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Date: 11/9/2021
WESTFIELD — Two days after last week’s city election, Mayor Donald Humason Jr. was organizing clippings in his office. He is working on two scrapbooks, one for himself, and one for incoming Mayor Michael McCabe.
Humason said he has made a scrapbook for every year of public service since he was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 2003, including his later service as a state senator and now mayor. He started making political scrapbooks two years before that, for state Sen. Michael Knapik, when serving as the Westfield senator’s aide. Now he is also questioning why he is making them, and in the future, will they be important.
As an example, he pointed to an old scrapbook his staff had recently uncovered in the office from the mid-1960s, and are thinking about giving to the Westfield Athenaeum archives. In 1967 through 1969, most of the clipped stories are about a long, heated debate in the City Council over the cost and need for a new high school in Westfield. Humason said the current high school was built in the 1970s.
Today’s scrapbooks echo the same themes. The city is now planning a new elementary school to replace Abner Gibbs and Franklin Avenue schools.
Humason said he was proud of the role he played in planning for the elementary school, which has gone smoothly, with no lawsuits and no eminent domain takings. The city was able to buy two abutting properties which will allow it to orient the school to Franklin Street, and have a large grounds for playing fields and recreational areas for the students.
“I actually went to one of the owner’s homes at 129 Franklin St., and he told me he had just sold it,” Humason said. When the purchaser backed out, the owner of the other house called him and the superintendent, and they were able to buy both houses.
During the process, Humason said they discovered that an additional triangular parcel in the back was owned by the state and the National Guard, which will be selling it to the city.
“I’m really proud of that. It’s good; it’s nice to have a nice process,” Humason said. He also learned during the process that the state may be looking to dispose of the Westfield Armory as surplus property. He said that would be a great piece of real estate for the city, with the garaging and fences already in place.
“Now that I’m leaving, hopefully the new mayor will be interested,” he added, saying that it would first be offered to other state agencies, then to the city, then other cities, then to the private sector. It’s “one of the things I hoped would happen while I was mayor.”
Humason said when he first became mayor, he and Community Development Director Peter Miller were meeting with a bunch of people and businesses that were interested in relocating to the city. Then, by March 16, 2020, interest dried up and there were no more phone calls.
“The pandemic took a lot of our attention away,” he said, adding that the calls picked up again almost immediately this spring, as COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed.
One example is the Westfield Data Center. The developers first looked at Westfield as a location before the shutdown. Humason said he and Miller then met with them in April of this year, and his administration pushed for a better deal, but the city was not going to get it. “Immediately, they will be the biggest taxpayer,” he said, adding that most of the talk about a better deal – something his opponent mentioned on the campaign trail – was “political blustering.”
“He [McCabe] is going to be very happy as a new mayor when he cashes the tax checks,” Humason said, adding, “I was also happy about what we weren’t going to get – traffic, pollution and noise.”
Humason said the deal could still fail, but he thinks the odds are looking pretty good.
“In the end, people are going to be extremely pleased with how it looks. I’m cautiously optimistic, but extremely hopeful,” he said.
In the next two months before the new mayor takes office in January 2022, Humason will proceed with developing plans to spend the $8.5 million in federal American Recovery Plan Act funds that have already been received by the city. He said another $8.5 million will be delivered next year, under McCabe’s watch.
Humason’s ARPA list includes infrastructure, downtown community development, and merit pay for first responders.
“That will happen, too,” he said, adding, “There’s a lot to do in two months. The things we’re doing, we’re doing for the city. He [McCabe] will have his own ARPA money, too.”
Humason said he first ran on the theme, “We are open for business.” He said he is concerned that all of the negative talk at the City Council will put off businesses, which he said are listening to what political leaders say.
“In 2021, people are more highly opinionated than ever before, much louder and less informed,” Humason said, expressing his frustration on another theme from his two years as mayor, how much harder it is to communicate given the fragmented ways in which people get their information.
Last Tuesday’s vote as Humason’s first electoral defeat after running in elections at least once every two years for the past two decades. He said he is taking the loss in stride, and thinks some of his longtime supporters were more affected by it than he was.
“Part of it is the timing,” he said, adding that he believes they will be leaving the city “in better shape for the taxpayers who live and work and play here.”
Humason said he’s glad that he ran for mayor at the end of his time in public service, instead of at the beginning.
“By the time I got to this job, I felt more mature,” he said, adding he was able to come up to speed within two years on a lot of issues.
Now, two years later, it didn’t work out and he didn’t get another term.
“Still, when I look back on these two years, the fact that we did a lot makes me feel better about leaving. So I can look back on a career not just in Westfield, but in Boston, and say, that’s pretty good.”
At 55, he said he’s not done yet, but he’s not sure what’s next, or whether elected office will be in his future again.
“I’m keeping my options open. I take a lot of pride in honor and character,” he said, adding, “I’ll take that with me.”