HOLYOKE — Inside City Hall on Tuesday, the mayor’s office was clean and mostly empty — a fact likely attributable to acting Mayor Terence Murphy’s impending departure from office.
After seven months on the job, Murphy handed over the keys to Room One to mayor-elect Joshua Garcia on Monday. Then, at the end of the year, he’ll be handing over his seat as the Ward 2 city councilor to Will Puello.
On that warm afternoon earlier in the week, however, there was one pile of wrinkled papers on the edge of Murphy’s desk: his calendars from his time in the corner office.
“When I’m old — I guess I should say when I’m older,” the 74-year-old said with a laugh, “I’ll be able to look back.”
When then-mayor Alex Morse left Holyoke in March to take the job as Provincetown’s town manager, City Council President Todd McGee was in line to become acting mayor. But due to conflicts with his job, McGee declined the role, throwing the city into a brief period of turmoil.
Eventually, the City Council passed a home rule petition that allowed the body to choose any of its members to replace McGee instead of going through with a costly special election. Murphy received eight votes, becoming acting mayor over At-large Councilor Peter Tallman, who received five.
During his time in office, Murphy issued bonds to pay for improvements to city roads, sidewalks and water infrastructure. And with significant help from Alicia Zoeller, the city’s community development director, Murphy named recipients for two rounds of federal coronavirus relief funding, totaling $18.7 million in projects that included municipal building improvements, water line replacements, housing projects, small business grants, and turnout gear for city firefighters.
In order to choose those recipients, Murphy conducted an extensive public outreach process, which included soliciting input from the City Council and residents, as well as televising 15-minute interviews with all finalists who submitted applications for the funding.
“I wanted to get the money into use as quickly as possible, but I wanted to hear from the public,” Murphy said. “I wanted to hear what the issues are. What can we impact?”
There were also the little things: making sure he responded to every phone call and email he received, for example, and working to improve morale in City Hall. Pausing to hold back tears, Murphy recalled an 85-year-old resident who visited his office to thank him for helping start a “Knox Box” program with the Holyoke Fire Department — house key boxes that allow emergency responders to have access to someone’s home, meant to provide safety to seniors and those with disabilities.
“In that woman’s life, I made her life better,” he said. “There are many other cases like that where someone has thanked me for making sure their trash got picked up, for coming and fixing their street … Little things, but that make a difference in their quality of life.”
Not all of his moments in office were pleasant, Murphy said. He took heat from citizens, for example, when he rescinded a previous executive order that declared racism and police violence as matters that constitute a public health emergency.
“I would do it differently,” Murphy said, reflecting on that decision. “But I don’t think what I did was wrong.”
Some citizens also took issue with Murphy’s management of the Police Department amid controversy over the department’s use of overtime and his choice of where to direct those American Rescue Plan Act dollars. Some, for example, questioned why the initial $14.9 million in ARPA money didn’t include more money directed at children or educational initiatives.
A second round of $3.8 million in county ARPA funds did include that funding — $300,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke to renovate its day care center, for example. It also included $138,000 to purchase Tasers and train Holyoke police how to use them.
Murphy said he has always acted under the same principle: “We can disagree, but we need to respectfully disagree, and we can’t question the motives of somebody who has a different idea.”
Murphy had many people to thank for being essential to his work as mayor: Executive Assistant Nilka Ortiz, for example, who Murphy called “a home run for the city,” and Sean Gonsalves, the board of health director who continues to steer the city through the COVID-19 pandemic.
When asked what advice he’d give his successor — Garcia, who will be sworn in on Nov. 15 after a historic victory that will make him the city’s first Latino mayor — Murphy suggested not making any radical changes early in his tenure and making decisions based on what’s best for the city.
“Don’t worry about politics,” Murphy said. “I had the advantage of saying, ‘I’m making my decision regardless of political consequences’ … You need to make a decision not based on who is backing anything, but if it’s good for the city. And if so, why it’s good for the city.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.