July 2026

Hi, happy Disability Pride Month!

This has been a season with pronounced effects of climate change. We’ve had a month of poor air quality from wildfire smoke, which has picked up from fires in Oregon just two weeks after the worst impacts of the fires in Canada subsided. Just as cities operate cooling centers for heat emergencies, we should seek to expand the practice to include air quality crises, along with public distribution of PPE (such as N95 masks) for those who need it.

As I write this section of the newsletter, all of Western Mass is under flood watch after an unusual summer nor’easter. As we continue to risk flooding across parts of the city (particularly in Bay State Village, where I live), I’d like to again point out that this is not inevitable: we cannot fix the crisis of climate change in one city alone, but we can better mitigate it with the resources we have. Repairs to the Federal St. culvert and other essential hydrological infrastructure are not reflected in the city’s FY27-32 capital improvement plan (CIP), and longstanding neglect is exacerbating the consequences of both new and existing residential development near wetlands.

It is ironic that Toole Design, the private firm contracted for the Picture Main Street project, presented its 100%-completion design proposal on July 29th after the city received more than 2″ of rain. The presentation — mainly by company representatives, not so much by the city officials who contracted their work — made a formal acknowledgment of the $4M of municipal revenue already allocated to the design process since 2019, as well as the over $12M in expected costs to the city for construction.

The total cost is estimated at over $43M, and state subsidies for the multi-year project are contingent on the Trump administration not illegally impounding funds from states like Massachusetts. With large-scale construction nominally set to begin in spring of 2028 under rapidly deteriorating economic and geopolitical conditions, we should anticipate further increases to the estimated cost. After Mayor Sciarra and her allies campaigned on the promise that this project would not even require municipal funding at all (and alleged that concerns raised by opposition candidates were “misinformation”), this marks an egregious set of lies, and a bait-and-switch of the public as a whole.

Recent council (and other city government) business

• Coca-Cola is closing down by the end of this year, and the state scramble to replace it is heating up. Amid a brutal statewide drought and increasingly unpredictable climate conditions, Rep. Sabadosa and Gov. Healey’s economic development team have called for a replacement company with high rates of water usage, as a means of stabilizing residential water and sewer charges. As WMCP has argued, this reflects the perverse incentives of our state structure: what is best for profits (and tax revenue) is in utter contradiction to what is necessary for human and environmental needs.
  • Though the erstwhile Coca-Cola campus is likely too small for it, this same rationale led to a proposal for a data center in downtown Holyoke. We need to fundamentally shift the burden of funding services onto the massive corporations that are driving the climate crisis, rather than accelerating it at their behest.
• Following up on last month’s newsletter coverage of the NPD’s racist harassment of families swimming at the Mill River, the Mayor’s office and several department heads released a joint statement asserting the city’s policies at the Orange Dam in Leeds.
  • It is the city government’s responsibility, not that of a neighborhood association or other private entity, to commit resources toward maintaining public spaces. NPD should not be acting as a hired gun on behalf of Chartpak or any other private organization. A punitive approach involving a constant police presence pushes recreational activity out of the area and farther from public resources.
    • The legal process for trespassing begins with complaints from property owners, not with police. Though this is NPD’s stated policy, it has not prevented the department from instigating complaints in contravention of state law, such as during December’s Starbucks strike last year and during the racist harassment described in this newsletter last month.
    • Short of introducing the resources described below, this is a nominal role for the Department of Community Care. However, the Department is closed on Sundays and does not operate outside of regular business hours for most weekdays.
  • It is, however, exciting to see an inclination toward formalizing the public nature of these spaces. The resolution to these social problems lies in the actual staples of public safety: attendance by lifeguards; public trash cans; multilingual signage with information on potential hazards, liabilities and emergency contacts; designated areas and implements for small fires; etc. These are resources that make public spaces like Maines Field so vibrant!
• On the subject of Maines Field, a firm contracted by the city held two public consultations on use of the space. I regret not being able to attend either session — I’ll be keeping an eye out for future development plans, and will share details when we have them.
• The override committee (formally the Fiscal Assessment Community Task, or “FACT”, Force) has been expanded to 13 members, with its composition announced publicly at the July 15th city council meeting.
  • The committee lacks representatives of municipal workers and their unions, who — as discussed in previous newsletters — play a decisive role in nearly every override campaign across the state.
  • I am disappointed to be excluded from the committee in place of David Murphy, a representative of the most corrupt and ideologically conservative sectors in our city (see below).
  • Nevertheless, I hope that the involvement of progressive forces will lead to a process of serious negotiation and a legally binding commitment of the prospective override revenue to public schools and services. The Communist Party and Support Our Schools movement will be fighting for representation of workers and their unions in this process, as well as for fiscal transparency in general.
• David Murphy was reappointed to the Board of Assessors, reaffirming a clear conflict of interest in which one of the city’s largest realtors oversees the valuation of property. As with most board appointments, this was placed on the consent agenda and approved without discussion by the general council during its July 15th meeting.
  • Though no such provisions exist for the Board of Assessors, the city charter mandates the inclusion of a Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley nominee on the Historical Commission, and makes similar carveouts for other business interests in other boards and commissions. We should seek to remove these mandates in the 2029 charter review.
• Councilors Loisel and Davis lodged a complaint about meeting minutes, accusing administrative assistant Laura Krutzler of incorporating biased language in the council’s written record.

Recent labor news

• Nearly 5,000 nurses at the Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston went on a one-day strike on July 8th, in the largest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts history. The nurses then faced a four-day lockout due to Mass General Brigham’s contracting of scab nurses, leading to a 24-hour picket until July 13th. The strike followed an intervention by Gov. Maura Healey, which could not move the company from attempting to slash real wages and gut permanent staffing.
  • As with other hospitals and other sections of the hospital workforce (e.g., 1199SEIU staff at Cooley who picketed last month), MGB has refused to negotiate in good faith on wages, health insurance, safe staffing needs and other issues.
  • 450 unionized home care clinicians at MGB, also represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, staged a nearly simultaneous seven-day strike as they continue to fight for a first contract.
• The Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation, Massachusetts AFL-CIO and Massachusetts Teachers Association have endorsed Johnnie McKnight for state representative in the 11th Hampden district. McKnight, a union teacher in Springfield himself, is running on a platform which includes securing the right to strike for all public-sector workers. You can find more information on other WMALF-endorsed (incumbent) state candidates here, and sign up to participate in a labor walk at laborwalk.wmalf.org.
• Nine ballot questions have been certified for the November election, with potentially dramatic consequences for the labor movement and state as a whole. The Massachusetts CPUSA ballot question voter guide, with endorsements and details on all nine questions, is available here.

A brief note on information and civic process

As divina cordeiro covered in their rather informative article for the Shoestring, Northampton’s Democratic machine has a new propaganda arm, organized as a Delaware-based 501(c)3 nonprofit receiving undisclosed donations. I have avoided discussing this organization because, like most Northampton residents, I do not care for AI-generated graphics explaining what a quorum is, and I don’t get paid to make Facebook posts about ChatGPT’s interpretation of a city council meeting. I write these newsletters with a disdain for concealing my views and aims; I have no interest in feigning neutrality, just as it is dishonest (and an affront to basic media literacy!) for others to do so.

However, the organization appears to be promoting and sponsoring Facebook content, a concerning development in the world of local social media discourse. As I have with progressive organizers around the city, I encourage all community members to avoid interacting with this organization until its funding sources are made public.

That’s it for this month! As always, you can reach me by email at lukerotello@gmail.com or by phone at (413) 404-0405. Stay safe, stay healthy and stay in the struggle!

-Luke