Following a term that included a pandemic, damaging floods and heavily-debated budgets, the mayor of Northampton is running for another four years.
Mayor Gina Louise Sciarra announced earlier this month she would seek re-election in the city of just under 30,000 – teeing up an official campaign kickoff Monday night.
Supporters, residents and a few city councilors packed the Iron Horse Concert Hall as Sciarra, a former councilor herself, looks to secure a second term.
Standing in the revived concert venue that reopened last year, she tells WAMC she had been considering what her next move was going to be for some time – but that the decision to run again firmed up after last year’s presidential election.
“It was the election in November, where I really had to take a hard look and decide if I was going to continue helping my city during what's going to be a really challenging time,” she said. “I was a city councilor the first time that the current president was president, and that was a really challenging time and we've made it through the pandemic together when I was on the council and then became mayor, and I just decided that this is the time that this community really needs to pull together, and I want to do that work with them.”
Elected mayor in 2021 - collecting nearly 70 percent of the vote - Sciarra’s background featured time as the city’s Ward 4 Councilor, as well as work a communications manager for the organization Pathlight, a support services provider for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Pandemic recovery and climate resiliency among accomplishments
By the time Sciarra assumed office, the pandemic was well-underway, not helping with a number of already-empty storefronts downtown.
Now, boasting about 50 businesses opening over the last four years while supporting the creation of 180 affordable housing units over the past decade, plus 110 in the pipeline, the mayor says she’s looking to continue leading, especially as a massive reimagining of the city’s downtown inches closer into being.
“Our main street is in the Commonwealth's top five percent of crash clusters for bike and pedestrian accidents, and that is why this is a Massachusetts Department of Transportation project, and they are investing $29 million,” the mayor said to supporters while on stage. “… and local input in our community helped shape the redesign. It is the product of more than 60 public meetings, nine public forums and three community surveys over six years.”
Sciarra also promoted the city’s climate resilience. She tells WAMC she’s particularly proud of the city’s work to establish its Climate Action and Project Administration, all while pursuing carbon-neutral policies.
A challenger and past challenges
Like her first run for mayor, Sciarra appears to have an opponent on the horizon.
Earlier this year, former Northampton police officer David Dombrowski organized a campaign committee. Reached by WAMC, Dombrowski says he’s still in the process of getting his campaign up and running, but plans to announce details and speak with the press in early April.
Speaking of challenges, school funding surfaced during Monday’s event - one of the most controversial ongoing discussions involving the mayor’s office.
Sciarra touted various increases to the school district’s budget, about a year after debates over school funding led to the Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation pulling its 2021 endorsement of Sciarra.
Part of the issue: school committee members, residents and others were calling for a budget with services and staffing maintained at Northampton Public Schools at a time when districts around the region were seeing costs increasing and enrollment declining.
At the time, Sciarra staked out a position that while a modest increase was in order, the funding needed to avoid about 20 jobs being cut or reduced was too costly – and that using non-reoccurring revenue sources and one-time supplements to plug massive gaps was unsustainable.
The budget fight gave rise to the Support Our Schools movement, which continues to this day, routinely calling on Sciarra and city leadership to restore positions.
Asked about school funding, as well as criticism some locals have had about the scale and potential effects of the downtown overhaul plan, “Picture Main Street,” the mayor tells WAMC they’re conversations worth having.
“I'm always happy to have real conversations with people and, again, we don't have to agree, but if we can really get together and talk about the facts and come to a place where we understand why we're making certain decisions - it is a very challenging moment in time, and I think that people are feeling a lot of anxiety, and so … I have great empathy for that, and I think we can all work together and face these challenges, but we sometimes are going to have hard conversations,” the mayor said.
Sciarra also says she welcomes the “deep conversations” bound to come with facing a challenger.
