Well-before a July deadline to submit nomination papers, Northampton, Mass. is already primed for a busy election season. Both the city council and school committee are seeing significant turnover, with at least seven officials not seeking reelection so far. WAMC spoke with daily Hampshire Gazette reporter Alexander MacDougall about how things are shaping up and how one issue in particular is already looming, as candidates collect signatures: funding for Northampton Public Schools.
As MacDougall points out, the council and school committee have been battlegrounds for budget debates over the past year or so, with meetings hitting 5-6 hours in some cases. Among the councilors declining to run again are past supporters of Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra’s budgets, while a group calling for more funding and restoring previously cut jobs could play a significant role during this year’s election.
ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL: This all began because the city stopped receiving a lot of the ESSER federal funds that were given out to schools across the country. When these funds evaporated, what happened is that a lot of contractually obligated raises - the city had hired a lot of new staff for the school district and they have contractual obligations to have contract increases for health insurance, things like that.
And so, those ESSER funds disappeared - that's part of the equation here - and so what happened was when the budget season came around for last year, FY25, that budget was going to include budget cuts. People kind of knew down the road that this was going to happen - I think even the year beforehand, there was talks of cuts, but … they were able to use some reserve funds, and that wasn't an issue but then the next year, they said, “We can't do that again.”
So … the issue of cuts were coming up, and that was a big, big debate between the superintendent, the Northampton mayor, Gina-Louise Sciarra, who also chairs the school committee, and advocates of more school spending, who are against cuts - a lot of the public was against that. Obviously, NASE, the Northampton Association of School Employees union, was against that, and so, it really led to a lot of very entrenched - it got very emotional, very heated at times, debate over the school budget and what happened in FY25 was, originally, the mayor was going to increase the school spending by about 4 percent for … city spending on the schools. After a lot of pushback, that number eventually doubled.
It was about an 8 percent increase. In fact, if you look at the expenditures since then, that was approved, it's actually gone even higher than that … but it wasn't enough to prevent job cuts. There were around 20 positions that were cut at the start of FY25 - some of those jobs were added back, but they were cut, and a lot of bad blood still remains and now we're going into this budget season where it's looking like a very similar scenario.
The budget hasn't come out yet, but the mayor has publicly stated she's going to increase the spending by about 5.8 percent which, according to the superintendent, would be enough to stave off layoffs. There's going to be some jobs eliminated through attrition and other means like that … not rehiring for positions that are retiring, but there's still this bad blood remains, and the advocates of school spending are still fairly strong, still advocating for more spending and, in fact … there's been a political action committee that's been formed, the Support Our Schools Political Action Committee, which is raising funds to support candidates that would match these goals.
And so far, I believe that pack has raised upwards of more than $20,000.
WAMC: Could you walk me through some of the faces that are departing? We're seeing the council president, Alex Jarrett, and at least two other councilors. We're also seeing four, at the very least, school committee members, three of which, I believe, made their announcements … roughly at the same time.
MACDOUGALL: Well, lot of them have been in politics for sometime. As you mentioned, Alex Jarrett is the council president; this was his second term. He's not returning. Stan Moulton – I could be wrong here - it's also his second term. He's also a former Gazette editor. Marissa Elkins, has been on the council for some time, so they haven't been a very super long time on the council, but … [these were] not their first terms, but they have announced they're not running.
Some of these school committee members have been on there for a long time, I'm not positive for how many terms some of them are: Gwen Agna was the Vice Chair of the School Committee. She's only served one or two terms, but before that, she's had a very long career in public education in the city of Northampton. She was a former principal at Jackson Street Elementary School. These are people who have a lot of experience in the city, being involved with education or politics in the city, and they have announced they are not seeking reelection.
WAMC: How much of a climate change do you think this could lead to on the council with these three departing?
MACDOUGALL: It depends who fills in those seats. I should mention, even though those three are departing, other seats that are on the council have had new candidates file.
Ward 5 [Jared’s seat] has about three candidates running in that one. Ward 2, I believe, just one for now returning, but may have another. Ward 1: we'll see, because that was Stan Moulton’s ward. The At-large council positions have had two new people … incumbent, Garrick Perry, has indicated he was going to run again. So, it could really all depend on what happens come the election in November in terms of how different the makeup of the council and what their policy decisions are going to be.
WAMC: While some races are less crowded than others, I think it's safe to say Northampton is not lacking for candidates in some of these races.
MACDOUGALL: That is correct there. We're seeing a lot of activity already. The deadline’s not until July, and already, we've seen a lot of people pull nomination papers to run in the election and so… I believe the last municipal election - there was not much activity, and we're looking at a very different picture for this time around.
WAMC: Could you walk me through some of these challengers who have emerged? Any notable candidates so far?
MACDOUGALL: Laurie Loisel has announced candidacy for Ward 3 - she's currently at the Hampshire County courthouse [as a Director of Communication & Community Engagement at the Northwestern DA’s Office]. I should also disclose – [she] is a former Gazette reporter. If she wins, she would unseat Quaverly Rothenberg, who has been a vocal critic of the mayor.
We have Deborah Henson, who is running for At-large, who has voiced support for higher school spending, against the mayor's policies, and then we also have Benjamin Spencer running for At-large, who, conversely, has appeared at many council meetings, speaking in favor of the mayor's policies.
[For] Ward 3, in addition to Laurie Loisel, there's two other candidates - Lyle Labarge and Ace Tayloe, so, that's a pretty crowded field.
Ward 5 has David Murphy, who is a former councilor … hoping to try to make another run [and] Aline Davis, who is a school committee At-large member and has spoken in favor of the mayor's policies. Vincent Rotello is another candidate
[For the] school committee, there's a few names … that have announced their candidacy. Alena Bartoli running in Ward 1 and Cynthia Marie Mahoney running in Ward 6. Those two have previously indicated they would be in favor of higher school spending. You also have Emily Serafy-Cox, who [already serves] Ward 3, but is making a run for one of the At-large positions, and has also voted and expressed support for higher school spending.
Editor’s note: Due to audio issues, a section of this interview mentioning the School Committee Ward 2 was lost. Both current Ward 2 occupant Anat Weisenfreund and candidate Angela Wack have taken out nomination papers for the seat. R. Downey Meyer has also taken out papers for the committee’s Ward 7 seat.
Other candidates listed by the city clerk’s office as of Friday, May 9, include Renika Montgomery-Tamakloe seeking the school committee’s Ward 3 seat and Tiffany Jewell, seeking an At-large school committee seat.
On the city council side, Kate Hamel has taken out papers to run for Ward 6, putting Hamel on a collision course with incumbent Marianne LaBarge. No candidates appear to have taken out papers for Ward 1, according to the clerk’s office’s “2025 MUNICIPAL CANDIDATES” list.
WAMC: We’ve talked about the school committee, we've talked about the city council - there's also a few mayoral candidates who are starting to line up. We're up to two now, in addition to the incumbent Mayor Sciarra. One of those candidates is Dave Dombrowski, a former police officer. However, we just had a new entrant this week - could you speak to me a little bit about Jillian Duclos?
MACDOUGALL: Yes, Jillian Duclos has announced her candidacy to run against Mayor Sciarra. She's a former executive director of the Downtown Northampton Association.
It's something I've heard about, rumors about, over the last few weeks, but made it official [Monday, May 5], and that could pose as a very interesting challenge to Sciarra, who is looking for to run for reelection.
It's not known entirely at this [point] if the schools PAC is going to support Duclos’s candidacy, but if it does, I think it would make for a very interesting challenger to Sciarra.
WAMC: Sciarra herself has a pretty sizable war chest in terms of money on hand. WAMC was also present for her kickoff earlier this year. How would you characterize her run so far?
MACDOUGALL: Well, the election is still many months away, so nothing in terms of campaign activities, not much has kicked off, but, certainly, she has a lot more political experience. She was on the city council before becoming mayor. She's been through this before, I'd say she obviously knows what she's doing with regards to making another run in office and while she's seen a lot of pushback from this school issue, it remains to be seen whether or not that's coming from enough of a constituency that could actually unseat her from her position.
WAMC: Alex, thank you so much for your time.
MACDOUGALL: Thank you.
--
That was Daily Hampshire Gazette reporter Alexander MacDougall, speaking with WAMC about what's on track to be a busy municipal election season in Northampton, Massachusetts.
