EASTHAMPTON — Mayoral candidates Joy Winnie and Nicole LaChapelle faced off for the third time Thursday night, with jabs at Winnie over the new school building project and concerns from an audience member over sources of LaChapelle’s campaign funding.
About 40 people attended the town hall-style debate where residents posed questions to the candidates at Easthampton Media’s Cultural Media Center in the Eastworks building.
Meanwhile, the two City Council candidates — newcomers Homar Gomez and Paul St. Pierre, who are vying for a seat representing Precinct 2 — shared their ideas and took questions from the audience.
Easthampton Media’s executive director, Kathy Lynch, moderated the night. She said the style would be a little “loosey-goosey,” allowing a casual bank-and-forth with residents who had questions.
But the flow of the debate went a little off course over a question about advocating for the construction of a new pre-K-8 school, which would consolidate three of the century-old elementary schools with the structurally deficient middle school.
“You’ve been on the City Council for 20 years, why not advocate sooner?” LaChapelle asked her opponent.
Winnie, who said children deserve better than the current schools, said the building project is up to the School Committee, School Building Committee and superintendent.
“While it is a School Committee decision, you were part the City Council, the legislative body,” LaChapelle replied. “I just wonder, would you have passed those big budgets if there were questions around why aren’t we spending more on the capital improvement for the district.”
“We always question,” Winnie answered. “… The School Committee has full control over their budget. We can ask questions, we cannot interfere.”
Mayor Karen Cadieux, who is retiring after her second term, asked what percentage of the campaigns’ funds had come from Easthampton residents.
One resident, raising his concern near the end of the debate, said LaChapelle’s first campaign finance report, from June, showed that 77 of the more than 80 people who had contributed were from outside Easthampton.
LaChapelle said the question from Cadieux was “targeted” at her campaign, since she has released financial reports regularly on her campaign website. The site shows she had raised approximately $21,000 as of July 28.
She estimated that about 60 percent of the money she has raised is from Easthampton residents. From out of Easthampton, she said some comes from business owners, donors from former campaigns she worked for and family members.
“I have no problem taking that money,” LaChapelle said. “Because every dollar they invest in me, they see as an investment in Easthampton.”
Winnie said she’s gathered about $11,000 to $12,000, most of it from Easthampton. She said she has spent the majority of the money in the city, noting that $50 was used out of the city at the office supply store Staples.
Candidates were also asked whether they would designate Easthampton as a sanctuary city, which would prohibit the city’s resources from being used in federal immigration enforcement.
LaChapelle said a discussion needs to happen on the topic and in the past the city-wide conversation “stopped before it started.”
Winnie said she’s against issuing an executive order that would designate Easthampton as a sanctuary city, but she’s also against bias.
“Everybody needs to be respected,” she said.
The candidates for the council’s Precinct 2 seat also squared off Thursday.
Paul St. Pierre, 29, runs a small manufacturing company in Agawam. As city councilor, St. Pierre said, he would push to get the city to offer fiber-optic internet as a municipal utility. He said it will bring in revenue, but also supply residents with a faster and more reliable internet. He said he will look for “local solutions to local problems.”
Homar Gomez, 42, the varsity softball coach for Easthampton High School, moved to Massachusetts from Puerto Rico in 1997. Six years later, he moved to Easthampton. Gomez said he can bring in more diversity to Easthampton’s government. He said the local government can have a huge impact on bias and discrimination, and it’s something that cannot be tolerated.
“We need change,” he said.
The election is Nov. 7. Absentee ballots are now available for those who will be out of town on Election Day, are physically unable to go to the polls or who cannot vote in person due to religious reasons, according City Clerk Barbara LaBombard.
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.