Councilor Israel Rivera spoke up for former felons, like himself, to spotlight that this group of people face challenges and are sometimes treated as if they were the same person who broke the law in the first place, frozen in time. To be branded a former felon is to close opportunities to people who have served time for breaking the law, he said during a lively conversation among members of the Public Service Committee chaired by Councilor Peter Tallman.

“I have a criminal record and there are a variety of people within the community that I know in Holyoke have criminal records,” said Rivera. The issue surfaced because of news out of Florida.

From the Brennan Center for Justice: “In November 2018, nearly 65 percent of Flor­ida voters approved Amend­ment 4, a constitutional amendment that auto­mat­ic­ally restored voting rights to most Floridians with past convictions who had completed the terms of their sentence. Shortly thereafter, in June 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 7066 into law, prohib­it­ing return­ing citizens from voting unless they pay off certain legal finan­cial oblig­a­tions (LFOs) imposed by a court pursu­ant to a felony convic­tion.”

“So I kind of felt like it was only right for us as a community to try to show where we stand with regards to this and what’s going on mostly because  hopefully my colleagues could support me, a fellow ex-felon. That’s one piece but the other piece is this there is a larger community than we believe that  people have gone through the prison system and now have changed their lives and are doing positive within the community and that’s what we should be speaking out for the community and for us and the other piece is this is it feels like it it’s becoming more of a scare tactic to not encourage people with criminal records to vote a lot of people in the community of Holyoke.”

The entire Public Service Committee meeting can be heard/viewed here.

The Finance Committee also met and discussed the PILOT program in which non-profits — exempt from paying property taxes — pay something to the city considering that these organizations do rely on city services including trash pickup, policing, and the fire department, among others.

Said Councilor David Bartley, who introduced the order so that the Finance Committee take up the matter: “My order really asked for something pretty straightforward and when you see what’s put together in your packet (additional documents councilors are given before the public meeting) it almost appears as all what my order cause was a mini fire drill so we have it took us a moment or two to get this information.”

PILOT stands for Payments In Lieu Of Taxes and they are agreements that help communities recoup lost revenue that is a result of state property tax exemptions, according to the commonwealth’s web page with more information on this topic here.

First, he said, the City Council does not negotiate PILOT participation nor monetary commitments from non-profits, be they large like Holyoke Community College and ISO New England or a small church.

“Are we collecting what’s due or flying by the seat of our pants?” Bartley said.

The complete Finance Committee meeting can be seen/heard here.