A proposal to make the position of city Treasurer an appointed position rather than an elected one was debated first in the council’s Charter & Rules Committee, and then again with the entire council having opportunities to opine on how that change can occur, and who would appoint the Treasurer: the council or the mayor?

Additionally, the council discussed the creation of a new position, a Chief Administrator Financial Officer. This position would be supervisory to the Treasurer and Tax Auditor, who is appointed.

The different roles of each position and who appoints who was a large part of the conversaation among councilors.

City Councilor Keven Jourdain advocated that voters decide whether to make the position an appointment.

“I would strongly encourage that whatever changes we do do, they are voted in by the public because this current Treasurer position and this current charter was created by a vote of the people. All right. So to take that power away from the people, the public should be doing that, right?”

Added City Councilor Israel Rivera: “I’m not trying to refer back to the power dynamic thing. I’m just saying like it’s not that we’re losing power in a sense of the council, even though we kind of are. But ultimately it’s to me it’s just how do we hire someone that someone else is supposed to oversee if we’re not the ones that are technically overseeing them?”

Another point Jourdain raised is that there not a legal form yet for councilors to vote on, meaning the city’s Solicitor, or Law Department, must first craft the legalese on this matter.

And City Councilor David Bartley said: “Right now, the mayor is the CAFO (Chief Administrative Financial Officer). The mayor oversees the treasurer, the assessor, everybody else. And that’s the system that’s going to work. Now we’re just going to add another layer in between the mayor and the financial team. So if you can picture that, I think I think it would make a lot of sense. Furthermore, the mayor right now is the chief administrative officer.”

City Councilor Meg McGrath-Smith, who is chair of the Charters & Rules Committee from which this proposal emerged, read the legal language that the Law Department provided them:

“Ballot question number one: shall an act passed by the General Court in the year 2023 entitled An Act establishing an appointed Treasurer be accepted, Yes or No? Summary of Question of Question one. This Act proposes to change the City Treasurer from an elected position to an appointed position. The appointment will be made by the Mayor with City Council confirmation for a term not to exceed three years and the qualifications may be established by ordinance. If accepted, the Treasurer elected in the 20 2023 election will fill the vacancy in the office. The remaining two years and in charge will be reappointed or appointed to the position following the expiration of that term in January 2026 or sooner if the office is vacated by voting no, the position of Treasurer shall remain an elected position.”

Councilor Linda Vacon, who is part of the Charter & Rules Committee that voted on bringing the proposal to the full City Council, said: “Final problem that we have is that after the 2 to 1 vote approved all the amendments to the language in the last vote and the total recommendation to the council, it failed on a21 vote. So therefore, we did not get updated legal language before us tonight. So we have to go back and we have to come to some agreement on some language in the committee to then request legal to update the legal form for council to review at least 48 hours before our next meeting. That’s just procedurally where we’re at.”

In the end, a majority of councilors voted to send the proposal back to committee.

Said City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, referencing that debates that can be settled in commitee often go before the full council, only to be sent back to the committee: “I hope everyone comes to Charter & Rules.”

Lyn Horan, vice chair of Commission on Disabilities

At the beginning of the meeting, during Public Comment, Lyn Horan, vice chair of the city’s Commission on Disabilities, spoke about people with disabilities.

“And yes, I’m here to recognize Don Welsh and his 21 years of commitment to the Commission on Disabilities. Unfortunately, he could not be here because he is a man truly going to retire after many years of commitment and is currently out of town. But we wanted to make sure that his work did not go pass by.

So we thank the mayor’s office and the City council for allowing us to do this recognition and gratitude of his 21 plus years for our commission. And I would also like to take this opportunity, in addition to talk about the Commission on Disabilities, that we are here. We are here to take as many advocacy groups do. We walk on and forge forward on the backs of those that are our predecessors, like Don and we are hoping to do even more outreach to those disabled residents of Holyoke.

“And I would like to say to that unknown to many people in our community, even in the country, according to the CDC and the World Health Organization, we are the largest marginalized group in the world and we are the most diverse. And that is largely in part due to discriminatory activities that happen as well, and that is relevant to Holyoke and Hampden County. e have one of the largest populations of disabled people, and so it’s a really worthy commission and we are currently in need of members. So I would like to urge anybody who is either disabled, a caretaker of a disabled person or interested or works within this field to please contact the mayor who does the appointing process. It’s a wonderful commission to get into and a great way to participate.

“And I also would like to take and remind folks that we are one of many, many commissions and boards of volunteer hours, largely in this city, that help to make this city run and are absolutely beneficial to the hard work that all our city councilors, by the way, do here as well. So please contact us. Please consider how you can participate in making our city a continued better place to live.”

You can reach members of the Commission of Disabilities here.

The full City Council meeting can be viewed here.

The agenda nd documents that City Councilors receive prior to the meeting can be read here.