Know Your Candidates (2019)

The Holyoke Municipal Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th, 2019.

As a way to provide information to the public about the candidates for the City Council and School Committee Election, we are featuring a series of interviews with candidates that have been certified by the The Holyoke City Clerk.

This is the Series “Know Your Candidates”.

Candidates are being invited to present their platform, motivations to serve, and their background, in order to provide an open perspective of themselves as candidates to be elected or re-elected, and allowing the public to have a more informed decision when voting on the preliminary election of September 24, if necessary, and the Municipal election on November 5th, 2019.

All certified candidates have equal opportunity to participate in this series.

To see the official list of candidates, you can visit the City Clerk site:

https://www.holyoke.org/departments/city-clerk/#extra7-tab

Radioplasma does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. This is a nonpartisan, independent media outlet, dedicated to promoting a peace culture, embrace diversity, conversations, sharing of opinions and ideas, and ensure diverse voices are represented in our media.

UPDATE. Nov 3, 2019.- Our series started on July of 2019, and invitation to all candidates on the ballot were sent to allow them to have the opportunity of present their campaign, answer some questions, and provide information that would help voters to have a better perspective on who to vote for, in the Municipal Election of November 5ty. This opportunity also becomes of importance when we consider new young voters who are exercising their democratic right for the first time, to know who are their representatives, and the people wanting to join the local government.

After the preliminary election of September 24, a follow up communication was sent to the candidates who haven’t yet replied to the original invitation. Some more did respond.

After four months of interviews, we closed this series on October 31st. A total of 15 interviews were made. It’s unfortunate and disappointing to see that the names on the list of candidates not interviewed in our series, are in its majority, elected officials, seeking reelection.

This lack of engagement, disposition, willingness, and open communication, says so much about the expectations of their work as public servants. We hope, this feeling of disenfranchisement on open communication from elected officials towards the community, evolves into a more dynamic, conversational, open, welcoming dialogue that would be beneficial to a better civic engagement.

CANDIDATES WHO DID NOT RESPOND TO THE INVITATION TO BE INTERVIEWED:

TODD MCGEE – WARD 7 (INCUMBENT)

MICHAEL SULLIVAN – AT LARGE (INCUMBENT)

HOWARD GREANY – CANDIDATE AT LARGE

CANDIDATES WHO REPLIED TO THE INVITATION, HOWEVER, COULD NOT BE INTERVIEWED:

PETER TALLMAN – AT LARGE (INCUMBENT)

JIM LEAHY – AT LARGE (INCUMBENT)

DAVID BARTLEY – WARD 3 (INCUMBENT)

CANDIDATES WHO REFUSED TO BE INTERVIEWED:

LINDA VACON – WARD 5 (INCUMBENT)

INTERVIEWS FOR CITY COUNCIL AT-LARGE

Deborah Aloisi