NORTHAMPTON — Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra said Monday that her new administration has had “an extraordinarily busy 28 days” since she took office on Jan. 3, tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences, working to implement new social programs that have been in the works for years and preparing for the months-long municipal budget process.
On Tuesday night, Sciarra will participate in a joint budget meeting with the City Council and officials from both of the city’s school districts. The goal of the 7 p.m. virtual meeting, she said, “is to lay a strong foundation to help people understand” how the budget is going to come together.
Sciarra, the former City Council president who was elected to replace David Narkewicz after he served a decade in office, kept her predecessor’s City Hall staff in place, and they remain hard at work. She said the aides in the mayor’s office have vast “institutional knowledge” that serves a key role in day-to-day operations.
“They bring so much value to this office,” Sciarra said, noting that their expertise is central to the city’s management of ongoing crises and projects.
“The omicron surge really asserted itself as a priority, even before the inauguration,” Sciarra said.
The latest COVID-19 data from the Northampton Health Department show that cases dropped two weeks in a row, from 435 during the week ending Jan. 12 to 235 for the week ending Jan. 26. Almost 80% of the city’s population is fully vaccinated and 51% have received booster shots.
The new administration set up a special COVID-19 testing program for city employees and local businesses and established the Senior Center as a public testing site to supplement the regional site at Millside Park in Easthampton.
“We haven’t had long lines out the door and people waiting,” Sciarra said, a testament to the efforts of public health officials. Within Sciarra’s first several days, she said, City Hall distributed 14,000 masks to municipal workers and businesses.
Parking receipts and business revenues are “starting to rebound,” Sciarra said, compared to the darkest days of the pandemic, and some entrepreneurs are taking on “the challenge of trying to start a new business right now,” including Wild Chestnut Cafe in Florence, the site of Sciarra’s first ribbon-cutting ceremony as mayor on Jan. 8.
But “beloved” businesses are still closing, Sciarra said, like the GoBerry frozen yogurt shop that shuttered on Jan. 23 after 12 years downtown and the Belly of the Beast restaurant that saw a 50% plunge in weekly sales before shutting down in September, illustrating the difficulty of staying afloat in the current economy.
The city will allow expanded outdoor dining in warmer weather and organizers are planning for a new iteration of the popular “Summer On Strong,” a collaboration between business owners and the city to set up outdoor dining in the middle of Strong Avenue, in an effort to shore up the hard-hit restaurant and hospitality sector.
Summer on Strong “was very beloved last year,” Sciarra said, and the city is “being proactive” to find other opportunities to have a “fun, robust time, where people can come downtown and be outside and feel safe.”
Meanwhile, restaurant owners are not yet required to abide by the solid waste reduction ordinance that was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 1. The City Council voted to delay implementation of the ordinance — which bans the use of nonrecyclable, disposable takeout containers including Styrofoam and polyethylene, among other new waste restrictions — until July.
Many restaurants “couldn’t get the materials they need to be compliant,” Sciarra said, due to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic.
On Monday, Sciarra said it was not clear how much money the Department of Community Care would receive in her first budget, which is not due for presentation to the City Council until May.
The new department, an unarmed 911 response alternative that has not launched yet, received $423,955 from the Narkewicz administration and another $150,000 from the state. Department of Community Care implementation director Sean Donovan is currently working out of the mayor’s office.
“We’re working to coordinate to build a department that’s right for Northampton,” Sciarra said. “Of course, we’re looking at what Amherst is doing” through its CRESS program, but the Department of Community Care will be designed to address “Northampton-specific” needs that citizens have identified.
The city is still trying to secure a location for the Community Resilience Hub (CRH), a centralized location to help people connect to social services and seek shelter in emergencies, but Sciarra said that some of the services that are envisioned for the CRH are now available elsewhere in the city.
The nonprofit Community Action, based in Greenfield, is using a $211,000 federal pandemic relief grant to form a partnership with Manna Community Kitchen in Northampton and expand the Manna Community Center at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 48 Elm St. Community Action is spearheading the CRH effort, and the partnership with St. John’s is offering services that are similar to what the CRH will offer.
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sciarra will meet virtually with the City Council, the School Committee, the Trustees of Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School and the superintendents of both city school districts.
The majority of the members of each body are newly elected or beginning their second two-year terms in office. The mayor said she is planning an “extensive presentation” about the city budget process, local revenue receipts and necessary expenditures, but she is not expected to reveal any specific department allocations.
“The message is, we need to be cautious as we move forward,” Sciarra said. “We’re still seeing the effects of the pandemic and we need to take that into account as we’re projecting.”
Building costs are up, she said, which is expected to impact the city’s level of new growth and therefore its tax revenue.
The deadline for both of the city’s school districts — Northampton Public Schools and Smith Vocational — to submit their adopted budgets to the mayor’s office in April 17. Sciarra will have until May 16 to present a balanced annual budget to the City Council, and the council’s final approval vote is required by June 30.
To join the budget meeting, visit https://bit.ly/33YBiva. Use meeting ID 870 6439 0976 and passcode 356597. For telephone access, call (929) 436-2866.
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.