HOLYOKE — On Nov. 2, Holyoke residents will vote to fill seven ward-based seats on the City Council, five of which are contested races. The ward seats are in addition to six at-large seats on the council.
Ward 1 contains the Flats and downtown neighborhoods. The seat is open after longtime Ward 1 City Councilor Gladys Lebrón-Martinez declined to run for reelection. Two candidates are vying for the seat, Victor Machado and Jenny Rivera, and they are profiled here in the order they appear on the ballot, which was randomly determined.
A resident of Holyoke since 2012, Victor Machado grew up in Puerto Rico and since moving to the city has worked as a mechanic, an organizer with the housing and employment organization Way Finders, and as a volunteer at the academic support program Homework House. He said he is running for City Council because he wants to see change.
“I’m tired of promises,” he said. “Many residents are tired of promises.”
Machado said he has been out in the community building connections with residents before running for City Council. And the biggest issue for him and his neighbors is public safety, he said.
Machado said that he himself was almost stabbed when he was mistaken for somebody else. He said Holyoke is one of the most dangerous cities in Massachusetts, and that the lack of public safety directly affects the lives of residents, as well as the local economy.
“We need to do something about that,” Machado said. “I think Holyoke can be better, and we need leadership in City Hall.”
There are issues that are also very important for the city to take care of, Machado said, such as trash pickup and vacant buildings.
Machado has been endorsed by the political action committee Holyoke Forward, or Holyoke Pa’lante in Spanish.
In an interview with Holyoke Media, he said he wants to work to increase civic involvement in Holyoke.
“Many people don’t go out and get civically involved because they’re scared — scared of speaking, scared that they won’t be heard or that they won’t be understood,” Machado said. He added that he hopes to break that stigma and bring a different perspective to city government.
Machado said it is important for the community in Ward 1 to unite around a vision for improving the city that everybody shares, and that his leadership is what sets him apart in the race.
“I’ve been working more constantly with the residents,” he said. “For me, there is no problem too small to solve.”
A 52-year resident of the city, Jenny Rivera is a mother of three and grandmother to 11. She worked for 25 years for a personal injury law firm before returning to work where she had been employed previously: in the Holyoke Public Schools, where she is now an outreach paraprofessional.
A justice of the peace and notary public, Rivera said she is “very involved in the community.” She coached many of her kids’ sports growing up, helps people with their taxes as a side job, and said that neighbors often approach her with their questions or problems.
“I am everybody’s go-to Google,” she said with a laugh. “I should be Jenny ‘Google’ Rivera.”
Rivera said she wants to help Holyoke flourish into the city that it was when she was growing up. She said she would work to bring new businesses into the city, improve trash and recycling services, and come up with solutions to repair the city’s crumbling infrastructure.
“The city needs a lot of work, and I would be an asset to the city,” she said.
Rivera said that where she lives in the Flats, she already gets calls from residents complaining about issues such as using wheelchairs on cracked sidewalks.
“Our city needs a lot of cleanup,” she said. “We want to bring people downtown. We don’t want people to be afraid of coming downtown.”
Boosting civic engagement would also be a focus for Rivera if she were elected. That would mean opening up lines of communication between city officials and residents, she said. Other priorities if elected would be the city’s schools and making sure Holyoke is using its old mill buildings to attract new businesses.
“They represent the structure of Holyoke and bringing in the revenue as industry grows,” she said.
Asked what separates her from her opponent in the race, Rivera said it is her decades of experience in Holyoke as a lifetime resident.
“I work already with the community,” she said. “I’ve lived in Holyoke all my life so I feel I would be a better candidate as I’m already involved with our community, I’m involved with the schools.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.