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Date: 5/18/2022
HOLYOKE – In a special meeting of the City Council on May 12, Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia gave his State of the City address where he expressed themes of resilience to the community.
Garcia early in his speech said that together he and the city were ready to write the next chapter in the city’s history as they had been tested but not defeated from the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s a prosperous, stronger, more united Holyoke within reach, and we’ve never been in a better position to get there,” Garcia said.
Garcia further elaborated saying he wasn’t talking about a pre-pandemic status quo but that a new era of Holyoke where they pivot from crisis to recovery and responds to calamity by embracing opportunity. The mayor first credited the revitalization of the manufacturing sector as key progress and that this has always been the foundation upon which Holyoke was built.
Garcia gave credit to the green power initiatives in Holyoke that have attracted entrepreneurs and manufacturers looking for inexpensive energy.
According to Garcia, the Behavioral Health Hospital under construction on Lower Westfield Road will yield roughly $1.5 million in new property tax revenue.
They mayor also expressed pleasure in the fact that many new restaurants have opened and concerts have returned to downtown at Gateway City Arts. He added the Chamber of Commerce has participated in more than a dozen ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the last year and that more were in the pipeline going forward.
“Our city’s economy is roaring back in a way we haven’t seen in some time,” Garcia said. “The budget I’m presenting tonight reflects that in reality, avoiding short-sighted decisions and laying the foundation of our long-term fiscal health.”
Following his speech, the City Council laid the fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget on the table before immediately adjourning the meeting. This was the initial step in the beginning of the yearly budgeting process.
Garcia did provide some detail to the budget during the meeting, saying that for the first time in more than a decade, the city budget as presented is in a surplus.
“For those of you who don’t spend your spare time obsessing about municipal finance, let me explain precisely what this means: The city of Holyoke is doing alright. We’re on an economic upswing. We’re seeing a new growth and development through the city, as well as increases in home and property values,” the mayor said.
Garcia continued and said for the first time in years that Holyoke had a positive free cash balance which means they won’t be using the city’s free cash to plug operating deficits.
“Instead, with the support of the City Council, we’ll use it to make important one-time investments that will strengthen our foundation and enable more progress in the future,” Garcia said.
He added some of these investments will include the building up of the stabilization fund, creating a capital stabilization account, auditing the city’s trash and recycling program as well as the performance of the Police Department and reviewing of downtown parking management.
The mayor also used his address to request the City Council use free cash to invest in municipal finance consultants with the goal of fixing service gaps in their financial departments and supporting the core function of Holyoke’s local government.
“The bottom line is this: When it comes to our city finances, we’re not simply responding to circumstances. We’re being proactive. We’re pursuing a vision. And the same is true of other important areas in the life of the city,” Garcia said. “A city with strong finances and effective internal controls is then able to do so much more for its citizens – promoting economic opportunity and rapid recovery, ensuring public safety, providing quality education, caring for our environment and natural resources, investing in our capital and guaranteeing the just treatment of all.”
Garcia continued his speech saying he has always believed that government works at its best when people get off the sidelines and involved. Garcia credited residents for making him and the city government work to do a better job by pushing, guiding and advising them.
Garcia said one issue that keeps him up at night is homelessness. He said last winter this issue became very clear when the city had to open up pop-up warming shelters. He also thanked various city departments for their work on this issue and making the effort to get people the resources they need.
“Still, it’s worth considering what conditions exist that make these shelters necessary in the first place. Many of those seeking warmth were experiencing long-term homelessness,” Garcia said.
He added they have been able to provide resources from recovery coaching to offering haircuts but there is still so much more to do to attack the complex issue.
“Homelessness is a serious contributor to poor social outcomes broadly. It undermines a person’s ability to get and keep a job. It contributes to families breaking apart. A child experiencing homelessness has a far more difficult time completing school, and in the Holyoke schools, we have more than two-hundred kids in that position,” Garcia said.
Garcia was emotional during his remarks on this issue and again signaled this was a very important thing for the city to address. He added long-term homelessness can take as many as 25 years off a person’s life and can have harmful impacts to local businesses and residents, quality-of-life, public safety and economic development.
“Solving homelessness in our region is a moral imperative, and it will have substantial benefits for everyone,” Garcia said. “City Councilors, people of Holyoke, know this: Homelessness is solvable, provided that we treat it as the public health problem that is. Ending homelessness, like all of the other issues we face, is about what we value as a community.”
In his closing remarks, Garcia reflected on a visit to first graders at Donahue Elementary School where he read to them a book written by Holyoke children’s author, Leslea Newman, and the book was titled, “Alicia and the Hurricane – A Story of Puerto Rico.”
The book tells the story of Alicia, a young girl who, along with her family, seeks shelter from Hurricane Maria. Alicia is especially concerned about the conquies – the tree frogs whose nightly singing helps lull her to sleep each night.
Garcia said as he read to the children, his eyes began welling with tears and his emotions overwhelmed him. He later thought back on the moment and realized he could see the story of his own mother, who grew up in Puerto Rico.
“I thought about how the same Holyoke that offered refuge to hundred of Puerto Rican kids fleeing the wreckage of Hurricane Maria, how that is the Holyoke that embraced my mother so many years ago – the Holyoke that made everything in my life possible and the many lives of generations before me that sought refuge in Holyoke to mitigate hardship whatever the circumstance may be,” Garcia said.
Garcia said he could also relate to Alicia in the story as she was huddled together with hundred of her neighbors in a shelter waiting out the storm as there was a human element he related to.
“Sometimes the storms we face are actual hurricanes. Sometimes they’re personal, like the suffering of a loved one, and sometimes they’re communal, like a [coronavirus] pandemic that halts life as we know it,” Garcia said. “Storms are a fact of life. The test of good government – indeed, the test of our brief lives together as neighbors. Once again Holyoke has a chance to respond with love, with kindness, with intelligence and with grace.”