The City Council on Tuesday approved the appointment of John Cartledge as permanent chief of the Northampton Police Department. I was among the eight councilors who voted in favor, while Quaverly Rothenberg of Ward 3 abstained.
Cartledge will be sworn in during a public ceremony at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 9, at the Northampton Senior Center, 67 Conz St.
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra in August appointed Cartledge who served as interim chief this year. He succeeded Jody Kasper who resigned on Jan. 1 to become chief of police in Nantucket.
Cartledge was selected from among four applicants and was unanimously endorsed by a seven-member search committee. He has worked for the Northampton Police Department since 1995 and served as captain of operations between 2015 and 2019, when he became captain of administration.
In my remarks supporting his appointment, I cited the support for Cartledge voiced by the community, members of the Northampton Police Department, his peers regionally and statewide, as well as the search committee.
A native of Northampton who now lives in Easthampton, Cartledge has a master’s degree in criminal justice.
More about Cartledge is available here:
https://www.northamptonpd.com/about/meet-the-chief.html
Meet the CAPA director
The Northampton Climate Emergency Coalition, a grassroots group of activists, will host a meeting with Benjamin Weil, director of the Climate Action and Project Administration (CAPA) department, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 6, under the pavilion at the Elks Club, 17 Spring St., in Florence. Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra also will attend.
The coalition was established two years ago and called on the city to designate a climate crisis director. In response, Sciarra, with the support of the City Council, last year created CAPA.
The City Council in September unanimously approved the appointment of Weil, who lives in Northampton, as director. He had been interim director since May and previously was an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has been a member of the Northampton Energy and Sustainability Commission since January 2018.
Weil on Sunday will discuss the work of CAPA, which among other things will help guide the city in meeting the goals of achieving carbon neutrality for municipal operations by 2030 and for net-zero carbon emissions citywide by 2050. The department is intended as a resource for everyone in the community, including residents, businesses and institutions.
More information about CAPA is available here:
https://www.northamptonma.gov/2529/Climate-Action-Project-Administration-CA
Arts Council open house
The Northampton Arts Council will hold an open house from 6 to 9 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 8, at the A.P.E. workroom, 33 Hawley St., to seek input from the community.
Council members and staff will answer questions about local cultural council grants and other programs.
The Arts Council will also distribute a survey to gather information about community priorities. The online survey is available here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVPqXH3Fw6vETYcMwrCe9sX3ug2KUFkT7vNytbSTwZ19TjJQ/viewform
“Community input is essential in creating a framework for arts, culture, and community development that is relevant to and inclusive of our broader population,” stated Kaye Carrol, chair of the Arts Council.
More information about the Arts Council is available here:
https://www.northamptonartscouncil.org
Sanctuary city for transgender and gender-diverse people
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution declaring Northampton a sanctuary city for transgender and gender-diverse people.
The resolution, sponsored by Deborah Klemer of Ward 2 and Rachel Maiore of Ward 7, states that 652 anti-trans bills have been introduced across the country this year “that seek to block transgender and gender non-conforming people from receiving basic healthcare, education, legal recognition and the right to legally exist.”
The resolution states that “it should be the policy of the City of Northampton that no city resources shall be utilized for cooperating with or providing information to any individual or out-of-state agency or department regarding the provision of lawful gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental healthcare performed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The full resolution is available here:
https://northamptonma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/23997?fileID=195697
School funding resolution
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution calling on the state to increase aid to public schools by accounting for charter school and school-choice tuition.
Sponsors Quaverly Rothenberg of Ward 3, Jeremy Dubs of Ward 4 and Marianne LaBarge of Ward 6 said that would mean an additional $3 million annually for the Northampton Public Schools.
That is important because Northampton’s Chapter 70 school aid has remained at about $8 million for the past two decades “despite enormous changes in inflation, and a twenty-year growth in district facility, insurance, transportation and personnel costs,” the resolution states.
Furthermore, “this decline in local public-school funding most disproportionately impacts our most vulnerable and marginalized students, the Commonwealth has a constitutional obligation to provide an education for all of its children in every city and town through the public schools. Yet, the current funding system siphons valuable and necessary public funding disproportionately from low-and moderate-income public schools.”
The full resolution is available here:
https://northamptonma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/23998?fileID=195698
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