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Date: 10/26/2021
HOLYOKE – During the Holyoke School Committee’s Oct. 18 meeting, the committee received an update on COVID-19 cases in the district and discussed putting a portion of land on the Dean School property out for redevelopment.
Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto said the city was averaging about 32 cases per 100,000 people per day, which was the second highest rate in the county at the time of the meeting.
“As of Oct. 14, the state reported that the city of Holyoke had about a 32.3 daily incident rate. We have had 5,591 tests performed in the prior two weeks and we have had a positivity rate of about 4.42 percent. There have been 184 cases citywide over the last two weeks as well,” he said.
“We have had 221 cases in school, 203 were students and 18 were staff. In the past couple of weeks, we had about 35 cases and I think this is an important statistic because while we have the statistics in the community, we have only had 25 incidents where there was potential spread,” he said.
While the student cases were high, Soto said faculty cases remained relatively low.
“We continue to see an increase in COVID[-19] cases in our student population but overall, our staff numbers remain low and that is likely because of the vaccine,” he said. Soto added the district is in the process of hiring two additional nurses for contact tracing purposes.
Acting Mayor Terence Murphy said it was going to be an all-hands-on deck approach to lower the case count and prevent spread. “We are now number two in Hampden County, so we have gone done to about 32 cases per 100,000 so it is a pretty good drop. Our vaccination rate went up half a percent and our first vaccinations are at 61 percent,” he said. “We are making a little progress, if we can continue to do these things and get more people vaccinated and keep up the mask mandate for maybe a few more weeks hopefully we can get those numbers down.”
After discussing the city and district’s COVID-19 case numbers, the committee then jumped into a discussion about possibly putting a corner of the Dean School’s property out for development.
Murphy started the conversation and said the goal of putting the corner out for development is to see if someone is interested in developing that property. He said that while it would be hard to add an addition to the school, that area could be used for housing.
“To my knowledge there is no strong potential for an addition to the Dean School, but there is a potential to put one or two homes on that corner. If they do, there is going to be a much clearer walkway for students walking down St. Vincent Street,” he said.
Murphy added that there would be no zoning changes and the parcel would be meant for residential property.
At-Large Committee member Erin Brunelle said she was against redeveloping the parcels for housing and read from the city engineer’s report, which said the biggest constraint for development was a steep slope from the proposed residential area to the school’s parking lot.
“The most significant development constraint is a steep slope that drops to the Dean School parking lot along the Ingleside entryway for the parcel. The top of the slope is about 75 feet from the Ingleside Street property line impractical for development,’” she said. “I see no reason to put this out for development.”
John Whelihan, the committee’s Ward 5 representative, said he was in favor of putting the land out for development because it would be too expensive for the schools to bring up to code.
“Because of the costs of it are so high, the schools are not going to have the funds to bring it up to code or make it usable. That is one of the reasons why I do not feel the school system needs it or could use it going forward. If these were flat lots then I would have a different opinion,” he said.
If the plot does not go out for redevelopment, Soto said the area would likely remain as it currently rests.
Ward 3 representative Rebecca Birks said the issue of leaving the property in the city’s hands for finding a developer and not being able to trust what happens to it highlights the division in the city.
“I am in this place now when our city is so divided, and I need to have faith in people that we are going to unite again somehow. Right now, this city feels broken, there is a left side, a right side, pick a pack, don’t pick a pack, there is all of this political jargon and it just feels broken to me,” she said. “We have to have faith moving forward we are going to work together to make a stronger relationship between us in the City Council, I have to believe that.”
Ultimately Brunelle motioned to table a vote to put the land out for redevelopment and the committee agreed in a 5-2 vote.
The Holyoke School Committee next meets on Nov. 15.