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Get in touch by e-mail at [email protected]
You can listen to the show LIVE (and interact), every Wednesday, 9 – 11 a.m., Eastern.
Get in touch by e-mail at [email protected]
You can listen to the show LIVE (and interact), every Wednesday, 9 – 11 a.m., Eastern.
Hey, Greylock Nation —
Welcome to this week’s episode of the Top Left Corner! Another blessedly rainy day here in the Berkshires. Did you know that our region is flirting with drought conditions already? Don’t fret about the clouds. The sun will return in good time.
We continue to ponder all the candidates for the contested races that will be decided at the ballot box on May 11.
Today we’ve got interviews with Sonya Bykofsky, head of the Lenox Democratic Committee, to talk about the state of play in the continuing Gus Bickford Saga.
Then, Andrew Farnitano will be on The Top Left Corner (live internet radio show) this morning just after 10:00 a.m. to talk about the Fair Share Amendment.
AND the only candidate to respond to our invitation to submit a 5 minute audio message to voters was Williamstown Planning Board candidate Roger Lawrence. His segment is at the 01:44:15 mark if you want to go straight to it.
We’ve had great audience participation during our candidate interviews. You can make comments or ask questions using the chat box on our show page, via email, [email protected], or our Twitter handle: @RadioFreeBerks.
If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.
–Jay and Steve
LIGHT (OR NOT)
No time for chit chat today! Your co-hosts are just going to gab for a bit.
OUR GUESTS THIS WEEK
Sonya Bykofsky
A founding host of this show, and a great friend to have during these weird times. Activist. Humanist. Humorist.
Andrew Farnitano
The Fair Share Amendment is a proposal to amend the Massachusetts Constitution, creating an additional tax of four percentage points on the portion of a person’s annual income above $1 million. The new revenue, approximately $2 billion a year, would be spent on “quality public education and affordable public colleges and universities, and for the repair and maintenance of roads, bridges and public transportation.” To ensure that the amendment continues to apply only to the highest income taxpayers, who have the ability to pay more, the $1 million threshold would be adjusted each year to reflect cost-of-living increases. The Fair Share Amendment is set to appear on the November 2022 ballot. Learn more and join the campaign to pass the Fair Share Amendment at https://www.raiseupma.org/fair-share-amendment-2022/.
Andrew Farnitano is a communications consultant at Crawford Strategies, Massachusetts’ leading progressive issues-based communications firm. He has nearly a decade of experience at the local, state, and federal level in Massachusetts, including work on electoral races, ballot questions, legislative advocacy campaigns, and major development projects. Over the last few years, he’s helped win billions of dollars in new education funding, defend the affordable housing tax credit, win two historic increases in the minimum wage, build a new civic space in the city of Boston, organize family child care educators and human service workers, protect the state’s growing film industry, establish the right to earned sick time and paid family and medical leave, and defeat multiple ballot questions that would have caused drastic cuts to local schools. Andrew holds a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University, where he studied political science with a focus on urban and environmental policy.
And here’s a paragraph on the Fair Share Amendment:
LOCAL
We talked about Electromagnetic Fields several shows back. Can you believe the Mass Department of Health won’t even send out a specialist to figure out what’s going on with the cell tower in Pittsfield?
New businesses opening up in North Adams. Imagine the new businesses that would sprout up everywhere if people didn’t have to worry about health insurance?
THE COMMONWEALTH
Fair Share Amendment
WHO WE’RE READING, WATCHING, AND LISTENING TO THIS WEEK
Jay has had precious little time to do any bonus media absorption, but did get through all four installments from the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise. He has thoughts about it all, that we may one day have time to discuss.
