State Rep. Brian Ashe
Reminder Publishing file photo
LONGMEADOW — State Rep. Brian Ashe spoke on what he is carrying into 2026, while taking a look back on what he accomplished in 2025.
Ashe detailed an act to regulate pet daycare facilities in cities and towns named Ollie’s Law. Although it passed before 2025, work is still being done into 2026 to ensure regulations are still on track.
Ashe said Ollie was the name of a dog who was boarded in an East Longmeadow doggie day care center and mauled by 10 other dogs in 2020, succumbing to his injuries two months later at the age of nine months.
Ollie’s owner, Amy Baxter, said that the center was unlicensed and did not bring Ollie to the vet. Instead, she received a phone call later that said her dog was injured in a fight. Ashe said Ollie needed 270 stitches and multiple surgeries.
Ashe said his wife saw the story on Facebook and encouraged him to reach out. He said that he discovered there were zero regulations on doggy day cares and that someone could open one without knowing how they worked.
“I set up a coalition and put it together,” Ashe said. “It took two sessions but it passed.”
Ashe said the bill adds basic guidelines to day cares, such as dog to staff ratio. He said that East Longmeadow Animal Hospital was right next door, but the employee couldn’t bring Ollie because of the other dogs.
Ashe said that since the bill has passed, there’s a working group that has to make recommendations to the Mass Department of Agricultural Resources.
“Keeping an eye on what’s going on there, making sure that the original intent of the law is kept and it doesn’t go off,” Ashe said. “There’s been a couple issues where I’ve heard that they might be voting to change the staff to dog ratio, so little things like that. We want to make sure it stays on track.”
Ashe said that Baxter still lives in town and is on the commission, so he keeps in touch to make sure the law stays true to the original intent. Ashe also discussed being in the middle of an act relative to crumbling concrete foundations.
He said that foundations with pyrite or pyrrhotite in the concrete mix have affected homes across 51 towns because if there’s a crack that gets damp, the concrete disintegrates and turns to powder.
“People’s foundations are literally collapsing underneath them,” Ashe said. “The only thing you can do, if it is impacted all around, is they have to raise the house, remove the old foundation, pour new foundation and put it back.”
He said to fix something like this is a couple hundred thousand dollars on the average house and insurance doesn’t cover it right now. Ashe is creating a crumbling concrete assistance fund, administered by the secretary of housing and living communities, to provide financial assistance to owners of property for the replacement of concrete foundations.
“We don’t want this to be something that’s going to ruin a family or two,” Ashe said. “It could ruin a neighborhood too, because if it’s your house and you don’t have the money to fix it, you just let it go. Now there’s an abandoned house, and it’s not good for property values, not good for anyone.”
Ashe said the act is on the step of figuring out how much money to put in a pool and how to get that money. He said he isn’t in favor of making a small tax, such as a $12 homeowners tax, but wants to do something to make sure it moves forward.
“It looks like it’s just going to keep expanding to more and more homes and more towns are going to realize ‘oh, we have that too,” Ashe said. “Some people avoid going to the doctor, because if they go, they’ll find out they’re sick. So I think there’s some people like that. They don’t want to look at the house, because if it is, then they might have to do something. So we’re trying to get it easier for people to do it.”
Going into 2026, Ashe said he would like to do work related to industries not having the backfill like they used to. He said there are less and less doctors, nurses, plumbers, electricians and carpenters going into the trade. He added that there needs to be a way to incentivise young people to go into the work and stay in the area.
“Right now, we’re just seeing the tip of it,” Ashe said. “If we don’t do anything to address it, and I don’t just mean Massachusetts or around the country, we’re going to have these huge gaps where people are, one, they’re not going to be able to find people to do the work and two, if they do find them, they might either have to wait forever or pay a crazy fee because there’s only four plumbers.”
Ashe said a challenge going into the year is the uncertainty from the federal government, such as how budgeting things out may work. He said that they’re in a good position due to a balanced budget and a rainy day fund, but not getting a certain amount of money in federal funding could have a major impact.
“If we had to dip into the stabilization fund, yeah we could pay for it, but if our stabilization fund goes down, then our bond rating goes down, which means we’re borrowing money,” Ashe said. “We’re paying a higher rate. Which means everybody in Massachusetts is paying more money for different things.”
He also said he’s working to keep the people happy and bring more people in, such as through education and public safety. He noted the new high school in East Longmeadow and the new middle school in Longmeadow are things that cost money, but it’s all about quality of life.
“I think when we do those, it shows that we do care about that people that live in these communities,” Ashe said. “We care about the young people coming in, that they’re going to get a good education and hopefully appreciate it, stay and school around here, work and live around here and raise a family around here.”
