Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 5/23/2023
AGAWAM — With the town in good shape financially and politically, Agawam Mayor William Sapelli is comfortable stopping at three terms.
Sapelli announced on May 16 that he won’t be a candidate for reelection this year. He feels he has delivered on the promises he made in his first campaign, in 2017.
“One of the things I really wanted to do was bring civility to local government,” he told Reminder Publishing. “I think we did accomplish that. The other big, big thing was infrastructure improvements I focused on in my campaign. I think we did that, too. If you drive around town, you can see that, in progress, as we speak.”
Particularly in his first two years as mayor, Sapelli poured millions of dollars into road and sidewalk repairs, projects that he said had been deferred under previous administrations. He also shepherded state-funded reconstructions of Feeding Hills Center and the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge.
As he plans to leave office, he can point to three major long-awaited projects he has set into motion: the conversion of Tuckahoe Turf Farm into a town park, and repair of the dam on the property; the relocation of the Police Department to a larger building that meets its space needs; and the state-run process of renovating or replacing Agawam High School.
The goal of opening a new high school stretches back to Sapelli’s days as assistant superintendent of schools in the early 2000s, he noted. Throughout his term as mayor, Sapelli has said Agawam deserves state funding for a new building, as its 1950s high school is among the oldest in the area, and in the past decade several school districts have received state grants to replace younger buildings. Now it’s in the second year of a seven-year design and construction process.
Yet “this decision has not been an easy one,” Sapelli said in a statement to the press. “I have worked 46 years for the town of Agawam, first in the school system as superintendent of schools, and now as mayor. I was proud to leave the school system in a great position and I am very pleased to now leave the town overall in excellent shape for new leadership.”
What makes it hard to leave, he said, was knowing that he’ll miss the daily interaction with town employees.
“I’m a people person and the staff we have here, I feel we have such a great relationship,” Sapelli said. “That’s the most difficult, breaking the ties I’ve made working with those people closely.”
Sapelli was elected mayor in November 2017, just months after he retired from a six-year stint as superintendent. He said he decided to run for mayor because he wanted to continue serving his hometown, and because friends were encouraging him to run as the incumbent mayor, Richard Cohen, had decided not to seek reelection. In his first political race, he defeated the president of the City Council, James Cichetti, to take the mayor’s office.
Sapelli was reelected with no opponent in 2019 and defeated challenger Charles Alvanos in 2021. He said a key difference between 2021 and 2023, and a factor in his decision to retire, is that the coronavirus state of emergency has ended, and town services have largely returned to normal.
“Two years ago, we were still in the pandemic,” Sapelli said. “That would have been very cowardly, for lack of a better term, to step away at that particular point. In the six years I served, [the pandemic response] was the most challenging thing I had to do.”
Now, he said he feels comfortable retiring because he knows he will hand his successor a town in good financial shape.
“Somebody can’t say I’m running away from something, because I’m not,” he said.
His successor will have a different set of challenges, Sapelli said. He said he looks at the political scene in Washington and worries that an economy “in flux” and ballooning national debt will force governments to cut back, affecting federal and state aid to the town.
Town Clerk Vince Gioscia said as of May 18, so far one person had taken out nomination papers for mayor, City Councilor Rosemary Sandlin. Sandlin is also a former state representative and ran for mayor unsuccessfully in 2011. Sandlin also took out papers for the council. To qualify for the ballot, a candidate must return a nomination petition signed by at least 100 registered voters in town by Aug. 22.
Sapelli doesn’t have concrete plans for what he’ll do next. All three of Agawam’s previous mayors have run for City Council at some point after leaving office, though only one was successful — current Council President Christopher Johnson. Sapelli said he isn’t preparing to run for any other political office, though he will “never say never.”
After retiring as superintendent, Sapelli had barely any time before he had to hit the campaign trail. It wasn’t much of a retirement.
“I’ll try again a second time,” he said. “Who knows. I can’t sit still. I’ve got to be doing something.”
Though the election is in November, Sapelli’s term runs through the end of December. He said he plans to keep hard at work until then.