Page 11 - BusinessWest January 24, 2022

nitude of impact that construction will have on downtown businesses.”
She added that she’s eager to find out if the city will support businesses during the redesign because, after two years of reduced income due to COVID, they will soon face a construction pro- cess that also hurts the bottom line.
“I don’t think it can be publicized enough what the construction will look like and how to navigate downtown while businesses are open,” Cahillane said. “I would also like to see financial support for businesses after all they’ve had to endure.”
After years of community input on the project, Sciarra said Northampton is in line to receive nearly 25% from the state for the Main Street redesign proj- ect, and that’s enough to keep it mov- ing toward a construction start in 2025.
“Because of the size of this project, we will also modernize the under- ground infrastructure during the con- struction period,” she said.
Rescue and Recovery
A more immediate task for the new mayor involves $22 million earmarked for Northampton under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Sciarra said one of her first actions will be appoint- ing an advisory committee to deter- mine how to best allocate the ARPA funds. She appreciates that not every- one starts a term in office with these resources.
“I would like to see financial support for businesses after all they’ve had to endure.”
“It’s spectacular to have these funds, but it’s also a huge responsibility,” she said. “This money comes out of a tragic time, so I want to make sure we stew- ard it well and get the most out of it to benefit Northampton.”
This year will also see a new munic- ipal office with the introduction of the Department of Community Care. This new area of public safety resulted from the efforts of the Northampton Police and Review Committee appointed by previous Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz and Sciarra while she was City Council president. The review committee was charged with looking at what changes should be made to improve public safety.
“Their top recommendation was to create a city department to provide an unarmed response to non-criminal calls,” Sciarra explained.
After hiring Sean Donavan as imple- mentation director for the department in November, the next step is to set up meetings with fire and police dispatch- ers to figure out how calls from the public will be allocated. Sciarra noted that, because the police have been the
default 24/7 responders, they have handled many calls out of their realm.
“My goal is to bring everyone together so we can figure out how to transfer some of these calls to our new service. We have a lot to do, but it’s exciting to set up a new department,” she said, noting that the goal is to have Community Care up and running by July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.
From late summer through the fall, many Northampton businesses report- ed robust sales, some approaching 2019 numbers. In December, the rapid ascension of the Omicron variant of
Northampton
Continued on page 13
New Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra says a redesign of Main Street is one of the city’s key issues moving forward.
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COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
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