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Officials Fight Expected Cuts At Westover Air Reserve Base

US Air Force

A campaign continues to save a western Massachusetts military base from expected Pentagon budget cuts.   

   Chicopee Mayor Michael Bissonnette is fighting a plan to transfer half of the current fleet of C-5 cargo planes from  the Westover Air Force Reserve Base

   Bissonnette said he recently met with US Senator Elizabeth Warren  to impress on her the importance of the base.  Congressman Richard Neal also opposes downsizing Westover.  The base employs 5500 hundred people and puts $240 million in payroll into the local economy.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.