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Date: 5/11/2021
NORTHAMPTON – During the Northampton City Council’s May 6 meeting, the council discussed a resolution to accept the findings of the Northampton Policing Review Commission’s final report and received an update on the city’s recent municipal broadband survey.
Ward 1 Councilor Michael Quinlan said he wanted to co-sponsor the resolution in order to have a broader discussion about the report.
“I really joined this resolution because I felt we had a really interesting discussion when the recommendations were presented to the council, but I did not feel that we discussed them in detail ourselves and I really want to create a space where we could discuss that,” he said.
During the discussion, At-large Councilor Bill Dwight said he was concerned about the Board of Health or Health Department overseeing the proposed department of community care.
“The Board of Health is an unfunded department more or less; it actually has special state granted authority that does not conform with representative accountability. I think the Board of Health should be worshipped as we exit the pandemic, but they are not an agency,” he said.
Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz then jumped into the call to say that he had spoken with Health Director Meredith O’ Leary and said she had some concerns about taking on another project.
“I have spoken with Meredith O’ Leary and she does have some concerns. Given all that her department is currently handling not just including the pandemic but the work they are doing around the various federal and state opioid grants they are managing, the regional emergency preparedness coalition, she is very concerned about it from a capacity standpoint,” she said.
Ward 4 Councilor John Thorpe said that he wanted to move forward with the recommendations but also conduct some further study to ensure their effectiveness.
“At this stage my opinion is that we need to move forward expeditiously to begin implementing some of the reforms, but also further study what needs to be done to make sure those reforms work most effectively,” he said.
Ultimately, the council unanimously approved the first reading of the resolution to support the Policing Review Commission’s final report.
Along with approving the resolution, the council also received a preliminary update on the city’s municipal broadband survey from Narkewicz.
“The study closed officially at the end of April, data is still being tabulated because some of the paper surveys we sent out to households are still trickling in, so these are not the exact numbers, but I did want to give some of the preliminary information that came out of that survey,” he said.
Narkewicz added that at least a quarter of Northampton households responded to the survey.
“We had 2,800 residential survey responses and 123 business survey responses, we had approximately a 25 percent response rate from households. For the residential survey, 88 percent indicated they wanted better internet service, 98 percent ranked internet access as important to their household, 71 percent indicated access to affordable high-speed broadband influences where they choose to live,” he said.
With the survey portion of the study coming to an end, Narkewicz said he will be working with the design group for a feasibility study.
“We will be meeting with Design Nine to begin moving forward with Phase 2 which is the actual technical feasibility part of the study. I think we have heard a pretty clear message that we need to continue working on pursuing a municipal broadband option,” he said.
The City Council next meets on May 20.