Holyoke Finance Panel OKs Six Grant, Aid Items
Finance Committee · Meeting of September 8, 2026
Holyoke Finance Committee advances six grants, but casino mitigation funding drops to $75,000. The panel, chaired by Councilor Patty Devine, voted unanimously to accept $352,020.27 in state highway aid toward a snow and ice deficit that Comptroller Sharon Bittner said still leaves the city's overtime account more than $400,000 in the red. Councilor Meg McGrath-Smith criticized the state for cutting Holyoke's Mass Gaming Commission mitigation grant to $75,000, down from $294,000 last year, saying lawmakers "diverted almost all of it to pay for the World Cup festivities in Boston." The committee also accepted a $10,000 health-officers stipend tied to a Board of Health trainee hire and an $8,550 MEMA grant for new emergency-operations-center furniture, after Councilor Juan Anderson Burgos said of the current chairs, "I can vouch for those chairs.
They're horrible."
In the full story:
- Who Was There
- Organizations And Documents Referenced
- The complete report — 2,434 words
Source: the Finance Committee meeting of September 8, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.
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