UPDATED 3/25/21 8:42PM: An earlier version of this post misidentified Councilor Vacon’s ward. She represents Ward 5 not Ward 2. Holyoke famously releases its ballot petitioning papers early in municipal election years. In 2021 one person was not among the scramble for mayor for the
UPDATED 3/18/21 11:13AM: To confirm Mayor Morse had signed the petition and to note that Northampton’s charter allows councilors to pick an alternate acting mayor from among its membership. After an hour of debate, Holyoke city councilors approved a home rule petition Tuesday night to
UPDATED 3/17/21 12:23AM: The City Council approved the petition as the Charter & Rules Committee recommended on Monday. Full story here. There is now a date certain for Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse’s exit from office. At the moment, what happens after is anything but clear.
Holyoke will experience its first “midterm” election in 2019. It may be easy forget as he is running for something, but Alex Morse is not on the ballot this year. The four-term mayor is halfway through his first four-year mayoral term. But the City Council and much of the School Committee remain on a two-year election cycle. Voters rejected doubling councilors’ term in 2015 even as they lengthened the mayoral term to four years.
Holyoke faces a unique set of choices this election cycle. It is dropping two at-large council seats. The ward seats increasingly, are where the city’s minority population finds its strongest voices. However, this transition comes at an inflection point in Holyoke politics. The mayor’s race
HOLYOKE—Ten were on stage for Monday’s debate, but come November 7, four will go home including at least two incumbents. Given the tamest—or perhaps least vitriolic—mayoral campaign in years, the at-large Council race has grabbed residents’ attention. Though all eight incumbents are seeking reelection, a
HOLYOKE—Filling a vacant seat is nothing new to veteran city councilors here. Yet, even at-large Councilor Joseph McGivern, the body’s longest-serving member, finds the task of replacing his colleague, Jennifer Chauteauneuf, who resigned earlier this month, a departure from previous times the Council filled a vacancy in its
UPDATED 11/2/15 1:07PM: To add additional details to paragraph 2 under the Ward 6 endorsement. The future of the city of Holyoke is about more than just the lives of its residents. Like our home base of Springfield, the restoration and revitalization of Holyoke is