Special to the Independent
While the veto voting continues on certain items in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, Rep. Joe McGonagle is pleased to announce he has secured $300,000 for different Everett programs in the City. Rep. McGonagle, in partnership with City officials, wrote earmarks to address food insecurity in Everett, a second chance recidivism prevention program and communications upgrade for the fire department.
“I am very pleased and very grateful for the funding the City of Everett has received,” said McGonagle. “In conjunction with Mayor DeMaria and other City officials, we determined three key areas where the community could benefit from state funding. I think all three of these worthy designations show Everett’s commitment to keeping our neighborhoods safe and thriving. We want to help our neighbors coming out of incarceration, we want to make sure people are fed and we certainly want the fire department to be as well-equipped as possible. I want to thank Speaker Mariano and Chair Michlewitz for their leadership on this endeavor and Mayor DeMaria and his staff for their work on this as well.”
The City’s three earmarks as secured by Rep. McGonagle are:
• 100,000 for a second chance program, administered by the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion department, to enable the city to establish programs to help Everett residents recently released from state or county facilities to re-establish themselves in the community by mitigating the greatest risks of recidivism
• $100, for the mitigation of food insecurity in an ongoing effort with the planning department through the provision of fresh and local produce to low-to-moderate income families at no cost through existing partnerships with About Fresh, Inc., Everett Community Growers, Inc., the Everett food policy council, local farms and both privately-funded and publicly-funded food pantries;
• $100,000 the Everett fire department for a computer-aided dispatch program for the fire alarm dispatch center.