HOLYOKE — As “Team Healey-Driscoll” tries to score a second term in a race against Republicans Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll received a slew of local and regional endorsements on Tuesday during a trip through the western half of the state, with stops in Holyoke and North Adams.
On their stop in Holyoke, Healey and Driscoll became “honorary Holyokers,” receiving pins from Mayor Joshua Garcia as city and state officials touted years of investment and teamwork toward reviving the Paper City.
The morning’s speakers frequently used sports as a metaphor for politics as Healey, a former college basketball player and sports buff, stood alongside local and state leaders in the International Volleyball Hall of Fame to highlight local victories in housing, education, care for veterans and other bedrocks of Healey’s agenda.
“Whether it’s volleyball or basketball, it’s about teamwork, and that’s the vibe that we’ll continue to bring, not only to the campaign as we seek to grow new support, but also the way that we look to govern,” said Healey.
Scoring in Holyoke
While Garcia explained how teamwork with Beacon Hill has been essential to revive Holyoke, Healey touted her track record for communities statewide.
Healey said that 100,000 new homes have been developed throughout the state under her leadership, chipping away at the state’s goal of having 220,000 new housing units by 2035 to solve the housing crisis.
In recent years, Holyoke has become a mecca of housing development, something Garcia lauded the Healey-Driscoll administration for their role in.
With the help of state dollars, Garcia said Holyoke’s affordable housing stock has risen to 19.34%, making the city the number one affordable housing city in the state, and comfortably surpassing the state average of 9.68%.
But millions of investments have also been made to bolster market rate housing options.
Garcia said the city is currently on track to develop more than 700 new housing units over the next four years, a building process that began four years ago.
“We’re not just doing more of what we’ve done in the past,” said Garcia. “We’re also investing big in market rate housing too, so we can balance the economic scale and keep our downtown vibrant because when people’s economic circumstances improve, they should have options too.”
Garcia continued, “I think leaders before us have done an extraordinary job doing what we need to do to take care of our most vulnerable, but we never really thought about what happens when people’s situations improve, and so in a very big way, this administration has invested heavily in market rate development.”
As for education, last year Healey signed off to take Holyoke’s schools out of state receivership, and Garcia thanked the governor for taking an active role in the process.
In 2015, the state took over the city’s school system after designating it a “chronically under-performing district,” due to low test scores and dropping attendance rates. This is the first school year since then that the city is operating independently.
As the city and Healey took pride in this progress, the governor applauded the newly named superintendent Jackie Glasheen, the first to hold the position in a decade.
Before becoming governor, then-attorney general Healey said she promised herself that, if ever given the opportunity, she would replace Holyoke’s Veterans Home with a world class facility following the death of 70 people during the pandemic.
That vision has nearly come to fruition. A new $482 million facility, which will be completed next year, is being supported with almost $220 million from the state. Just recently Veterans Affairs said the facility will be one of the best veterans homes in the country.
“And so I’m proud of work done at the site to build what is really a world class home with world class treatment befitting of the care that our veterans deserve,” said Healey.
Garcia also thanked the governor for her role in restoring a treasured space for the arts in the city.
The city’s Victorian-era Victory Theater has been closed for almost 50 years. Under Healey, the state pitched in $3.5 million toward restoring the building, which Holyoke officials believe will draw artists and enhance the regional economy.
“Her commitment to Victory Theater is a cornerstone for strengthening both our local and regional economy,” said Garcia.
Concerning energy, Healey celebrated that expansions to hydro-electric sources mean 20% of the state’s energy needs will be powered by water. She also celebrated that her administration has bolstered health care access by capping deductibles, and has continued to offer COVID-19 vaccines free of charge throughout the state.
Endorsements
More than a dozen legislators and municipal leaders announced their endorsements of Healey and Driscoll before their visit to the area, including Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra and Easthampton Mayor Salem Derby.
State senators Joanne Comerford, Adam Gomez, and Paul Mark, and state representatives Mindy Domb, Aaron L. Saunders, Jacob Oliviera, Patricia Duffy and Lindsay Sabadosa have also voiced their support, among others.
In a statement, Sciarra praised Healey and Driscoll for their “strong, progressive leadership.”
“They are helping Northampton and the Commonwealth grow, prosper and persist during challenging times across our nation,” Sciarra stated. “Their vision and experience is vital as we work to continue developing infrastructure, building affordable housing, supporting education, and addressing the climate crisis.”
Garcia said that, “Regardless of what voter turnout looks like in your community, or how poor a wealthy a community might be, the Healey-Driscoll administration has shown time and again that they are true partners in local government, delivering real, meaningful support that lifts communities and make a difference.”
Derby was in attendance in Holyoke. He said that in July, when he transitioned to interim mayor after Mayor Nicole LaChapelle left to become a commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Healey and Driscoll quickly reached out to him.
“One of the things I felt from the get-go was I felt supported by team Healey-Driscoll,” said Derby. “They reached out to me immediately when I became interim mayor, and I felt like I was part of a team. And I think if we ask ourselves, ‘what is a team,’ — it’s having a shared vision, shared values.”
Derby added that these values include increasing affordability and supporting the state’s most vulnerable residents.
“She leads us and works with us in the legislature to make sure we’re facing this moment,” said Duffy. “And maybe it’s because you’re an athlete, but she’s got this remarkable ability to be both the steady voice we need and to pivot as crises arise.”