Dave Madsen Interview: Getting Answers – “Nobody Asked the People Who Work There”
Springfield’s next courthouse will stand for 40 years. The people who work in the current one say the state never asked them where it should go.
On this week’s Getting Answers on Western Mass News, developers Jeb Balise and Dinesh Patel told host Dave Madsen why they are fighting the state’s decision to award the $2 billion Springfield Regional Justice Center to Liberty Junction, the group backed by Stonewater.
Balise and Patel are not acting alone. Hundreds of trial court employees stand behind them, along with District Attorney Anthony Gulluni, the sheriff, the mayor, the clerk of courts, the register of deeds and the register of probate. “We’re not reaching out to them,” Balise said. “They’re reaching out to us.” He described courthouse employees as distraught over the decision. Patel put it more bluntly: the community has not been heard from Boston.
Their argument comes back to downtown. The current courthouse sits inside the Metro Center business improvement district, which Patel says is cleaned and maintained daily and is one of the safest areas in the city. Balise warns that moving the courthouse out of the core would have a devastating impact on a gateway city the state is otherwise working to strengthen, and that the long-term social cost would dwarf the price of the building itself.
Both men say they are not asking to win. They would gladly lose to any proposal that keeps the courthouse downtown. What they want is a fair process, one that weighs the evidence, listens to the people who work in the building, and opens a rebid.
View the full interview at:
https://www.westernmassnews.com/video/2026/10/04/getting-answers-oct-4/