NORTHAMPTON — As 2022 comes to a close, the city of Northampton is looking to further increase its commitment to sustainability and carbon neutrality in the new year.
At the last City Council meeting of the year on Dec. 15, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra recommended a financial order that would establish a Climate Change Mitigation Stabilization Fund that would receive $3 million from the city’s undesignated free cash for the next fiscal year.
The fund would be used to help the city’s stated goals of having all city-owned buildings to be carbon-neutral by 2030, and for the city in its entirety to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The city laid out its plans in a 2021 Northampton Climate Resilience & Regeneration plan on how to achieve these goals, such as deploying electric vehicles, requiring renewable energy sources for buildings and improving infrastructure for stormwater management.
The city’s general fund contains $10 million allocated from the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that is available from the 2022 fiscal year. The city currently has three stabilization funds, known as capital, fiscal and general funds. The city’s policy allows up to a third of free cash funds to be distributed among them.
At the Dec. 15 meeting, Sciarra said if approved, the climate change fund would be added to the existing three stabilization funds.
“This is an important step to create this stabilization fund, in recognition of our commitment to the Resilience & Regeneration plan,” Sciarra said at the council meeting. “I also think it’s a practical and good, fiscally responsible thing to utilize some of our ARPA and loss revenue to make those plans a financial priority for the city.”
The council voted unanimously to move the item to the Finance Committee, which holds its next meeting Jan. 3. The committee will make either a positive or negative recommendation before sending it back to the council for a vote.
“This is very exciting,” said Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore. “I don’t usually get excited about every agenda item, I will admit, but I’m thrilled to see this here.”
The proposal to use $3 million in undesignated ARPA funds comes in addition to another $1 million from those same funds to be used to purchase a building for the Community Resilience Hub. The multipurpose community center will support residents who face chronic and acute stress, such as those who are homeless, and act as an emergency center if there is a disaster. Although services dealing with some of these issues already exist in the city, the hub would serve as a centralized location for addressing the needs of vulnerable populations.
The financial orders will be voted on at the next council meeting on Jan. 5.
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
