Letter to the Editor published in The Republican and Masslive.com by 2018 GRP Candidate for Secretary of the Commonwealth, Juan G. Sanchez I often wonder about my mother who suffered with drug addiction beginning in her early teens and whether she had the support she needed. I wonder if anyone ever reached out to her to make sure she was OK. I’ve wondered what kind of person she would’ve been had drugs not been a part of her life. Would she have been a good mom? A good friend? These are things I will never have an answer to as she left when I was 2 years old and passed when I was 10. She was 28. Some things have a price such as homes, products, etc., and those are very important things to many people but what price do we put on a life? What do you tell a parent, a child, a loved one when the person they love passes from an overdose? The help wasn’t there when I was a child. Opioid abuse wasn't considered an epidemic in the 90s but today services are available, and we have a state government that is trying to strategically target drug addiction so that no other family needs to end up broken again.I have heard neighbors argue that the new group home that the Mental Health Association (MHA) is planning on Yale Street in Holyoke is about safety, property taxes, and comfort but what’s safer and better for property taxes than helping someone become a productive member of their community? What’s more comforting than knowing that by being a good neighbor you are helping someone reunite with their loved ones and become healthy again? People argue that Holyoke is a nonprofit haven and should stop being ground zero for so many non-tax paying services yet offer no plan, just fear and judgment of the most vulnerable in our community. I’m open to dialogue on growing the tax-base, but we can do that together and still welcome our new neighbors. I have full confidence that our new neighbors will cause no problem in Holyoke or the neighborhood they have chosen and look forward to welcoming them as members of our community. Juan G. Sanchez, Holyoke   Letter on Masslive https://www.masslive.com/opinion/2019/06/group-home-planned-for-holyoke-good-for-community-letters.html?fbclid=IwAR19sfzrG_ewN2tuaBQDdxr-jNDyHs5knsOdzIXZmI97PVjvyN4eGJZQxG4 Continue reading

The Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts calls for collective non-violent resistance at this critical time to prevent the deaths of more children at the US-Mexico border, stop funding for Trump’s border wall, and put our government back to work. Continue reading

Jack Beatty Scapegoated Greens As Spoilers, When Non-Voters Decided Elections. August 10th, WBUR, ‘On Point’ “...But if I may just let me just divergate to looking at the role of the Green Party in this…The nefarious role of this party in our politics can’t be understated. I say one word alone: Ralph Nader. But then, 2016 – the role of the Jill Stein campaign …The Green Party has a lot to answer for... I’m just pointing to the facts, and to the, sort of, aura of suspicion around the Jill Stein campaign in 2016.“ Jack Beatty (8) Year Green Candidate Ratio: Non-voters to Green Voters Citation 2000 Nader 31+ to 1 (1,2) 2004 Nader 193+ to 1 (3,4) 2016 Stein 36+ to 1 (5,6) Jack’s wrong conclusion: Blame the Greens. Continue reading