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Date: 10/2/2023
HOLYOKE — Representatives from Nueva Esperanza were invited to the Development and Governmental Relations Committee’s Sept. 25 meeting to present their plans to the public for their $150,000 ARPA award and its “El Mercado” space renovation and tracking.
Speaking first on behalf of Nueva Esperanza was Valley Opportunity Council Executive Director Steve Huntley, who shared with the committee their upcoming plans with the funding. Huntley also serves as board treasurer to Nueva Esperanza.
Huntley said they applied to ARPA for funding to support potential projects to assist Nueva Esperanza.
“We applied for substantially more than what we were awarded so we’re still in the process of figuring out what we can do to maximize the investment of $150,000,” Huntley said.
Huntley said he and other members of Nueva Esperanza are very appreciative for the ARPA funding and have had about four meetings to talk about what they will be targeting with the $150,000 they received. The nonprofit is planning on identifying which area of its El Mercado space would benefit most from this funding.
“HVAC has come up as number one, I think it’s safe to say we need to replace and update the really old and marginally functional HVAC so that’ll be the first thing we’ve come to an agreement on,” Huntley shared.
He added there are other areas of “cleaning up” they want to target as well that will help refresh and improve the overall nature of the space. He added the goal is to make the space a cultural hub and a focus of the nonprofit will continue to be arts and culture.
Huntley spoke about Fiestas Patronales and the Beyond Walls art murals series as projects Nueva Esperanza has been involved with this year in bringing arts and culture around for the public to see and celebrate. He added Nueva Esperanza invested $24,000 of its own money to make sure the art mural project was a success.
Executive Director of Nueva Esperanza Kayla Rodriguez also spoke to the committee about the organization’s work, and how the ARPA funding will benefit the nonprofit. Rodriguez added the city of Holyoke’s Office of Planning and Economic Development created the Corazon project, or the Heart of Holyoke, and Nueva Esperanza has been working alongside the initiative.
“It targets Main Street but, we’re also expanding a little bit with this project so the arts and cultural is not just done there, it’s all Holyoke, but we are very invested in the arts and cultural. Not just with the murals but with beautifying the city and bringing in a lot of events and cultural events,” Rodriguez said.
The order, filed by Ward 2 Councilor Will Puello, sought to bring forward the nonprofit to present its plan with the ARPA funding. Puello said he was hoping for a more specific presentation related to the $150,000 in ARPA for the El Mercado renovations.
Puello added he believed it would be helpful for some kind of specific overview relating to the funding even though he shared positive sentiments about the work the organization does in the community. He also added that the Nueva Esperanza was originally seeking just over $1 million for projects so, he was looking to understand the scope of what the organization was looking through for needed projects.
“If they didn’t get the million they want I hope we’re not going to just gonna go out and find things to spend the [$150,000] on because we have to,” Puello added.
Huntley responded saying they don’t have more specific information outside of the HVAC idea yet as they are still figuring out the best approach to spending the money.
“We had a plan for something around a million dollars and we got $150,000, so we’re trying to effectively look at the building, efficiently look at other sources and other opportunities to see if there’s ways that we can leverage, but we don’t have anything that we can talk about publicly,” Huntley said.
He added they were happy to come back at a later time to talk about further plans. Huntley then asked Puello that since he mentioned other groups on the receiving end of ARPA funding, why were there no other recipients on the agenda.
“I wonder if they’re coming to another meeting or what the intention of just Nueva is coming and being the only organization called out for ARPA resources to ask where the money’s going in a very premature part [of the process]. We don’t have to commit the money until Jan. 1, and it’s Sept. 25 so we shouldn’t be rushing to have all the answers today. We should be taking our time and we should be looking at other opportunities. That’s the responsible approach in my humble opinion and that’s what we’re doing,” Huntley said.
At-Large Councilor Israel Rivera agreed with Huntley’s point on feeling singled out, and said he had no issue with these invites on ARPA project updates as long as it was consistent across the board and for everyone.
“Hopefully they’re able to use the [$150,000] to leverage other funding that can help meet the goals that they’re trying to meet, and hopefully you can put an HVAC system or something that can help out and get things going and moving forward,” Rivera said. “Nueva is not a new organization, they’re not new to Holyoke. They’ve been in Holyoke for at least 30 years I would say [Nueva Esperanza was founded in 1982], and they’ve been fighting and doing the same stuff for decades now.”
Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley said he felt Puello’s order was standard.
“Everything is not a conspiracy, ok? Everything is not a gotcha. Any councilor at any time has every right to file any order relative to the city of Holyoke,” Bartley said.
Puello added he was not trying to instigate any issues or single out Nueva Esperanza as he was just looking to get a clearer idea of how the ARPA funding was going to be spent through conversation. At-Large Councilor Tessa Murphy-Romboletti added with the amount of oversight on the federal funding, she had trust in the process and was looking forward to what Nueva Esperanza does with the funding.