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Date: 3/1/2023
SPRINGFIELD — Focus Springfield recently produced interviews with the new Vice President of the City Council, Melvin Edwards, and the new Vice Chair of the School Committee, LaTonia Naylor.
The two, who are the secondary leadership for the two bodies, explained their positions on several topics, including the recent effort by the School Committee to ask for funding for the Gerena School and the push at the City Council for a resolution asking Mayor Domenic Sarno to eliminate the trash fee for this year.
Naylor said the city should learn this spring if it has returned to the second largest school in the commonwealth — jockeying for the position with Worcester. She said that even though in size the district is second only to Boston’s district in many issues Springfield has been No. 1 and a leader.
“We’re the first to have universal pre-school for our pre-K three and pre-K four. We’re the first to have art and music assigned to all the schools and we were the first to have all of our technology before COVID-[19],” she said.
Naylor added, “Boston may have us in size but they definitely don’t’ when it comes to creativity and strategy and a lot of that has come because of the fact we’ve always had limited resources. When you look at Boston, they have more money than they even think about using and most of the time it’s a mismanagement of funds that you hear about when it comes to them.”
Although in the past the district has had to deal with a deficit, she explained that with state and federal program, the Springfield district is doing well, but remains creative in how it spends those funds to assist the educational process.
In the district, the graduation rate has greatly improved while the drop-out rate and the number of suspensions and arrests have greatly decreased, she added. Naylor added the School Committee took “a hard look” at the suspension polices, recognizing that a student being suspended may not come back to school. The policies were changed.
Although there remains challenges, Naylor said, “What I walked into five years ago and what I’m looking at now is not the same situation. It’s a much better situation.”
She explained the implementation of the Empower Zone — which includes most of the city’s middle schools and the High School of Commerce – was a strategy to allow administrators and teachers at those schools to have greater autonomy to make decisions and spending funds. It prevented a takeover of those schools by the commonwealth as it did in Holyoke.
The School Committee recently voted to send letters of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) concerning the installation of the HVAC units at the Gerena School as well as a review and build-out of its pod classrooms, as well as the replacement of the White Street School (built in 1908) and the Washington School (built in 1918).
The committee also voted to make the repairs to the Gerena School as the district’s number one priority.
“If it was up to me White Street would have been number one because that’s where my kids went,” she said. “But I absolutely understood the need for Gerena.”
While learning success just doesn’t hinge on the building, she explained that modern buildings with new technology certainly help students, she said. Older buildings can “put a lot of hardship” on principals, she added.
Gerena has had serious issues with mold and Naylor said, “Well I’ll tell you; we want to be able to get the new building, period. That building, it’s constantly putting Band-Aids on issues to make sure it’s safe enough for people to be in at this point.”
The HVAC request was part of those Band-Aids, she said.
She continued, “We had two votes on that day about Gerena. One was around the HVAC system but the other part of it was can we get a new building. And if they [MSBA] prefer us to get a new building, which they may say, we’d rather get the building.”
The committee is committed to the safety of that building, she added. Although White Street School and Washington Schools are old, they are safe buildings, unlike Gerena, Naylor said.
Melvin Edwards
Edwards, the representative on the City Council for Ward 3, is one of the original ward councilors who was elected to the council after a charter change established the combination of ward and at-large members.
He was recently elected as the vice president of the council. Edwards has been in the forefront of fighting litter and trash in the city through his Keep Springfield Beautiful group, an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful for the past 15 years. He is president of the group.
Coming up will be a one-day event, which is part of The Great American Clean-up, that the Springfield group has been doing for more than a decade, Edwards said. He explained his group supplies gloves and trash bags to all 17 neighborhoods in the city and is working with the DPW as well as the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department removing the trash gathered that day.
The group is planning this year’s clean-up on Earth Day, April 22. “It’s being socially responsible, environmentally responsible,” he added. “There’s nothing controversial about picking up trash.”
Edwards, who along with Michael Fenton and Tim Allen are the three remaining ward councilors, believes each of the ward councilors work for the entire city not just their ward, as critics of the new system of government once said. “When we step into the chamber our concerns are for the taxpayers, for the entire city,” he added.
“The ward I came from had not had a councilor for 50 years by the time I got elected,” he noted. His neighborhood had been “chronically underserved.”
Edwards voted against the recent resolution from the council to eliminate the trash fee for one year in order to try to help the city’s residents. “First of all, let me say I voted against it. I was comfortable in my vote and the reason that I got to my vote was I read the charter ... the powers of the mayor are the ones that can actually suspend it. We can’t do it.”
“Nobody in the city of Springfield is losing their house because of a $90 trash fee. Any senior is paying $60,” Edwards made it clear, though he “believes the trash fee should go away.” He explained that Mayor Domenic Sarno had run during his first campaign for mayor with the removal of the trash fee as part of his platform. After 16 years in office, Sarno has not yet eliminated the fee.
Edwards said, “The city has enough money now to do that but I thought the vehicle to get to that point that it’s gone shouldn’t have been done in the format that was presented to the council either as an order which we are not legally authorized to do.”
He believes councilors should have met with the mayor and the head of the DPW to discuss it, rather than try to impose a change upon them.
Like several other members of the council, Edwards is not happy with the way MGM Springfield hasn’t fulfilled the obligations spelled out in the host community agreement. MGM Resorts International Bill Hornbuckle recently came to the city and said the casino giant had underestimated the value of market for the Springfield casino.
He added the design of the casino designed to “stimulate the other side of the street,” those commercial buildings near the casino that do not have tenants or new development.
“They miscalculated and that’s not my job to find excuses why they miscalculated. When the amenities are not even open, that’s business decision that has been made internally and that’s not acceptable,” he said.
He knows how difficult it is at this time to hire people, but he is critical of MGM Springfield’s post-construction employment numbers. “Am I satisfied? Have they lived up to their obligations? No.”