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Date: 9/13/2021
HOLYOKE - The ongoing disagreement for what the new city-wide sewer rate should be continued during the Sept. 7 Holyoke City Council meeting.
The council, who had been unable to agree on a new rate to adopt at their last meeting, invited City Solicitor Kathleen Degnan to speak about the ruling that only a majority vote was needed to adopt a new rate rather than a two-thirds vote. Degnan explained she had reviewed the city ordinance and the code said a two-thirds vote was needed. When questioned by Councilor Joseph McGiverin if this was true for all ordinance-related votes the council took, Degnan said, “The short answer is yes.”
Councilor James Leahy then questioned all the ordinance votes the council had previously taken. “If it's two-thirds, what happens to all the countless thousands of votes we've taken over the past 22 years? Are they voided?” he questioned. Degnan said she had only just started and therefore their question would need to be referred to the Legal Department so she could take a closer look at the votes that would fall under such a ruling.
Councilor and Mayoral Candidate Rebecca Lisi said, based on her own research, the council had voted to change the votes needed for an ordinance from two-thirds to a super majority on December of 2014. While Degnan said the matter would need to be further researched and questioned, Councilor and Acting Mayor Terrance Murphy suggested they pass the first reading of the ordinance, which would adopt a new sewer rate. He then went on to explain he'd talked to the Bond Council about their capacity and rating. “I would say the only issue that continued to come up is the enterprise funds for the sewer going to be balanced? That came up three or four times in our conversation and in her opinion, until that is, we are not going to get the bond rating that we potentially really could be earning,” he said.
Murphy then went on to say that collections for the sewer had “gone up a little bit” and he had looked into leans, which they would begin despite them not having much success in the past. However, he said, “If we pass this tonight, we have already forfeited two months of billing. We would just about be at balance for this year. The longer we wait, we will end up again being in deficit, even if we have 100 percent collection rate we would be in deficit,” he said. “So at some point if we want our bond rating to be as good as it can be, we need to raise it - and this is the minimal rate to do that. And at this point, we're actively aggressively pursuing. I think we're at 95 or 95 and a half [percent collection rate], or something along that line, and it's gone up and we continue to pursue it, but at some point we need to act.”
McGiverin said he believed that they had already "painstakingly” taken the vote to act, but the rate of $7.60 had been the first one to be challenged as it was the first to reach seven votes. “This vote doesn't go away, it's going to stand at $7.60 forever, and at $7.60 according to a legal opinion endorsed by the city solicitor, it fails,” he said. McGiverin said the deficit of $1 million was from last year and they had failed to act on it.
Councilor Linda Vacon said the sewer rate that had received the most votes had been $7.50 “which received eight votes.” She also went on to say that West Holyoke taxpayers had been “balancing sewer funds for three plus years, which is not a new occurrence, and they want their neighbors to get a fair rate.” She continued, “They don't want their neighbors to be run out of the city anymore than they want to keep paying for something they can't receive. So I think it's incumbent upon us to come to a compromise, which so far we haven't been able to do.”
Council David Bartley said a two-thirds vote “was not a super majority, four-fifths is a super majority.” He then went on to say, “95 percent of our votes are unanimous or within one or two neighs.” He went on to say the two-thirds vote was needed in times of disagreement and controversy, and while Boston set the precedent and they could not “undercut it,” they could make a ruling that superseded it.
When voting on the first reading of the ordinance, Council President Todd McGee clarified that the rate would be $7.77 per 1,000 gallons. After the first reading passed, the second reading also passed. The council then went on to vote to ordain the sewer rate, which failed to pass in a vote of seven to six. Murphy then went on to make a motion to lay the item on the table. McGiverin then questioned if they were allowed to lay the item on the table again or if they needed to restart the process over again. City Attorney Michael Bissonnette said “it would restart the clock at tonight's action at 65 days.” Ultimately, the item was laid on the table and will be taken up again at the next City Council meeting.
The public comment then began with resident John Rivera thanking the council for Spanish interpretation of both City Council meeting and city announcements. He called the actions “the bare minimum” but said they were important nonetheless. He then went on to refer to Columbus Day, stating that it was a disservice to residents. A large number of residents, he stated, were descendants of the Taino population which no longer existed due to the genocide brought on by Christopher Columbus' travels.
Resident Elizabeth Caretti Ramirez also spoke on the same matter and thanked the City Council for Spanish interpretations as well. Caretti Ramirez said she was speaking in response to a letter “circulated to City Council from a Mr. Gallo.” She said, “I found this letter frightening, ignorant, full of mistakes.” She challenged the main premise of the letter, which she called “the doctrine of discovery.” She made the comparison of walking into a city councilor's home, bringing her friends and “claiming” the area.
“I'm sure you would realize that was ridiculous. Just because it happened 500 years ago, it's no less ridiculous. You cannot go into a homeland that other people inhabit, and have for thousands of years and claim it for your own, the entire doctrine of discovery is faulty,” she said. She said as an Italian-American she felt as though it would be better to host celebrations of Italian heritage throughout the month of October rather than acknowledge and/or celebrate Columbus Day.
“I haven't seen any of the councilors who opposed this measure in the first place suggest any kind of celebrations for Italian-Americans. So if you want to celebrate me, wonderful, but don't use my heritage as a cover to celebrate a mass murder and someone who committed genocide on our land,” she said.
Resident Erin Callahan also spoke on the matter and said she felt uncomfortable with an “outside group like the Sons and Daughters of Italy” coming into Holyoke and “telling us what we should or should not celebrate.” She said, “This is about local control and the people of Holyoke have decided that they would rather celebrate the contributions of indigenous people than the genocidal maniac that started the slave trade.”
She then addressed the three people she said were in opposition of changing Columbus Day. “I used to be one of you, I used to say to myself 'Oh you sure like living in America, don't you?' We [have] got to get over it, it's dumb. We were wrong, there are lots of people we used to celebrate we found out are rapists and we can't just keep doing things that are wrong just because we like the outcome,” she said. She went on to say she would support celebrating an Irish-American in history that didn't have “a checkered past” and the people of Holyoke had spoken in favor of celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Worthington resident Andras Arthen, who also serves as the president of the European Congress of Ethic Religions and had previously served on the board of directors of Parliament of World Religions, then took a turn speaking on the matter of Columbus Day. He said in various parts of America and other parts other the North American continent people had expressed to him how hurtful it was to celebrate Columbus Day.
During the President's Report, McGee announced that Marty Dunn Way would be honored on Sept. 18 at 3 p.m. on the corner of Lyman St. and Maple St., which he said was outside of Francie's Tavern. “It will be set up to do Marty Dunn Way, which this council voted unanimously to do, but everything was put back due to COVID[-19],” he said.