Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia sits down with Managing Editor Dennis Hackett for Reminder Publishing’s “So That Reminds Me” podcast during the Sheriff’s Picnic on Aug. 21.
Reminder Publishing photo by Sarah Heinonen
SPRINGFIELD — At the Hampden County Sheriff’s picnic on Aug. 21, Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia sat down with Reminder Publishing’s “So That Reminds Me” podcast team to discuss the city’s exit from receivership, an upcoming Holyoke ballot question on the Community Preservation Act surcharge and curbing violence in the city.
For this year’s general election, Holyoke voters will be asked to decide whether or not to support a ballot question that would lower the CPA surcharge from 1.5% to 1%.
Garcia said that he was “in full support of the CPA.”
“Considering the impacts it has had in our community, it definitely offers flexibility to tackle projects that municipalities don’t normally have the flexibility to tackle. On top of that, what we leverage on the local level helps leverage additional dollars at the state level, the matching portion of it,” he said. “That really helps us kind of maximize our potential to tackle those important projects.”
Before the question was brought to the ballot, Garcia vetoed a vote to get the question on the ballot in 2023 and he discussed his reasoning for doing so.
“I had vetoed that not because I wanted my voters to participate in the democratic process, but because I know that more people come out historically when you look at numbers and compare them, more people come out during the state-presidential,” he said.
Garcia also explained that CPA questions are one of the few that can go on the ballot for these kinds of elections.
“I thought it made more sense if we really cared about getting as much people as possible, that we be intentional in when we present it so we can get the most votes as possible to decide on this very important question,” he said. “A reduction, it’s going to limit the little bit of capacity it’s already giving us and certainly we want to be sure that we maintain that. But it’s going to be up to the will of the voters, whatever’s decided is what we’re going to support.”
Garcia added that he was in favor of not reducing the surcharge.
When discussing crime in the city, Garcia said that those issues start with quality-of-life issues, beyond policing.
“We have been stepping up efforts with our Board of Health, our Building Department, Fire Department, our local ordinance officer and the DPW to tackle issues around blight that attract crime,” he said. “We’ve been doing a full court press in trying to get property owners to take better care of just the basic quality of life things, whether it’s overgrowth, trash, graffiti.”
Garcia added that the Building Department is working on an initiative to encourage property owners to better maintain their apartment buildings.
“These are the little things that we are doing to get things in order that offer a better quality of life and contribute to a better mental health position for a lot of people,” he said.
He also discussed the audit the city did of the Police Department several years ago and explained the importance of implementing the findings of that audit.
“Compassion needs to go hand in hand with enforcement. When I first came in, we did the audit to try to understand a little bit in what is it we’re doing well, and where are we falling short that we can be better in our Police Department,” Garcia said. “That audit has revealed some findings that we have been actively implementing so that we are closing that accountability gap.”
Garcia added that the goal for the incoming police chief would be to continue to work on the findings of the audit and implement them.
In addition to holding the government accountable, Garcia said residents need to hold people in their neighborhoods accountable.
“We can’t depend on government to solve these problems; the community really needs to step up and demand the accountability they want in their neighborhoods … I find you’ve got a lot of building owners, property owners, renters, folks that kind of have this ‘it’s not my problem’ mentality,” he said. “It doesn’t really help with building community pride, taking ownership and collaborating with local government together to build the community that we’re all looking for and deserve.”
Garcia explained that quality of life difficulties also have a trickle down effect into the schools.
“The quality-of-life challenges that exist because of poverty concentrated in segments of the city and on top of that, our school district is number three in the whole state with children enrolled in the district that are experiencing some form of homelessness, more — and we’re talking per capita — than our three largest metropolitan cities — Boston, Springfield and Worcester,” he said.
Garcia explained that while Holyoke is a compassionate city, there is an “unintended consequence.”
“That unintended consequence being how do we continue our level of compassion but make sure that families that are choosing to stay and live in Holyoke that while they navigate their challenges, they have a good quality of life, that they’re not dealing with other problems that are contributing to their safety, their health concerns,” he said.
Another looming challenge for the city is exiting school receivership, which the city and district have been working through over the past year. In a recent step forward, the city was presented with the school building capacity plan during a meeting on Aug. 19.
When discussing the district’s exit from receivership, Garcia also discussed the importance of receivership as a tool.
“It’s a tool leveraged when things are not going right, things are a little bit out of control. It’s a temporary measure the state uses to step in. When you’re in receivership, the state government has a lot more flexibility to untangle issues and move things around than we would when it’s under local control,” he said.
While Garcia said it was important to enter receivership, he said that measure had to be temporary. He added that he was looking forward to getting back to the form of government the city has, where an elected school committee has the authority to make decisions for the schools, like choosing a superintendent.
“That’s the form of government we want to get back to, to be sure that power and control is always with people when it comes to public resources, but obviously we want to do that responsibly,” he said.
He also noted that there may be a learning curve for current School Committee members when the shift to local control happens.
“A lot of our board members weren’t around when we were in local control, it is a big responsibility, important decisions have to be made at the school board level that this school board may not be used to. There are clear benchmarks and strategies that we need to hit so that we can hit the ground running when the transfer of power is given from the state to the local government,” he said.
Garcia also said that working with acting Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Russell Johnston has been a “breath of fresh air.”
“For a long time, constituents in Holyoke didn’t feel like a partner in this venture of receivership and when this commissioner got appointed he knew that it’s never happened before but his response was ‘hey look, we’ve never done this before but we’re going to work together and figure this out,’” he said.
Garcia added that Johnston, as well as Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, have been supportive of the city’s transition from receivership.
“We feel momentum, we feel progress and are incredibly grateful for the commissioner and the state’s support for understanding our position and working with us to be better managers of school resources so that we can practice our truest form of democracy under local control,” he said.
