NORTHAMPTON — On Tuesday, voters in Northampton will make a pivotal choice for who they want as mayor of their city.
On one side is the incumbent Gina-Louise Sciarra, who has staked her mayoral career on several bold initiatives that aim to cement Northampton’s progressive approach and to remake the city’s downtown.
On the other side is Jillian Duclos, who has mobilized behind rumbling discontent regarding the mayor’s budgeting policies and a perceived lack of transparency surrounding some of the city’s plans.
Both mayoral candidates sat down with the Gazette on Friday to talk about why they decided to enter politics, their approach to government and the biggest issues facing the city today.
Duclos: ‘Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room’
Inside of Ana Bandeira Chocolates cafe on Main Street, Duclos spoke about why she felt now was the time for her to challenge Sciarra for mayoralty. Though she’s never formally held public office, Duclos is certainly no stranger to politics. Growing up in a working-class area of Holyoke, she said her mother struggled with addiction and spent time in prison. Subsequently, Duclos found herself living independently and becoming involved with local politics very early on.
“I’ve been on my own since I was very young,” said Duclos, 37. “I kind of found my people coming up from trying to build myself up, and find ways to help people like me have the opportunities that they needed to live a sustainable life.”
At age 19, Duclos worked on her first campaign for Holyoke at-large city councilor Jason Ferreira, before later serving as the communications director for Alex Morse’s successful run for mayor in 2011. During that time, she supported herself by working as a barista for the restaurant Sylvester’s in Northampton — her first foray into the city she would later reside in.
Duclos also attended classes at Holyoke Community College, before entering Mount Holyoke College as a Frances Perkins scholar. Her work in local politics led to an internship working for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office in Washington, D.C. But Duclos said her time on Capitol Hill left her unimpressed with federal politics.
“I began feeling like that’s not where change happens,” Duclos said. “So I kind of diverted out of politics and started to work in different sectors.”
She moved to Jersey City, where she worked for political public relations firm SKDKnickerbocker and the nonprofit New Jersey Reentry Corporation, helping formerly incarcerated individuals adjust to post-prison life. But she returned to the Pioneer Valley in 2019 to help oversee Sylvester’s as well as Roberto’s after the family that owned the two restaurants retired.
“At that point I was like, if I can’t make change on the state and federal level, I could do it in my own little microcosm,” Duclos said. “I could pay people fairly, I could make sure that they had health care. I could create a work-life balance, if the powers that be weren’t really in a place where we were moving in that direction.”
Duclos oversaw the two restaurants during the pandemic, eventually closing down Sylvester’s and consolidating the remaining staff into Roberto’s. Duclos also joined the Downtown Northampton Association, taking over as the executive director. She said that while on the DNA, she began to notice that there seemed to be a disconnect between nonprofits, businesses and City Hall in working to improve the city.
“We were wasting resources because they were all trying to do a lot of the same things,” Duclos said. “We don’t do a good job of really working together and coming together around a common vision, mission or goal.”
It was that observation, Duclos said, which inspired her to run for mayor.
“There’s a leadership gap, this lack of an ability to have a leader who meets with constituents,” Duclos said. “I just think we need somebody during this time. Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room, it’s about bringing the smartest people together and building a team.”
Sciarra: ‘This is a really tough moment to be a mayor’
At Familiars Coffee & Tea, located steps away from Ana Bandeira, Sciarra discussed her own background in politics. Like Duclos, Sciarra became involved in politics from a young age, volunteering her time while at Edgemont High School in New York and when she first came to Northampton in 1992 to study at Smith College. Following her graduation from Smith, Sciarra worked at a political consulting firm in San Francisco and then at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York before returning to Northampton, the city she has called home for the last 20 years.
“I was so grateful for the community that I felt immediately [upon] moving back here, I wanted to give back,” said Sciarra, 51. “I worked on a capital campaign for First Churches in the center of town and started doing some work on local campaigns, but really never thought of being a candidate myself.”
But when Ward 4 City Councilor Pamela Schwartz announced in 2013 she would not seek reelection, Sciarra entered politics on what she described as a “spur of the moment” decision. She ran unopposed for the position, and served on the City Council for eight years — three terms representing Ward 4 and one term as an at-large councilor — before being elected mayor in 2021.
Since being elected mayor, Sciarra has overseen the creation of the city’s Division of Community Care (DCC), an alternative first response unit focusing on mental health and unhoused populations, as well as the Climate and Project Administration (CAPA) to oversee the city’s decarbonization goals while consolidating the city’s procurement and energy offices under a single director.
Sciarra said the creation of the new departments shows her approach to municipal government, which she believes should look at services not normally found at the local level.
“I’ve watched for a long time the federal, and in some ways the state government, not fulfilling the needs of people,” she said. “I think we have to meet our traditional needs, and we need to do it well. And we also need to stretch sometimes and meet other people, other needs. And I think we’ve done that.”
Politics at the federal level has shifted drastically during Sciarra’s tenure as mayor, going from Democrat President Joe Biden to Republican Donald Trump, and a resulting drastic disruption of federal programs and policies. Sciarra spoke about discussing possibilities of having immigrants sent to Northampton from Republican states (as happened frequently during Biden’s term in office) to now the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removing immigrants from the city itself under Trump.
Now, more than a month into a federal government shutdown and risks of food assistance programs potentially shutting down, Sciarra said she stands ready to address the needs of the city’s residents while in opposition to the current federal administration.
“This is a really tough moment to be a mayor in local government, particularly in a very progressive city like Northampton,” Sciarra said. “But I know that I have the relationships and the experience over years and years where I’ve been able to pull together folks, and we’ve been able to be ready to address whatever’s coming for us.”
Key issues
Though many local issues will weigh on the minds of voters as they head to the polls on Tuesday, three main topics stand out as driving most of the political intrigue: the school budget, the Picture Main Street project, and the planned Resilience Hub at the former First Baptist Church.
The city’s school budget over the last two fiscal years has served as a rallying call for many in the community, after reductions in staff and services within the school district led to backlash against Sciarra’s administration. Duclos said the city needs to review its budgeting process to find ways to better support staff, students and parents within the school district.
“I get the sense that we haven’t looked budget item to budget item to see how we’re spending money,” Duclos said. “There’s been historic amounts of money that has been dedicated to the schools, but we’re still in a decline. So where is that review process?”
Sciarra reminds voters that since the start of her tenure as mayor, the school budget had increased by 32% , and she remained committed to “getting every possible dollar that’s sustainable” for the school district. But she warned that attempts to draw more funds from the city’s capital reserves, as some advocates have called for, would only further hurt schools.
“That’s then going to create another deficit down the road,” Sciarra said. “The key is we have to correct what didn’t work in the past and got us into a deficit and make sure that we’re not creating the same problem.”
Another cause of concern for residents and local business owners is the upcoming Picture Main Street project, set to begin sometime next year. The ambitious three-year project, overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, would narrow down both sides along a stretch of Main Street to one lane on each side, while expanding sidewalks and creating a separate bike lane. But some businesses remain uneasy about the project, worried about how disruptions will affect their bottom line.
Sciarra said that the Pardon Our Progress (POP) group, formed by the city to promote the project, is available for any businesses that want to reach out with questions about Picture Main Street.
“There are a lot of people that are working very hard right now and to assist businesses, and to work and prepare for the project,” Sciarra said. “We’ve been able to bring together a pretty diverse group of folks, diverse group of stakeholders who are committed to making this project successful and to helping the businesses.”
But Duclos spoke more skeptically of the city’s approach to the project, criticizing officials for not being transparent enough with business owners regarding support during the project.
“If we do this project and we move forward, even if we have a beautiful landscape, if we don’t have businesses filling these storefronts, you know, there’s not going to be that attraction,” Duclos said. “I haven’t really met too many people while out knocking on doors or talking in the community that really feel that this is the right plan.”
Also in the city’s downtown is the planned Resilience Hub, to be hosted in the former First Baptist Church the city purchased for $3.175 million in 2023 from real estate magnet Eric Suher. The city plans to convert the space into a shelter for climate emergencies and the new home for several organizations, including the DCC, but progress has been slow and has left some questioning the purchase price of the building.
“We are being split for resources and time with building and trying to operationalize things like the Resiliency Hub,” Duclos said. “The city is now going to be competing with these nonprofits that are in our community, that actually have the expertise and the resources to actually build the kind of resources needed for the communities we’re trying to serve.”
Sciarrra said the city is currently looking for grant funding to continue plans for the hub, with federal funding for resilience hubs having dried up under the Trump administration.
“We’ve been pursuing other funding and working with our partners to try and work on building that,” Sciarra said. “It’s a really hard moment in time, and it’s tragic because we need that up and running more than ever.”
It’s these issues, and many more, that will influence voter’s decisions when they cast their vote for mayor this week. But regardless of the outcome, Duclos said she’s feeling good about whatever may come next.
“I’m very proud of the work I’ve done and the way that I’ve navigated and how I’ve brought people together,” Duclos said. “I think people’s voices have come to the table, and people feel empowered in different ways to show up and be heard than they have in the past.”
Sciarra also expressed an optimism heading into the election, but said there remains much to be done.
“We’ve got a lot of people who are working really hard, and I do feel good,” Sciarra said. “But I’m going to work until the last moment.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.