The Holyoke City Council returns to the chambers next Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 7 pm, then again on Sept. 18, also a Wednesday.

The council meetings were moved — temporarily — from Tuesdays to Wednesdays because of the Sept. 3 primaries, which fall on a Tuesday. Voting will take place across the city. Here are the locations, depending on where registered residents live.

The city is also looking for poll workers and wardens to staff the poll stations. The poll workers positions pay $75 per shift; the wardens $100 per shift. More information here.

As the city prepares for the  autumn season, a lot of other major events are going on:

• The School Committee, with its Local Control Subcommittee, is working toward taking charge of the Holyoke Public Schools.
• Ward 1 and Ward 4 School Committee positions have opened up due to unexpected vacancies. Interested persons may apply for an interim appointment by sending an email to personnel@Holyoke.org or sending a letter to:City of Holyoke Personnel Office
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• The Department of Public Works is worrking on creating a Request for Proposals to fix sewage flowing into the Connecticut River.
• A search committee has been set up to hire a new police chief.
• Another will be set up to hire a Superintendent of Schools.

NEW POLICE CHIEF

The job description states: “As a city leader, the Police Chief will be a collaborative, transformational leader with proven executive experience, strong interpersonal and communication skills, and a core belief in customer service. The ideal candidate must be a reform-minded leader with an emphasis on procedural justice, restorative justice, and community trust. The Chief must work to build trust by constantly seeking to improve the policing model. The Chief must be able to respond effectively and with sensitivity to concerns raised by the public.”

This week the Police Search Committee held a public meeting for the public to give feedback on what people want in a police chief.

Appointed to the Search Committee by Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. García are Kelly Curran, the City’s Personnel Director, Ward 1 City Councilor Jenny Rivera (chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee), Holyoke Police Sargent Joseph Zurheide, Narcotics Intervention Officer Detective Dorothy Beben, Community Police Officer Josh Colón and citizen participants — all members of the Police Relations Committee — Axel Fontañez, retired Holyoke Police Captain Alan Fletcher, Quilana Rivera, Colleen Chesmore, Rosanna López, and Jennifer Keitt.

Among the concerns and suggestions the public presented to the committee in person and online at the meeting held at the  Holyoke Media Studio:

• Community policing
• A monthly chat with Holyoke Media to show on social media
• Less information on the Police Department’s Facebook page about arrests because usually those arrested are Black or Brown people
• Improved communication with public at large
• A vision of leadership for years to come instead of a 3-year appointment that culminates with the retirements of the police chiefs, as has happened for the last two chiefs.

Severak City Councilors were present: Patti Devine, Meg MaGrath-Smith, Kocayne Givner, Jenny Rivera (who is on the search committee) and City Councilor Israel Rivera.

“What are we doing to build towards improving our organizational structure, our infrastructure,” asked Isarel Rivera. “And one of the main things for me is culture. And within the culture, it seems like it’s divided within the officers, within themselves. Whoever the next person is needs to have, an … attitude that can bring people together. ”

A resident suggested that someone from outside the Police Department would be best, adding, “I’d also like to see a reform-minded individual. I’ve lived here for 36 years. I served on the Northampton Police Department for 30 years. Within the last eight years or so, I’ve been, calling the police for service and have been generally unsatisfied with the performance.”

Another resident, longtime community advocate Theresa Cooper Gordon, recommended that the candidates read the audit of the strengths and weaknesses within the department that was done two years ago and present their plans of action should they be hired.

“I think that if we work on having somebody read that audit before we even talk about hiring all the people who come, they should read that audit, and they should be able to tell us with things that are in those audits, what they would do in terms of making those changes,” she said.

City Councilor Patti Devine said: “They have a tough job to do and we need to give them the skills. We need to give them the equipment. We need to give them the training and we need to support them. And I don’t know that we always do that. I would like to see a police chief that is if it’s from within that it’s at least a captain, preferably bilingual.”

Advising the committee is Russ Stevens, who holds a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a Bachelor’s in Communication and a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigations National Academy and is currently the President of the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission.

Stevens said the search will take approximately two months and Curran said there will be public interviews with the final tjhree candidates. Stevens added that if a good candidate is not found, the search will continue.

HOLYOKE SCHOOLS

On Aug. 19, 2024, the School Committee voted unanimously to adopt a Capacity Building Plan to move forward in taking responsibility for the Holyoke Public Schools.

The plan details “steps and timelines to ensure the district’s elected board is well prepared to assume its role in four major areas of school district governance when receivership is ultimately ended.”

The four areas are:

• Superintendent evaluation (with a focus on continuous improvement and collaboration)

• Superintendent hiring

• Finance and budget

• Policy development

The plan can be viewed here.

According to the timeline, “The School Committee’s next step over the coming two months is to recruit community members willing to serve on a Community Advisory Team, which will officially begin its work in November. The Community Advisory Team will support the School Committee’s planning and implementation of the Superintendent hiring and evaluation processes, as well as ensure robust stakeholder engagement with the continuous improvement of HPS.”

THE SEWAGE PROBLEM
Raw sewage going into the Connecticut River is a problem so huge that the federal government fined the city millions of dollars last year. This year, City Council Michael Sullivan, Board of Public Works Chair Mary Monhan and other experts were appointed to forma committee to set in motion resolving catastrophic environmental damage caused by raw sewage going into the river.

Not only that, which alone is a crisis,  but even Holyoke’s, own Holyoke Rows is forced to cancel rowing on days when the river is flowing high with sewage.

The Finance Committee’s Chair, City Councilor Patti Devine, put a DPW request for $250,000 at the top of her agenda as an urgent matter when the full City Council the week before held an extended discussion on whether to fund that amount of money to pay for lawyers and engineering experts to help the city draw up the Request for Proposal.

The city calculates it will cost some $180 million to create a permanent fix to the decades-old problem.