization and is limited in what it can raise and spend money for. A C six is a business organization, just like many chambers of commerce or business groups like the mass Site Tech Council.
Okay, uh, And and a four does give some flexibility for for groups to form.
Political Yeah, it's it's similar to a C six.
Okay, we'll take a quick break. My guest is Chris Anderson, founder of the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance. UH. Their website is mass Opportunity dot org. We'll get to as many callers as we can. First up, we got we got Steven Cambridge, Jack and Winter John uh Is on the line as well, and then we'll we'll take some more callers. The only line that's open right now is six one, seven, nine thirty. Back on Night Side right after.
This, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
We're talking with Chris Anderson, a founder of the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, an organization that has only been around for a few months. Basically, they are concerned about improving the business climate here in Massachusetts because, from their point of view, an improved business climate, a more friendly business climate, we'll keep people in Massachusetts, particularly businesses in Massachusetts, and lead to a better quality of life for everyone residing in
the Bay State. Let's go to the call is going to go first to Steve and Cambridge. Steve, I'll warn you, Chris, one of my best callers, Steven Cambridge, never do.
Good evening, Chris, good evening.
Dan.
I don't mean to be too political, but do you you see reducing the state bureaucracy, reducing or making the regulatory climate a little bit more friendly for business? And when I say the state bureaucracy, particularly in the mass University of Massachusetts, the number of administrators, et cetera. So are these areas you're going to go after.
Well. State administration and state costs in general are certainly a big topic generally and in a number of states these days, and I think most voters would agree that there is. It's worth taking a look at how Massachusetts spends its money in a more transparent way and how
it sets its budget and why. For example, we have nearly fifty percent of the state budget or forty to forty five percent of the state budget dedicated to mandatory spending in three areas unfunded pension liability, debt service, and state healthcare costs. The University of Massachusetts system has some terrific contributions that it makes directly to our economy, but I'm not going to pretend that it, like any other part of state government, doesn't have areas where that could
be run more efficiently. So you know, what we're planning on doing at the Mass Opportunity Alliance, Steve is assess where we can help move a majority of the voters who are interested in different policy topics that will help reduce the pressure to tax them, and in the current budget. There was a budget that's been proposed today this week last week, the state proposing spending another seven percent more than last year on a revenue growth rate of four percent.
You can't do that in a sustain way so indefinitely, because you'll run out of you'll run into additional gaps and have to raise raise taxes somewhere. So I think there's an efficiency taxpayer bill of rights, uh, you know, limit on state government spending that if it were done properly, would require a re evaluation of how many agencies are spending funds and where the efficiencies could be had. I wouldn't single out the UMass system over or above any other part of state government.
And this is in a state where we're obligated. We cannot run a debt, we cannot run a definite. We're obligated to balance the pushet. With that obligation, the spending continues.
But this is.
A lot of attention is in terms of housing. Uh, there's been a lot of talk about how regulation has over regulation, let's say, has added to the cost of housing. Is that something that you will look at.
Yeah, So reducing the cost of housing has two sides. You can either increase supply, which would reduce the cost. We have demand for it. I don't think we're going to reduce demand unless we out migrate a ton of people. So there are two ways to approach that topic. One is you mandate that cities and towns in certain MBTA districts, let's say, make them required change as well. You know, we have home rule and not everybody wants to be
told what to do in Massachusetts by the state. The other thing you could do, Steve, is you could incentivize homeowners and reward them exempt them from capital gain on the sale of their home if they own the home for more than ten years. You could do the same thing with the essay tax. So there are ways to
reduce the cost of housing. Maybe not to get in, but certainly overall it would minimize the squeeze on homeowners that we seem to be seeing on a regular basis here and Paul as the top reason why people would think about leaving the state.
Thank you very much gentlemen this organization.
Thanks date, appreciate your call. Tochi's a good call. Let me go next to Jack and Winthrop. Jackie're next on nice with Chris Anderson founded the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance.
Go ahead, Jack, Hey, thanks Dan, and hey Chris, just a few quick questions too, kind of twofold. You mentioned states like Connecticut, New York, Illinois. I'm curious what Massachusetts can learn from other states that have successfully retained businesses and workers despite high costs. And then I have a quote, but sure, sure, thanks Jack.
The Actually, Florida and New Hampshire are the two states that are the recipients of most of the people that are leaving Massachusetts, taking their jobs or their retirement income and leaving the Bay State behind. Those states have no personal income tax, no short term capital gains tax, and no estate tax. Those are three key areas that align with the tax challenge that we have here in Massachusetts.
And they also have from a business climate perspective, their state government is a partner with helping businesses set up, expand, and rapidly be prepared to accommodate employee growth in their state. As you might have heard me just say a minute ago, Massachusetts has home rules, so three hundred and fifty one cities and towns get to set their own regulatory zoning and other requirements, which makes it a challenge for companies to expand or grow or do something a little different
with their operation than some of these other states. In fact, New Hampshire during the last Scubernator election, Kelly Ayott was seizing on the Massachusetts environment, basically saying, come on up here, we'll take care of you. But in the election, don't
mass up New Hampshire. So you know, we ought to be paying attention to what other governors are saying about us and improve our business climate because, as I said earlier, that will generate a resource capacity that supports great quality life for people who live and work here.
I got it, Thank you. I had one other quick question.
Go ahead, Jack, I wasn't sure if you were still with us.
Go ahead, Yeah, I just had one one quick one. I was just curious what every day residence of Massachusetts kind of like myself. I'm a thirty year old independent. I know you mentioned the independent vote, but I'm a thirty year old Independent and I'm curious what everyday residents can do to help make sure Massachusetts can remain a place where we can build our careers, we can raise families.
Yeah, well, hopefully what we can do, Jack, is we can help you help us. And what I mean by that is you and you and your friends, your neighbors who are looking or concerned about any of these issues should be better armed with information that now people get from all sorts of social media, and not everything is accurate that you pick up on TikTok or Instagram, for example.
If you go to our website, Massopportunity dot org will be a constantly replenished resource of information about what these trends that we're seeing are and how they relate to you. And we're doing it in ways that you, as a thirty year old thirty year old will find appealing and understandable.
So we're talking to different sectors of our commonwealth, different economic sectors, different age sectors, different demographic sectors in different ways, and we think when it comes time for you to step up and be part of a decision making process, whether that's at the ballot box electing your state representator or governor, or participating in direct democracy, which is voting yes or no on any proposed ballot question, that you'll
be better informed and make an informed choice, hopefully with the majority of folks that help set Massachusetts on a solid track to return to the robust economy that we've had for the past fifteen years or so. Good question.
The other thing, Jack that I think folks of your vintage, your young age, get involved in politics. Whatever side of the equation you're on. There are a lot of folks who are in positions. Again, is a thirty year old young lawyer right out of law school or a twenty five year old young lawyer out of law school. One of the best ways to get your name out there.
You know, if you're going to go to one of the major firms and be ensconced there for you know, thirty or forty or fifty years, good luck to you. You know, if you were number one out of Harvard or whatever, out of Harvard law school. But get out and run for office and get involved in the political process at the lowest level. The most important election that's going to affect you, if you're married and have kids, it's going to be the school committee in your community.
And that's not a bad stepping stone to get involved in the school committee. I got to tell you that you live in a small town or you live in a big city, those school committee races, oftentimes people are running unopposed get involved in that city council, those you know. And just in terms of your vote, I mean you vote in a presidential election, I think, wow, I got to vote for the President of the United States, which
is great. Well, you in about one hundred and eighty million other Americans that are whatever the number is these days, one hundred and seventy million, So that's one over one hundred and seventy million. If you're voting in local elections, there might be two thousand, three thousand people deciding who sits in the school committee, who sits on the Board of Selectment, of the Board of Aldermen. Those involvements, of those involvements are really important too.
Yeah, well, thank you to a good question. Thank you, Chris, I appreciate it.
Thanks Jack, great questions. Take quick break. I got a couple of lines at six one, seven, two, five, four to ten thirty and one at six one, seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. I got John coming up, uh and Rob in Medford and we got a room for a couple more calls. If you want to jump on board.
My guest Chris Patterson, one of the founders of the new group, the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, that wants to focus on economic issues here in Massachusetts and the impact that they might have for everyone from a positive PERSPECTI it's back on Nightside after this.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
My guest Chris Peterson from the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, joined now by John Hurst, who's with the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. John has been a caller on this program before and has fought in the trenches here of Massachusetts for better economics for retailers who he represents. Hey, John, how are you tonight?
I'm great, Dan, and I just really wanted to call and congratulate Chris and do a allowed me too. I think what Chris Anderson and others are doing with the mass Opportunity Alliance is just a long time coming. It's so important because you know, look, Dan, I represent four thousand small businesses and I'm frankly a bit concerned about
them about their futures. There were living under a twin towers of frankly being and really the highest cost state for our consumers, highest cost of living state, and also the highest cost of doing business states. So that's really what that ends up doing dan the small businesses that primarily exists to serve consumers and our residents. You know, they're seeing their residents, our residents are consumers spending bus dollars because they're strapped at the end of the month
because of health insurance and energy and taxes. And then the small businesses themselves had the very same cost problems. So the small businesses are seeing flat to lower sales get much higher cost of operations, and that's what's leading to these dark stoffronts on our main streets.
How many small businesses approximately john are there in Massachusetts? Has there ever been a survey done? And again that would would involve literally from mom and pop stores to diners. I saw today the Twin Donuts, a breakfast diner donus place in Allston, which has been there for seventy five years, is closing up shop later this month. I mean, I don't know what's going to replace it, but certainly that's
going to have an impact on that community. You got any how many people are employed by by small businesses in Massachusetts?
Yeah, we're probably talking around seventy thousand locations. You know, each each employee, on average about ten people.
Each If seventy thousand, that's enough to fill Fenway Park twice, just to that's right, every one of those businesses in the seated Fenway Park twice. That's an amazing number.
And yeah, and small bills many have am making money today. And John Giant represents a group that really is the
foundation bedrock of our employment tax space. It's huge. And the point I wanted to make, in addition to congratulating John for his ongoing work with many of us in the trenches along with the mass Restaurant Association and the National Federation of Independent Business, is that remote work is generally not an option for his members, and so we have to make sure that Massachusetts has retained this a bit capacity to keep our business climate healthy, keep the
people that rely and use these small businesses retail, restaurant in business, because they're the ones that, as John said, probably are under the sword of damicles if we can't, if we can't keep this economy robust.
John, thank you for what you do for for you know, retailers here in Massachusetts. In any time that that that you need to be on this program and talk about any problem you know, how you have our number.
Okay, okay, I'm sure we'll be talking this spring. Thanks again, Dan, and thank you Chris John.
Thank you the Massachusetts Real Tails Association of MESSAG. Let's keep rolling. You're going to go to Rob in Medford. There's a Robin Medford who answers the phones. This is my producer. This is a different Rob in Medford. I Rob, how are you?
I'm well? Thank you for asking, gentlemen. I'm I hope this isn't appropriate. Topics that I want to bring is that how can I run a business in Massachusetts? Uh, with the taxes as they are and politicians refuse to even tell Congress where, well, how much is spent and on what? I mean? This should be public knowledge. My taxes, I pay them, my people pay them. Where does the
money go? We should this Freedom of Information Act? How can MA'AMU stand up there in front of Congress and say, I'm not going to tell you how much is spent on this. I'm not going to tell you how much is spent on that? And I think the money would be intera.
Was I think what she was saying was and I could be wrong here, but I think she was saying she didn't keep track of that meaning that they were not keeping accounts. She was asked, I think by Congress what Boston had spent on people who were here illegally, and I think that she said, they just didn't track that question. They didn't know.
That's too irresponsible an answer to Congress, Are you kidding me? You're telling me that if.
By what I said, John, rather, excuse me, rub All I'm trying to do is just explain to you what she said. Now, Governor heally knows what she has spent because it's the state which has sheltered folks for a couple of years now in Massachusetts in terms of housing and food and all of the amenities of life, has spent about two billion dollars on the needs of people who have come into the state illegally.
And how much could have been spent on helping these small businesses that are going on to trying to make a living. This money is all being misspent, and they won't even tell us where or how much and on whom. It's ridiculous.
Okay, fair enough. Again, I don't know that Chris has much more to add to that, but but I appreciate your point of view. Rob Good.
The freedom of information act push that at all or could so? I mean, I would feel about it, don't know.
I don't think that they keep what I was trying to say was in Boston. I can tell you what the number is in the state, which I've just told you, but they don't keep a track of that in Boston.
But Rob's point, Rob's point about transparency. Oh, Rob's point about transparency is actually a good point, because you know, we just had three two and a half years ago, the so called tax on incomes over a millionaire went into effect, and it's supposed to go to supplement and add additively increase spending and transportation and education. We're not sure that that's exactly how that money is being spent, and so having a transparent and defensible way to audit
that money, I think is extremely important. That's one example. But you across you know a number of state agents.
I'm not suggesting that Rob's point isn't a good one at all. It is a good one. But I just want to explain that he was focusing on Mayor Woozy this morning last week, Robin Medford, I'm flat out of time, so I got to let you on. But I appreciate you calling and please continue to listen and call.
Okay the answer, Thank you sir, You're welcome.
Thank you Chris again. Mass Opportunity Alliance give us the website where people can get more information or join the cause.
It's mass Opportunity dot org. You can see our mass in a minute series. We have a number of Pulse questions, we have blogs and Opportunity Report cargo. We measure Massachusetts on a number or key areas. We do that and update that on a regular basis. So this is the front end of a commitment that we're making over the
long term. Organizations that have been in Massachusetts for forty thirty years now working collaboratively together with retailers, restaurants, small business chambers, building and trade entities that are jumping in and becoming members. We are hoping that we raise awareness to the point where an engaged army of citizens participate more fully and actively and effectively in shaping our commonwealth's future, and one that respond to the very things you've heard people call in about tonight.
Yeah, that's a noble goal and I wish you best of luck in Let's keep keeping contact as the days come off the calendar. Thank you so much, Chris, I appreciate it. Massopportunity dot org. When we get back, we will talk about the stock market today, which took a big dive. We'll be back right after the ten o'clock news on Nightside