Council Tables Program to Fund City Improvements Again
The City Council on Feb. 20 voted to table again the ballot question of whether to continue to support an approximate $40 a year fee — based on median value of residences of about $240,000 — to support the city’s Community Preservation Act program that enables Holyoke to improve or expand open space, fund historic preservation, community housing, and outdoor recreation projects.
In an unusual proceeding, a city councilor, David Bartley, responded directly to residents who implored the council to be factual and more detailed about the CPA ballot question.
The meeting started with public comment, now always at the top of every City Council meeting. The public comment at the top of every meeting was made possible by City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, who led the class of 2024 city councilors to listen to the public first rather than have public comment remain a floating agenda item where residents sometimes would have a wait more than an hour to state their views.
Up first was Daphne Board, who spoke in favor of the Community Preservation Act program, saying she was against lowering the 1.5 percent surcharge to 1 percent.
“I watched the last Council meeting and heard a lot of misinformation and manipulation of numbers, and frankly, this brought me right back to the outright lies printed on mailers from the ‘No on 5/ anti-CPA committee.’ Back in October 2016, voters were lied to about the automatic exemption of $100,000 in property value and were told ‘there are no automatic exemptions. You must apply every year.’ This was on the mailer. On their website, town[s] are told they get matching funds from the State CPA Coalition, but the State’s share drops over the mandatory 5-year period.” This is also not true, yet it’s still on the website along with “agenda 21″ conspiracy theories and a slam against more “low-income housing.”
“Two weeks ago, a Councilor here misrepresented how much we get for CPA and where it actually comes from. The amount that we collect locally hasn’t doubled in five years. This Councilor took the 2018 local amount only and compared it to last year and said it had “doubled” because of property values rising. Not accurate. The state match added a lot to the amount we collect. Shouldn’t we be happy that the state gave us almost $220,000 last year for being part of this program? Isn’t that why we’re in this? Why manipulate those numbers?”
City Councilor David Bartley
Councilor Bartley responded to Board’s comments, saying: “What the prior speaker just said is that the Law Department who reviews all the ballot questions and writes the ballot questions lied.”
City Councilor President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, who, under the rules of the council, must acknowledge when a councilor speaks up and says, “point of order,” reminded Bartley: “We don’t usually respond to public comment.”
Next on the CPA topic was resident Linda Pratt.
“At the last full city council meeting, the following statement was made relative to the Community Preservation Act. And I quote: ‘When this started it collected approximately $450,000 a year. Through no change in the percentage, the amount collected has now doubled in that period of time. Not because the percentage has increased but because the values of the homes have increased.’
Pratt continued: “Actually, according to the state website, communitypreservation.org, the amount that Holyoke taxpayers contributed to the CPA was $497,814 in 2018, so a good bit more than $450,000. In 2023 that amount rose to $592,314. This is a difference of less than $100,000 that can be attributed to rising property values. The additional funding has come from the state.“Have our property taxes gone up due to increased values? Absolutely. But the amount collected through the CPA surcharge has in no way doubled.Councilors, if you are going to put this question on the ballot, please be sure that the public has accurate information. Thank you.”
Nathan Chung asked the council to put detailed financial information on the ballot question.
“Please put some actual numbers because the public’s not going to understand the long language – I mean I don’t understand it; I had to dig through,” he said. Gleaning Census data, Chung said that since the median home value for Holyoke is $236,800, the CPA formula would result in an annual fee of $39 per year if the 1.5 percent surcharge prevails. If lowered to 1 percent, the amount would be $26 a year.“Can you please put this on the ballot so people know what they’re saving?” he asked. Here is the surcharge formula Chung spoke about.
Bartley again asked for a point of order to say: “It’s incredible to me the rhetoric that goes on here. It’s the law department — and this is you know, you could clarify this for them (in reference to Council President Murphy-Romboletti) — it’s a Law Department that writes a ballot question, it’s a Law Department that puts together the summary so folks could focus their attention on a Law Department instead of casting aspersions at this body. I mean these conspiracy theories are lunacy. Call the Law Department.”
According to the Rules and Orders of the Holyoke City Council, updated on Feb. 6, 2024, and made available to Holyoke Media by City Councilor Patricia Devine, who has previously spoken up as a resident about disrespectful debates, states that under the category of “Decorum/Speaking: No member in debate shall make any references to another member or member of the general public but in respectful terms.”
At the end of the hour or so debate among councilors, the ballot question was tabled and will be brought up again at the next City Council meeting on March 6. The agenda is pending. If approved by the council, the ballot question would be included in the presidential elections this November.
