Section 1A. It is hereby found that: (1) Massachusetts has recently entered a period of severe economic distress, with increasing unemployment and with many areas of the commonwealth's economic base exhibiting an undesirable rate of growth; (2) these developments, while underscoring the economic importance of continued investments in technology education, place new and increasing pressures on such investments to advance the commonwealth's more immediate economic development interests while decreasing their reliance on scarce public funds; (3) accordingly, the Massachusetts technology park corporation must aggressively use the full breadth of the resources of its microelectronics center to directly support firms in the electronics and related industries to maintain, expand and locate their business activities in the commonwealth and thereby create and retain increased and more rewarding employment opportunities for our citizens; (4) further, the corporation must respond to pressing fiscal constraints by striving to make the center self-sufficient of regular, annual public maintenance funding through a comprehensive program of cost reduction, increased support from participating businesses and universities, the pursuit of federal and industry grants, and the full exploitation of the revenue generation potential of its essential governmental functions; (5) to those ends, and to otherwise account for changed economic circumstances since the corporation's creation, it is required to amend the corporation's public purpose, designated powers and essential governmental functions as set forth in its enabling act.
Therefore, it is found in the public interest of the commonwealth to promote the prosperity and general welfare of its citizens, a public purpose for which public money may be expended, to amend the enabling act and certain related statutes of the corporation to authorize the corporation to foster the expansion of industrial and commercial activity and employment opportunities in the commonwealth by employing its resources, to the extent consistent with its educational activities, to advance additional, more direct economic development initiatives which support firms to maintain, expand and locate their business activities within the commonwealth and thereby create and retain increased and more rewarding employment opportunities for our citizens.