Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 10/24/2023
HOLYOKE — A Hampden Country Superior Court judge has refused to grant a motion for an injunction brought by four Holyoke city councilors against Mayor Joshua Garcia regarding the mayor’s decision to veto a ballot question that allows residents to decide whether to lower the Community Preservation Act surcharge from 1.5% to 1%.
The challenge came after Garcia vetoed the City Council vote to include on the upcoming November election ballot a question concerning reduction of the city’s Community Preservation Act property tax surcharge. Garcia has said he vetoed the proposal as he thought the question should be on the 2024 Presidential election ballot instead of the 2023 city ballot as a way to get better voter turnout on an important question for all Holyoke voters.
“Election records show three to four times as many Holyokers participate in a presidential election rather than a municipal election,” Garcia said. “Letting more people have their say seems to me worth the slight delay in voting.”
Superior Court Justice Jane E. Mulqueen concurred with the mayor’s argument. Referring to the councilors’ complaint, Mulqueen wrote, “There has been no showing of any other harm in the surcharge reduction question appears on the November 2024 ballot instead of November 2023.”
The city councilors challenging Garcia’s veto — Councilors Linda Vacon, Will Puello, Kevin Jourdain and David Bartley — felt as though he did not hold that power and argued it was the right of taxpayers to be able to vote on a potential reduction this year instead of waiting another year. These councilors argued it was a violation of taxpayers’ rights to withhold the question another year as this was an opportunity to potentially lower the CPA rate sooner rather than waiting a year.
Most of the other councilors were on record of being in favor of Garcia’s decision and agreed it made sense to wait for an election with more turnout for a question like this.
“Something of this magnitude, if you’re going to be representing it to the voters then we should really be waiting for a larger voter turnout and we all know that this year we’re not going to have that turnout,” argued Ward 6 Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos during a discussion on the ballot question in April.
Mulqueen rejected this claim by stating that, “the Community Preservation Act does not preempt or override Holyoke’s city charter.” She also wrote that, “the plaintiffs failed to follow the procedure for amending the surcharge as required,” by state law.
Garcia has been in favor of the question appearing on a future ballot, but was just looking to get more turnout from voters on a surcharge percentage related question like this. Garcia noted that he and the city solicitor cooperated in obtaining the opinion of outside counsel on the veto question.
“We were fortunate that our City Solicitor’s Office could respond to this lawsuit on such short notice, saving the city thousands in additional outside legal fees,” Garcia said.
Earlier this month, Garcia sent a letter to some 60 Holyoke residents who had signed a petition criticizing his veto of the ballot question. In the letter, Garcia laid out his case for the veto and also assured residents knew that there would be the opportunity to vote on the issue in next year’s election where there would be a better turnout from voters.
“This constant politicizing of local municipal government needs to be curtailed. Fostering misinformation and calling things ‘illegal’ only helps maintain the prior atmosphere of mistrust and lack of professionalism,” Garcia said. “My letter about the CPA was an attempt to correct misinformation by reaching directly to those who took the time to let the city know of their interest in a particular matter.”