DEVELOPMENT & GOVERNMENT RELATIONS COMMITTEE

Alicia Zoeller Zoeller, administrator of the Office for Community Development, met with the City Council’s Development and Governmental Relations Relations Committee on March 12 to go over funds the city will receive from the federal government and where to distribute them.

Called Community Development Block Grants, the money is amassed by taxpayers and then returned to communities to provide “annual grants on a formula basis to states, cities, and counties to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment, and by expanding economic opportunities, principally for low- and moderate-income persons,” according to the federal Housing and Urban Development, which managed CDBG funds.

“We are here to work together to develop your recommendations to the mayor for this year,” said Zoeller. “The spreadsheet is broken into three parts. We have our non-public service proposals and those are conferences, demolition, housing proposals, public facilities and infrastructure and the total of requests is over $3.3 million. In this category, there is $799,595 to allocate.”

The complete list of budgetary suggestions from the Office for Community Development, the Citizens Advisory Committee and the mayor can be viewed here.

“The next category of proposals is our public services. Those are broken into public services for you elderly, handicapped, employment and education and the general social services.”

The estimated total is $184,522 for those services.

For grants directed at the administration and planning of activities associated with the community and waterfront program, HUD limits the amount that the city can receive to $246,029.

“At this point, you’ve probably seen that the average 2024 federal budget, the budget that would have been set by the federal government last September has not been finalized. And so we don’t have our final word yet from HUD. We have estimates from our advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. that it will probably be level-funded,” she said.

“So for the purposes of tonight, we’re going to assume that it’s level-funded at a CDGB award of 1.2 million, $1,230,146. Should that amount change, then there would just be a percentage change for each one of the projects that the mayor would allocate funding to. I know we have some new councilors on the committee tonight. So briefly, the purpose of tonight’s meeting is to provide another level of community review and response to the mayor on making those funding recommendations.”

The disbursement of funds to the city has gone through three rounds of review thus far: the Office for Community Development, the Citizens Advisory Committee and Mayor Joshua García. The DGR committee is the fourth round. And the City Council will take a vote at its next meeting, March 19.

The DGR committee agreed with the mayor’s assessment that $88,705 be used to demolish buildings that pose a risk to passersby — and the homeless, City Councilor Carmen Ocasio noted — because they are deteriorating. Once gone, the land can be used to develop housing or businesses.

“This city is still in dire need of an accelerated plan of blight remediation and also every year, every single year, we come across instances again, emergencies where stuff has to be done right away,” said City Councilor Michael Sullivan.

The DGR committee also voted for $55,000 go to the Fire Department for preventative actions.

” They come out to homes, they walk through your house, they replace all the fire detectors. They put in, you know, the dual fire carbon detectors. It’s a free program for Holyoke residents and homeowners. And I think it’s an excellent (item) that needs to be funded,” said City Councilor and DGR Chair Kocayne Givner.

The item from Holyoke Public Schools that the city allocate $788,000 to transform the playgrounds at McMahon and Morgan into inclusive spaces was advocated strongly by Councilor Ocasio, who is a volunteer who walks children to Morgan every day.

“The playground is literally falling apart,” she said. “I’ve been there and I see it.”

Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos agreed, saying the situation is “dangerous.”

Said Councilor Sullivan: “The schools remain under state receivership. They have a budget of $150 million … it’s significant. Significant. So, you know, they should be doing this stuff in their normal budget and why something in their budget was allowed to deteriorate like Councilor Ocasio says, I don’t get it.”

Full funding was approved by the first three (mayor, Office for Community Development and Citizens Advisory Committee) for:

• $5000 for Holyoke Safe Neighborhood Back to School event
• $15,000 for Homework House After School Tutoring and Mentoring
• $20,000 for WesternMass Eldercare meal delivery
• $20,000 for Holyoke Boys & Girls Club Public Housing Youth Programs

The Holyoke Police Department did not receive support from Community Development nor Citizens Advisory Committee for $30,000 for its Race Street Community Drop-In Center. The center partners with social services to help people addicted to substances get help to recover. The mayor did approve it, however.

Alianza, which helps people in violent domestic partnerships, requested $16,000, but did not receive a recommendation from Community Development.

The final decision will be made by the mayor in May.

For a complete list of the proposals by organizations and departments that requested funds, click here.

ORDINANCE COMMITTEE

A proposal by Councilors Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, Kevin Jourdain and Israel Rivera for a new position be created within the Holyoke Police Department received unanimous support from the committee.

The person in the new crime analyst position would, according to the proposal:

• Perform strategic analysis which includes but is not limited to,
  identifying and recommending proactive measures to implement long
  range plans for crime prevention; research to identify crime patterns;
  implement procedure related to computerized mapping and analysis;
  develop strategy to address problem areas; provide analysis to Police
  Department Personnel, City Administration and City Council for
  decision making purposes; and collect, analyze, interpret and prepare
  police data to evaluate police deployment, responses, and problem
  solving efforts.
• Perform tactical analysis which includes but is not limited to, provide
  accurate, timely and relevant analysis of crime patters to aid in the
  efficient deployment of department resources; identify crime patterns
  and offender localities for investigative purposes; analyze known
  officers MO’s and establish timelines to perform suspect/crime
  correlations in order to provide suspect leads; identify crime areas and
  hot spots and prepare action plan for suppression; and provide case
  support.
  Perform intelligence analysis which includes but is not limited to,
  develop a system to identify, document, and track potential threatening
  individuals, situations, and security related cases; coordinate exchange
  of interstate and intrastate information relating to criminal activity and
  criminal movement, determine structure and operation of organized
  criminal groups; establish network of internal and external sources and
  contacts in order to identify criminal trends and conduct intelligence
  analysis.

Next stop for this proposal is for a review and debate by the full City Council.

Also, the director of the Department of Public Works Carl Rossi requested that the salary for City Engineer be raised in order to draw more candidates, who, when one is hired, would not be pouched from another city that pays more money

“It’s been very difficult to move forward with our work in the engineering department,” said Rossi.

The committee voted to ask the City Solicitor’s office to create legal language to make the salary an city ordinance. Currently, the position of City Engineer is part of a union. But the charter allows the City Council to take over the position’s salary.

Rossi asked how long is that process going to take and Councilor and Ordinance Committee Chair Israel Rivera said it could come back to the committee at its next meeting in two weeks. At this time, the language will be reviewed and maybe debated. If the Ordinance Committee agrees, it will be pushed up to the following City Council meeting for more debate and possibly a vote.

Rossi informed the committee that he has a candidate right now and wants to know what can be offered. But the wheels of democracy move at their own pace so an answer will not be available for a least a month — next Ordinance Committee meeting is on March 27. The City Council meeting for April has not been officially posted.

The new salary would increase from $102,000 to $112,000 annually, according to Mayor Joshua García.

Another proposal to create a position, that of Chief Administrative and Financial Officer, was sent to the City Solicitor’s office to create language for the position. The requirements of the job position can be reviewed here.

The full set of documents related to this specific Ordinance Committee can be reviewed here.

The full video recording of the meeting is here.