Kevin Jourdain for Holyoke City Councilor At Large

12/06/2025

Holyoke Taxes compared to Springfield and Chicopee

Some constituents asked me to provide comparison data on Holyoke Tax Rates and Bills compared to Springfield and Chicopee to see which was worse.

Holyoke tax rate is $17.43 for residential and $38.16 for business.
Chicopee is $15.24 for residential and $32.60 for business.
Springfield is $15.46 for residential and $34.35 for business.

The average residential tax bill in Holyoke is $5,319. In Chicopee it is $4,580 (-14%) and Springfield is $4,255 (-20%).

So if Holyoke, Chicopee and Springfield all have similar issues then why are they all so much more affordable? Because Josh Garcia is not their mayor. He has raised our taxes 26% since he took office.

(You can also see the dramatic difference in business tax rates too compared to these other communities!)

Holyoke government today is run on "feelings" instead of facts. How are you feeling Holyoke about paying so much more than Chicopee and Springfield? Hopefully good because the Mayor claims he has a mandate to double down on his current policies. He might be right, but of course what happens when you run out of other peoples' money.

12/05/2025

This sounds like Holyoke explaining its finances to the Department of Revenue

12/04/2025

Get your wallets out Holyoke. There is a 7% Residential tax increase coming. Mr Mayor (with the support of his current majority on the Council) increased the Tax Levy by $3.16 million. Even with the max shift of the rates between business and residential in favor of residential (because residential values increased by 7%) that was approved last night residential taxes are going up by an unprecedented amount because the levy is so high. Avg residential tax bills are up $1,100/per year (+26%) since he took office. He is also planning another big sewer rate increase shortly. Just imagine how much he is going to increase the bills once his new super-majority rubber stamp Council takes office. He will be in tax and spend heaven.

The Holyoke City Council voted 10 to 2 to increase taxes, marking the largest tax hike in the city’s history.

11/19/2025

Treasurer Update

The City Council finally after 10 months unanimously passed the Ordinance to create the new appointed City Treasurer that the public voted for in January. The pay range is $101,000-$140,000. Position requires a Master Degree in Accounting, Finance, Public or Business Administration with a minimum of 3-5 years experience or Bachelor's degree in the same fields with 5-8 years experience in financial leadership role.

At our last meeting, we also approved for the position to be posted and recruit candidates.

This will be a cleanup operation so we are going to need to recruit someone who is looking for a serious challenge.

The city is now also going to need to post and recruit to replace the City Auditor. We had an excellent one but she left because apparently she had enough.

As I stated before, the first steps to recovery from the present mismanagement is recruiting a qualified Treasurer, and taking the State up on their offer to retain an independent firm to complete the city's long overdue reconciliations.

Now we also need to recruit a qualified Auditor, get our audits complete, meet all of our legal obligations and paperwork requirements to the state, and get our bond ratings and local aid funding restored. All of this also needs to be done in a transparent way.

Good luck Holyoke.

11/09/2025

The Election is over but Facts do Matter.

Three items that the Newspaper with their one sided summaries and the Revisionist Historians at City Hall seem to miss or gloss over so for Holyokers that care about details here they are:

(1) The reason the State is after the city is because as I have reported the city did not complete their financial requirements for the last 3 years including completing our cash reconciliations. The reason this occurred is because our Treasurer who the Mayor and his allies appointed did not get the job done. They appointed him 3 years ago (yes the same three years) knowing full well he lacked the education and experience to do the job, was unqualified but was their friend. Those 3 years of mismanagement did not occur because the City Council did not pass his new restructuring plan a couple of weeks ago. One has nothing to do with the other. In fact, I maintain had the City appointed the CPA with 30 years of finance experience that I voted for on 9/1/22 we would not be in this situation.

(2) It is true that the State recommended we convert from an elected to an appointed Treasurer in 2007 and 2015. After 2 public debates, the public voted twice in 2011 and 2015 to keep an elected Treasurer. That is why it was not changed. The voters are in charge. The Mayor should know this because he ran for Treasurer in 2015 and lost. In 2024, the City Council considered the issue again. First they tried to put it through without a public vote. Enough of us insisted that the public needed to approve since it is your government. The Council unanimously endorsed it and we put it on the ballot in January 2025 and it passed (albeit with only 3% turnout). That position has to be appointed by Feb 2026. It has remained buried in the Ordinance Committee until present time because the Mayor and allies came up with their new "restructuring" plan. I and others wanted the new qualified Treasurer appointed first because that is what the public voted for and we want this qualified person on board to help advise us on the rest of the "restructuring" proposal. Build the Team starting with the key positions.

(3) The $137,000 transfer to fund the Mayor's newest consultant was "adopted" 10 minutes AFTER the Oct 7th meeting was adjourned under our Council Rules AND never did the Council pass a motion to pass the second reading on the transfer as required by the Charter. Only a motion to reconsider our earlier vote to send it to committee occured. Council rules require our meetings to automatically adjourn at 10pm. 2 ten minute extensions were approved. 10pm + 20 mins = 10:20pm. The vote occured well after that. This is all on the tape for anyone to watch. I believe an Open Meeting Law Complaint has been filed relative to the vote taking place after the meeting adjourned. Anyone's guess what will happen with it. But AGAIN people don't follow the rules, then erupt at the competent people when they try to help them or point these things out. This is all Wash, Rinse and Repeat all the time at City Hall. It is all just so toxic and preventable but its great for demonizing the competent people. It is the classic Dilbert Principle from the Dilbert comic.

On a related sidenote, in and of itself, the $137,000 or some portion of it is likely needed to support the Treasurer (doing what he is already being paid to do) because we need to give the State what they need to do the reconciliations. I support the State's firm doing the reconciliations because they will be independent. This independent firm who the State has confidence in would also be available for questions and transparency by the City Council. I am not a fan of the people creating the problem overseeing the people fixing the problem. Unclear at this point if the Mayor and his allies will have have the state firm do the reconciliations or will attempt to hire someone else. More to follow on that.

11/05/2025

Polls close at 8pm. You have one hour left to vote. If you have not had a chance yet please vote. thank you

11/04/2025

11/04/2025

TODAY IS THE DAY - PLEASE VOTE FOR INDEPENDENT EXPERIENCED COMMON SENSE LEADERSHIP FOR COUNCILOR AT LARGE. PLEASE VOTE KEVIN JOURDAIN FOR COUNCILOR AT LARGE. POLLS OPEN 7AM TO 8PM TODAY. THANK YOU