EASTHAMPTON — Tasked with building bridges and creating a stronger sense of community among residents, visitors, and those who engage in commerce, a new committee will tackle a wide range of issues facing the city.
The City Council voted 9-0 last week to amend the city charter and create the Community Relations Committee, which will have 11 members appointed by Mayor Nicole LaChapelle and approved by the council. The committee grew out of an effort by the mayor and Police Chief Robert Alberti to promote an atmosphere of mutual understanding and cooperation among all residents.
The committee will have open, public, formal meetings and the mayor’s office will be accepting applications in the coming weeks for those interested in becoming committee members. LaChapelle said she expects mid-September to be the earliest that committee members could be confirmed, depending on how many people apply.
LaChapelle said she is not only looking for a firm commitment from candidates, but she is hoping to put together a “blend” of different types of backgrounds that represent the city’s youth and schools, municipal employees, religious organizations and community leaders.
“It is about us all relating better and consistently to each other,” she said. “It’s an outward path of communication and it’s proactive.”
On June 20, the city and the U.S. Department of Justice’s City SPIRIT program collaborated on a focus group of 40 residents from various backgrounds to establish a starting point for the new committee.
Representatives from businesses, faith-based organizations, local government agencies, as well as moderators of community-created Facebook groups discussed issues important to Easthampton and provided possible solutions.
Through that process, housing, transportation, lack of civic engagement, and isolated communities within the city were identified as areas of concern, according to a report by the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service.
Some solutions offered were lowering the barriers preventing residents from being more engaged with municipal government, such as providing a Civics 101 class; using art to bring out issues surrounding racism in a non-confrontational way; and starting a civility and dignity campaign for LGBTQ and gender non-conforming individuals.
Those areas could serve as a launch point for the committee, Alberti said, but they will not be limited to them either. He will also create a sergeant’s position in his department that will serve as a liaison to the committee.
“It is a great baseline for the committee to start working on,” Alberti said at the July 11 meeting, describing the committee as a “vehicle” to address issues across the community with a mandate that is “fluid.”
The “all-encompassing” committee will address a broad range of issues — from neighborhood to citywide — as means of establishing open communication in Easthampton, he said.
“My belief as this moves forward is they can pick any topic and come up with any solution from any particular discipline across the community,” Alberti said. “It’s not pigeonholed into one particular to topic or issue.”
Residents had mixed reactions to the committee at the July 11 meeting, some with reservations and others saying it is necessary.
Michael Garjian of Fairfield Avenue said he initially felt “comfortable” with the idea of having a committee dedicated to community relations, but once he found out that the Justice Department held a focus group that did not disclose the participants, he thought it began to “smell badly.”
“Whatever has happened in the past, the secrecy, the bad odor needs to be eliminated… The whole idea of DOJ and secrecy in Easthampton really makes me feel insecure,” he said.
Council President Joseph P. McCoy said that members of the focus group were not made public so they could honestly express themselves on issues in the city without the fear of being intimated or bullied. The committee would not have investigative powers either, he said, as Garjian had claimed.
Pamela Lumpkin of Treehouse Circle said she moved to the city in 2006 to support youth and children in foster care.
“If we don’t form a committee to be proactive and get people to talk across lines, we could be the next Ferguson,” she said, referring to the Missouri city where riots followed the police killing of Michael Brown, a black man.
Lumpkin, who is a woman of color, has felt discriminated against in the city from fellow residents when at the park with her nephews and said she has navigated the community in fear.
“There needs to be a forum where we can listen and talk to each other,” Lumpkin said. “I don’t feel connected or like I belong … There definitively is a problem here but I feel like Easthampton has the opportunity to set an example.”
Luis Fieldman can be reached at lfieldman@gazettenet.com