Copyright MassLive
HOLYOKE — A Holyoke native and current chair of the city’s Planning Board is running for a seat on the City Council. Mimi Panitch, a retired lawyer, believes the city would benefit from a councilor with “zoning ordinance” experience, to implement reforms that make more sense for the community. Ahead of Tuesday, The Republican reached out to all candidates for the Holyoke City Council at-large seats to answer a short questionnaire. Find more candidates and responses in the past week’s print editions or online at masslive.com/topic/election. Name: Mimi Panitch Age: N/A Address: N/A Profession: Lawyer (retired) Position running for: Holyoke city councilor at large Introductory statement: I grew up in Holyoke, and am a graduate of Holyoke High School and the University of Chicago Law School. I’ve been a member of Holyoke’s Planning Board for the past 15 years, and I’m currently its chair and have worked extensively with the City Council. The council struggles with issues relating to zoning, planning and economic development. I believe that having a council member who has direct experience with the zoning ordinance is the most effective way to enact reforms that will work for our businesses and our residents. There has been a long-term, successful effort by the six-member, MAGA-aligned bloc on the council to prevent legislation from passing by majority vote. This has prevented Holyoke from modernizing its financial controls, and has left us at the brink of state intervention. What is the biggest problem in the city, and how would you address it? There is no single, biggest problem — they’re all interconnected. If you try to identify one, you’ve automatically brought up any number of others. Say it’s substance abuse, you’re already talking about public safety, emergency services, housing, access to medical care, treatment options, obstacles to redevelopment on High Street — and you’ve barely gotten started. They’re all tangled together. We’re not going to get one, or ten, grand unified fixes for any of it. Pick a place, start and keep going. The City Council always struggles to keep taxes low, while providing needed services and making advancements. How specifically will you balance the three? A budget is a moral document, and our resources are limited, so all tradeoffs are about our values. If we have to make a choice between lower taxes, more school bus service, and equipment for the Police Department, what do we choose, and why? We need to look at those questions together. I believe in long-term investment and maintenance. Letting problems ride because we won’t spend money on them hasn’t been good for Holyoke, and we should stop doing it. The housing crisis continues to take a toll on residents and those who want to move to the city. How should the city attack the problem? We’d look to the state for creative funding mechanisms, and perhaps for building code adjustments that could make it more financially feasible to rehabilitate and convert older buildings, as well as to build new. The new state rules that allow for accessory dwelling units in every district where residences are allowed can help too. Care will have to be taken to ensure that no Holyoke are forced out via gentrification. Holyoke has assets we can use to attack the housing problem. The city was built on a scale that’s perfect for urban living, and what remains of our historic downtown is beautiful, with room for infill residential development targeted at all income levels. What types of development would you like to attract to the city and how would you do it? I want what everybody else wants — the visionary, iconic businesses that will take advantage of Holyoke’s unique assets and character to grow and thrive for generations. We can’t know who they are yet, so we work to make the city a good place for anyone to start or grow a business, large or small. We make sure the world knows about the opportunities offered by our green infrastructure. We also make sure it’s easy for anyone with a good idea has all the support they need to find a space to develop it.
