EASTHAMPTON — Thomas Peake has announced he will run for re-election as a city councilor for Precinct 3 in November’s election.
“I don’t feel I’m done yet,” Peake said Tuesday. “I’m going to ask the voters for another term and we’ll see what they say.”
Candidates can begin pulling nomination papers for the municipal election on July 1. Peake said he wants to continue projects he has helped initiate in city council subcommittees, such as exploring the possibility of bringing municipal fiber-optic internet to Easthampton and implementing ranked-choice voting for city elections.
Providing an alternative to the local cable company is an economic development issue, Peake said. Communities such as Westfield and Greenfield have municipal fiber-optic internet that is faster and cheaper than its private cable counterpart, Peake said, and South Hadley and Chicopee are studying the feasibility of fiber-optic internet.
“We can choose to either move forward with them or left in the dust and deal with the consequences,” Peake said.
In May 2018, the City Council established the telecommunications committee to study what steps the city would have to take to provide fiber-optic internet for residents. Peake introduced legislation to form the committee and he is also a member of the committee.
As for ranked-choice voting, Peake first introduced the idea earlier this year to the charter review subcommittee and an ordinance is currently being reviewed by the city solicitor. For ranked-choice voting to be implemented, it would require approval from Mayor Nicole LaChapelle and the state Legislature before going to a ballot question in November’s election.
“It’s a good fit for Easthampton,” Peake said about ranked-choice voting. “It incentivizes good, open, productive dialogue in the community.”
In ranked-choice voting, the candidate with a majority of votes wins. If no candidates break 50 percent in the initial count, then the candidate with the least amount of votes gets eliminated. Those who voted for the candidate with the least amount of votes then have their votes redistributed to their second choice until a winner emerges.
Looking toward the future and his priorities should he be elected for a second two-year term, Peake said finding ways to help the senior population age in place tops his list.
“We need to figure out ways that we can take some of the edge off the market conditions,” Peake said. “People spend too much time looking for a silver bullet instead of looking at a bunch of small things we can do.”
Peake acknowledged he does not have all the answers, but he said it will take some “difficult discussions” to improve conditions where possible.
A report by the Council of Aging projected that residents over the age of 60 will make up more than a third of the city’s population within the next 16 years. The report also found that the median income for those 65 and older in Easthampton is $32,899, compared to the state median of $42,707 of the same age group.
“That’s a huge issue,” Peake said of longtime residents’ ability to continue to afford living in Easthampton.
Peake serves on the property, charter review and telecommunications subcommittees, and is chairman of the rules and government relations subcommittee. He works at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute as an economics and public policy researcher.
Luis Fieldman can be reached at lfieldman@gazettenet.com