I've been following Northampton Mayor Mary Clare Higgins' campaign print ads in the Gazette with interest. First there is self deprecating irony in referring to Higgins as a crummy mayor in a great city. Then fear is used in appealing to Anybody But Clare (ABC) voters to be careful what they wish for. Next the public is informed: people don't like her because they don't know her-pay no attention to what you've heard. The most recent ad says it is not what you promise but what you do. I think these ads have effectively repackaged the incumbent in an effort to appeal to the less informed voter.
Ambivalent people who don't follow the mechanisms of city government closely are the target audience WHMP radio talkshow host Bill Dwight identified to Higgins supporters in his incendiary email in September. This virulent email initiated a fall campaign season that has seen more than its share of smears.
Higgins recently stated during a debate that a weakness of hers is her impatience. She said she thinks this gets characterized as her not listening. I suggest perhaps she has more than one weakness. Nonetheless, with enough money one can repackage anything. If you include her full page signature ad Higgins has dumped at least $8,000 into Gazette coffers, possibly with more to follow in the dwindling days of the campaign season. At this point her financial resources give her a two to one advantage over Bardsley in this election. Together the two candidates have raised enough money to fund a teacher or two.
For his part challenger Michael Bardsley has an advantage too. Higgins has had to run the city and campaign for reelection simultaneously while Bardsley retired from his full time occupation in the spring. He has been able to run his campaign unencumbered by the responsibilities of a full time job, although he still tends to his duties as a Councilor At-Large.
In my view ambivalent voters will not get to know Higgins simply by reading her ads or watching her perform. The same could be said of her challenger Bardsley. Moreover, if Higgins wins the election even by just one vote this will embolden the incumbent to the point of declaring a mandate. Bardsley could do the same if he wins. The tone of the discourse taking place throughout the city leads me to believe that regardless of who wins and regardless of how the Gazette reports on it, the community is divided. Perhaps that is normal and it will always be. Approximately half of the voting electorate will be jubilant November 3, and the other half deflated. Many in the city will not care either way.
I believe Bardsley is the more collaborative of the two with regards to decision making. If he wins I expect more community inclusion, at least at the outset. In my view Higgins has a hierarchical style more conducive to a private organization, be it profit or nonprofit. But the city is not a private organization. Changing the culture of a city government does not happen overnight however and I expect a learning curve if Bardsley emerges as the winner. This would include resistance to change on the part of an administration that has been largely assembled by Higgins.
While the two campaigns have promulgated many ideas, it is unfortunate the community will be losing one of two people that has worked on its behalf as a decision maker for many years. Two years from now we will be able to determine how many of the ideas are implemented and by whom.
Presently Higgins is taking credit for just about everything accomplished over the past decade in this city of 28,000+ people. When it comes to the city's negative accomplishments the blame is cast elsewhere. This is typical incumbent campaigning employed up and down the ladder, from Governor Deval Patrick to Higgins. Now the two have bonded together along with the mainstream media in a, "don't change horses in mid stream," mindset. Fortunately we are not riding a horse in a river, rather we are interviewing candidates for mayor. With that I will remind you the Gazette editorialized against the Community Preservation Act in 2005 and the Act was ratified by the voters anyway meaning anything can happen on Tuesday. Although I still view Bardsley as the frontrunner due to his primary victory, Higgins' significant financial advantage could tip the race her way. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
For what it is worth here are some of my concerns regarding the Higgins administration, the City Council and sometimes other agencies. I am quite sure some of you will disagree with my opinions, but alas that is the nature of blogging:
- The manner in which the redevelopment of Hospital Hill has been carried out. A project that once had some vision has turned into a slightly less than routine housing subdivision adjacent to an industrial park. Look for a Hospital Hill street to be named in the Mayor's honor at some point. My guess is it will be called, "Higgins Way."
- Deval Patrick's alleged endorsement. The first audio recording available on Higgins' website of Patrick begins with his official declaration of neutrality. This has been parlayed into an endorsement and the Gazette is going along with the hoax, printing a large headline one day and a small clarification a few days later. In these audio clips Patrick praises Higgins's leadership capability for about 30-45 seconds, but he does not endorse her for mayor. With Patrick's approval ratings sagging perhaps this will not be as beneficial as Higgins hopes.
- Starving the Academy of Music of funds and firing everyone a few years ago, only to reincarnate the building with a commitment of $50 thousand a year in taxpayer funded subsidy, which has now been codified into the Business Improvement District agreement. Had the theatre been given a similar allotment earlier people would not have lost their jobs and incremental changes could have been made to smooth the transition of the venerable institution into a more modern facility.
- The BID signature ratification process which has led to a lawsuit.
- The rudimentary Request For Proposal process that led to the controversial Hilton Garden Inn which uncovered the city's faulty permitting process that allowed its approval. Professional managers in the city failed to follow city rules and regulations regarding site plan approval and the special permitting processes. To date the city has paid out more than $50 thousand in legal settlements related to the Inn while it has recouped nothing.
- Higgins' initiation of office hours towards the end of the summer. For ten years she has not held office hours, now faced with a pitched re-election battle she uses city resources to effectively campaign for reelection.
- Her support of Interstate 91 expansion on Bridge Street before she opposed it. She now claims James Lowenthal changed her mind about the demerits of induced traffic. I view this as an outstretched hand to the influential bicycle advocate population in town. Still, I'm glad she has changed her stance on the issue.
- The retroactive removal of vested health insurance benefits from former city employees which resulted in a lawsuit Higgins settled out of court.
- The use of the James House on Gothic Street for an adult education center. I agree with Higgins that investing in people is the right way to go and I think this idea is laudable and forward thinking. At the same time entrepreneurs look for opportunities worth taking a risk on. With real estate prices flat presently the James House might have attracted a buyer for a for-profit enterprise which would have put the James House on the tax rolls. This would have provided property tax revenue and jobs. While institutional players lined up behind Higgins in support of the initiative and federal stimulus money was secured, the city could have issued a Reqest for Proposals in order to see if there was interest in the building. Since the city's largest employers are nonprofits, we need to look at bringing more organizations to town that pay property taxes to help fund our services. Nonetheless, the decision has been made and I hope the effort is successful, but it could have been approached differently at the outset.
- Higgins' insistance at participating in City Council meetings at will, showing no restraint whatsoever. She will hold the floor for as long as she pleases while she argues on behalf of her opinions and runs department head after department head in front of the Council to support her proposals. Though she now says she supports a city charter review and a possible change in the unusual practice of the mayor chairing City Council meetings, she has failed to take action on this point during her tenure and has used current rules to her fullest advantage. Until recently the Council has failed to act on this as well.
- The failure of the Mayor's office and the Council to amend the number of signatures required to run for Mayor, which now stands at fifty. Higgins has identified this numerous times but has done nothing to change the practice which means it is easy for just about anyone to run for Mayor thereby sapping taxpayers to fund primaries.
- Higgins failure to empower the City Council in the name of good government. The Council has no budget to speak of and little expertise of its own to call upon. Moreover, in her ten years in office Higgins has earned close to $1 million in salary and benefits. During that time period a typical councilor will have earned about $50 thousand in pay. Comparing what Higgins has done with a full city staff and millions of taxpayer dollars to play with to what Bardsley has done with no staff, no budget and almost no salary is dubious, yet it is an argument she and her supporters make every day. What has Bardsley done? Well for one he's taking on a powerful and entrenched incumbent who has a significant spending advantage. The race is anecdotally viewed as a close one, which speaks to Bardsley's resourcefulness.
- Higgins' oversight and subsequent rejection of a citizens' petition regarding the Smith College Educational Use Overlay District through the enactment of arbitrary rules and procedures. Read my affidavit (MS Word). With the exception of Bardsley, the balance of the Council went along with Higgins' process as crafted by her former City Solicitor, Janet Sheppard.
- The failure of the Mayor's office and the City Council to successfully mediate the impasse between Smith College and the Green Street Cafe. The Cafe owners now have a petition with over 3,000 signatures and city government is failing to act to remedy the situation.
- The Planning Board recently saw fit to permit a new restaurant to open on Green Street without requiring it to providing parking. The Green Street Cafe expended about $100 thousand at the behest of the city to provide parking for its customers, and now the city has changed the rules based on the Sustainability Plan to favor one establishment over others. This is an inequity. Interestingly, several Planning Board members support Higgins for reelection.
- Allocating a large share of Community Development Block Grant funds to pay for the new Senior Center while bonding the balance of its debt and paying interest rather than going before the voters for a debt exclusion override. (A debt exclusion override also requires bonding, but at least the community gets to decide for itself.)
- Higgins' and the Council's failure to revisit the Retail (AKA Big Box) Ordinances that apply to King Street which were promoted by three of Higgins' political allies who were Councilors at the time, Bill Dwight, Rita Bleiman and Alex Ghiselin. Though this has been brought up frequently the City has failed to engage on the matter and only now that it has become a campaign issue have candidates expressed a willingness to re-examine the regulations.
- The Higgins administration's practice of not constructing new roads in the city. While I agree building new roadways into areas where there are none and expanding highways can lead to induced traffic and sprawl, building roadways to mitigate the effects of otherwise serpentine thoroughfares seems worthy of consideration to me. The late Jane Jacobs wrote of the importance of smart roadways and interconnected streets. Today we have ever lengthening lines of traffic and idle time which wastes commuters' time and creates additional air pollution. If the new roundabout at Look Park reduces air pollution and idle time so too will strategically located connector roads. The Notre Dame Planning process recommends the same.
- The Mayor and her Office of Planning and Development seem to support congested roadways as an inducement for people to seek alternative means of transportation while at the same time they promote the city as a tourist destination which causes more people to drive into town. The result is that city residents (like this one) who live on main arteries experience ever increasing traffic in front of their homes while people who live on dead-end or side streets do not.
- The new single-use special business district created along Easthampton Road (Route 10). While the city grapples to correct perceived sprawl and aesthetic problems along King Street it is replicating the same types of problems by allowing for the proliferation of single-use buildings along Route 10. In essence residentially zoned South Street will serve as an access road to two new industrial areas; the south campus of Hospital Hill and the Route 10 corridor. I would prefer to see Smart Growth principles enacted along that corridor, that is, I would like to see mixed use buildings stationed close to the road which makes for a walkable and bicycle friendly neighborhood linking Northampton to Easthampton.
- Casa Latina's Report concerning alleged acts of racism occurring at Northampton Housing Authority properties.
- The failure of the Mayor's office and the Council to issue all city officials city sponsored email accounts to better ensure government transparency and accountability. It is likely that thousands of emails have been exchanged between government officials concerning the public's business, via private email accounts, with no record available whatsoever. Common Cause may have recognized the city for posting minutes on its (our) city website but the City's failure to provide email oversight and documentation is not excusable. This amounts to a circumvention of Massachusetts' Public Records and Open Meeting Laws.
- Higgins' regular forays into the city's public schools, where she influences the young minds of our children. Some parents love this while others do not. If George W. Bush did what Obama did recently regarding addressing the nation's school children via television there would have been an outcry locally followed by high absenteeism in the city's schools that day. Yet in that mold Higgins has influenced many children who are not familiar with the nuances of politics and policy making.
- The closure to the media of Higgins' City School sessions. Higgins uses taxpayer funded resources to conduct training sessions out of the public eye. No media or outside parties are allowed to observe.
- Higgins previous use of her title,"mayor," to promote the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage. This was used online, in print, and on banners downtown. I believe this violates state conflict of interest laws. Based on a recent ad published in the Gazette she has finally stopped the practice.
- During her ten year tenure Higgins has expended millions of dollars to expand a landfill over an aquifer, and has intiated almost no programs for alternative waste management. The composting operation Smith Vocational School operated previously on Burt's Pit Road ceased operations in 2004. She argues we have to place our trash somewhere, but fails to acknowledge had we used the landfill strictly for local purposes rather than as a regional facility it would have lasted many years longer than it will. In my view her failure to lead on this issue has brought us to a contentious point in our city's history with few other options available. In other words, metaphorically speaking she has led us into a brick wall on this issue and time is running out.
- The City's failure to enforce the city's mandatory recycling ordinance. See section 12-15 of the Solid Waste Ordinances of the city.
- Higgins bringing in an outside attorney at city expense to effectively gag the City Council with regards to landfill expansion. Attorney Michael Pill stated then he has not seen this done before a special permit has been applied for.
- Placing development restrictions on property owners in Ward 6 through the enactment of a Water Supply Protection District while applying for and receiving a waiver from the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection to expand a landfill in the same area. (As a layperson I disagree with the DEP on this unprecedented waiver as well. This amounts to very concentrated costs and diffuse benefits.)
- Provisions in the local Wetlands Ordinance which allow for development to within ten feet of wetlands in built up areas at the discretion of the Conservation Commission.
- The Mayor's practice of providing city staffers for initiatives her adminsitration favors, while not providing city support for initiatives her administration does not favor. The Meadows Land Use Plan proponents enjoyed a paid city staffer's help while citizens who became active on Green Street, Grove Avenue, Maple Street, North Street, Glendale Road and elsewhere have been treated as adversaries. To my knowledge many if not all of the persons involved with these issues are residents and likely taxpayers. Rather than partnering with these residents in the spirit of problem solving the City has treated them as second class citizens requiring them to make do on their own.
- Spending money to initiate the construction of a police station we cannot afford. In my view the process should have started with a debt exclusion override vote before major planning commenced. A comprehensive financial plan should have been established from the beginning. Instead dollars have been sunk into a project that now hangs in limbo, dollars that could have supported our schools, et al. While Higgins receives praise from the local media for her creation of a stabilization fund to boost the City's bond rating, this fund exists because the mayor, with Council approval, took free cash and deposited it into the fund in order to pay back the bonds on the proposed new police headquarters. Call it, "The Accidental Stabilization Fund."
- Pulaski Park. A contentious public exercise was undertaken without any funding in place to see it through. By the time funding is available, if it ever is, the plans submitted will be obsolete and we may have to start over.
- The coal tar remediation process of the Round House parking lot.
- Higgins' avoidance of publicly advertising the new position of Community and Economic Developoment Director. How are city residents to know if a better fit can be made for the position if the city doesn't examine the human resources available on the open market? The city recently advertised for a new Director of Public Health and I believe filling the new CED Director position should undergo a similar process.
- The destruction of public records related to landfill settlements. Longtime former City Solicitor Janet Sheppard participated in the deletion and shredding of public records and resigned. Higgins did not remove her from office. Now Sheppard lists herself as a Higgins supporter and has donated to her campaign.
- Hospital Hill's formal business arrangements with some of Higgins' financial supporters. Based on the questionable appearance this creates in my view political candidates should not accept donations from organizations or people doing business with the city or its interests. It is not too late for Higgins and other candidates to return donations.
- The City's failure to work with the Health Department resulting in a lawsuit from the owners of a proposed Hookah Bar. Inconsistent legal advice from former City Solicitor Janet Sheppard contributed to the problem.
- The use of Special Municipal Employee status to circumvent state conflict of interest laws. City board members have enjoyed access to city contracts at times while sitting on city agencies. Currently there are city board members or relatives of city board members that work for the city. In my view these practices should cease.
- The constant recycling of city board members while others are left out of the process. I would like to see more diversity of opinions represented. Examine Higgins list of supporters and you will see some who serve or have served on a city board, some who are involved with a nonprofit institution that gets money from the city or some who represent a for-profit firm hired by the city or its interests. These supporters have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
- Higgins' claim that she appoints people to city boards and committees that disagree with her. There may be a few token appointments of this nature, but that list is a short one. I am not asserting Higgins' appointees are bad people, rather I am asserting the city suffers from a certain degree of groupthink.
- The fearmongering atmosphere that hangs over the Higgins campaign. Based on the Dwight email her campaign circulated I can understand why people decline to seek public office in general.
- Higgins' alienation of the city's teachers and other city employees during the spring override campaign. Higgins negotiates pay raises for city employees during a time of declining state and federal revenues and then publicly holds them up for wage concessions. Negotiations take place out of the public eye and only after contracts are agreed to does the public learn what the mayor has promised. While confidentiality might be required during negotiations, the Mayor should not make promises the city does not have the resources to keep.
- Higgins' regular taxpayer funded trips to Boston have served her well personally. When people like Governor Deval Patrick, someone who knows little about the inner workings of Northampton politics, praise an incumbent mayor publicly it reveals the mechanisms of a political machine that clings to power. It is not unlike President Obama visiting Massachusetts to raise money for Patrick. This behavior trickles from the top down to the lowest government level and seems to be more about what politicians can do for each other rather than what they can do for citizens. That's why incumbents win so often, they help each other out. That is also one of the reasons why about half of the population will not vote November 3 in the local election. People have lost faith in the two party system, or in the case of this city and state, the one party system.
- The proposal to purchase the Bean property in Florence for recreational playing fields. With a child that has participated in sports I understand the need for playing fields, but the use of this fertile agricultural land for pesticide laden fields is not the answer in my view. I concede using the land for playing fields is preferable to using it for a housing subdivision, but I also feel this is a thorny issue that merits more community discussion, not less.
- The city should allocate space for City Councilors to hold office hours should they choose.
- The relative inaction concerning implementing the Best Practices Committee's recommendations.
- The decision to remove the Chesterfield Road dam.
Here I have presented a sample of issues I am concerned with and you might disagree with me. Below you can leave your comments in agreement, opposition, both or neither. I and the Valley Advocate are pleased to provide you with a forum to express your ideas and preferences.
On Tuesday, November 3 a majority of those who choose to vote will make a decision that will impact the entire population of the city. Thus about 5,000 people will decide what is best for all 28,000 of us. In my view the voters must choose between continuing with the status quo and adopting a new style of leadership. I hope the majority chooses well but only time will inform us as to the wisdom of its decision.
I would like to thank all who have participated in the democratic process and to wish whoever the winners are on Tuesday the best of luck. You will need it.
