HOLYOKE — Voters heard from nearly a dozen candidates for City Council at-large at a Thursday night forum that touched on topics ranging from community-police relations to the controversy surrounding a proposed Dunkin’ restaurant on Mount Tom.
The in-person forum held at Holyoke High School was sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Daily Hampshire Gazette and live-streamed by Holyoke Media.
The 11 candidates for six seats are incumbents Peter Tallman, James Leahy, Howard Greaney and Joseph McGiverin, and challengers Kevin Jourdain, Israel Rivera, Jose Luis Maldonado Velez, Mark Chatel, Jennifer Keitt, Tessa Murphy-Romboletti and Paola Ferrario.
All but four candidates said they would support an independent assessment of the Police Department’s practices: McGiverin, Greaney, Leahy and Chatel.
“We need to have every resident feel safe, and our police department does an outstanding job with that,” Chatel said. He added that representatives of the police department should hold regular meetings with residents in every ward to improve relations.
“No question, anybody who knows me knows that I am a law and order candidate,” Jourdain said, but police departments have “a civic responsibility of transparency. Anybody with that much authority needs to be accountable to the public.”
Jourdain served on the council for 24 years, mostly at-large, and did not seek reelection in 2017. McGiverin, who is finishing up his 42nd year on the council, served as acting mayor in 1991.
Greaney worked for 35 years as a teacher and administrator in Holyoke public schools. He spent six years on the School Committee and served on the City Council from 2013-17, then won election again in 2019. He said the solution to street crime is “education, education, education.”
Asked if they were in favor of a proposal to build a Dunkin’ restaurant on Mount Tom, these candidates said yes: McGiverin, Tallman, Greaney, Chatel and Murphy-Romboletti. The remaining candidates said no except for Leahy, an 11th-term councilor who said he is studying the issue and not ready to give a definitive answer.
Candidates weighed in on issues including climate change, the ongoing natural gas moratorium, underfunding of the Department of Public Works and the need for a well-run Law Department. Many said that economic development and lowering the commercial tax rate are important issues for the next council to address, along with streamlining and modernizing of the business permitting process.
“One of the things we have to do is getting City Hall back in order,” Leahy said. “We’re going to have a new mayor, and we need to have City Hall step up its game quite a bit.”
Every candidate voiced support for adding a homeless shelter in the city.
In August, the council started offering live Spanish-language interpretation for those watching the meetings on TV. Candidates were asked how they would further increase access to government for the city’s non-English speakers.
Rivera, the chairman of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, served five years in prison for drug possession and got out in 2012. He is getting a master’s degree in public policy administration at UMass Amherst.
“Ever since I got out of prison, I’ve been paying attention to local politics, and it kind of feels like we’ve been at a standstill for a very long time,” Rivera said. Now 35 years old, he said he has wondered why there was no Spanish translation ever since seventh grade.
Ferrario, the vice chairwoman of the Historical Commission, said that translating government meetings and documents is “not a great and noble thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. … In terms of making everything bilingual, it’s just logistics and money.” She then gave the remainder of her answer in Spanish.
Maldonado Velez, who was raised in the Flats section, answered mostly in Spanish, as well, and said councilors should be able to converse with Spanish-speaking residents.
“In a city that is 58% Latino, I think it’s time there are more of us on the City Council,” Maldonado Velez said.
Murphy-Romboletti, the executive director of EforAll/EparaTodos Holyoke, said she started the first Spanish-language business accelerator in western Massachusetts.
Leahy said that public candidate forums, like Thursday’s forum, should also be translated into Spanish, and candidates including Tallman, McGiverin and Keitt said that committee meetings and meeting minutes should be translated, too.
“It’s a travesty” that the government “is unable to effectively communicate with them in their native language,” Keitt said.
A mayoral candidate forum will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, Oct. 26, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Preregistration is required to attend. The link to preregister is available at LWVNorthampton.org.
At-large City Councilor Michael Sullivan and Blandford Town Administrator Joshua Garcia are running to replace acting mayor Terrance Murphy, who did not seek election to a full term.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.