Meet the candidates for Northampton mayor

On Tuesday, Sept. 16, Northampton residents will cast ballots that will narrow the field of City Council and mayoral candidates before the general election on Nov. 4. 

There are currently four candidates running for mayor: one-term incumbent Gina-Louise Sciarra and challengers Dan Breindel, Dave Dombrowski, and Jillian Duclos. Two of the candidates will be eliminated in the upcoming preliminary election. Early voting has already begun, and scheduled voting hours can be found on the city’s website.

The Shoestring asked each candidate a set of five questions in preparation for these profiles, which are listed in the same order as they’ll appear on the ballot.

Dan Breindel

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after Dan Breindel moved to Northampton, he was a stay-at-home dad, describing himself as a “slightly concerned resident” with a little more time on his hands than his neighbors. He was trying to understand the “form-based code” that the city was applying to his neighborhood, which he said he and his neighbors were experiencing as a “deregulation” of zoning. 

In his quest, he said he spent hours talking with Director of Planning and Sustainability Carolyn Misch, and “almost every councilor.” In particular, he expressed appreciation for the help of his own councilor in Ward 3, Quaverly Rothenberg. But he said he felt “stymied” by others in city government, saying the process left him with “first-person experience with where the government works, and where it doesn’t work.”

A former radio broadcaster and documentary filmmaker — including during the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City — Breindel feels that the city has not fostered feedback or interaction with community members. He said this fundamental problem is what is behind many of the “symptomatic” problems that others have criticized.

“People like to cite the vitriol, and people getting angry or heated or making bold charges at [City] Council meetings, but what you’re talking about is a lot of people’s very narrow window to petition their government, and feeling as if no matter how loud they get, they’re not being listened to,” Breindel said.

Breindel characterized Sciarra’s budgets as austere, with an outsized focus on replenishing the city’s savings and on capital projects, like the Resilience Hub and Picture Main Street — the overhaul of the downtown streetscape slated to begin next year, which he said was unpopular among businesses. He described the city’s approach to housing as “supply-side Reaganomics,” based in deregulating and upzoning residential areas and removing parking requirements, thereby transferring the costs of parking onto the public. The city should not plan streets and development using the “dangerous” concept of “traffic evaporation,” he said — the idea that planning roadways for use by fewer cars will make that traffic disappear.

The last candidate to enter the race, Breindel said a significant motivator for him was to get these problems to become the basis of the election, in order to create a mandate for fixing them.

“We need to fund the schools to the point of moving the Overton window where we never talk about school cuts, and we only talk about school improvements,” Breindel said. 

Breindel has raised over $5,000 since he began fundraising in July, with nine of the top 20 donations coming from outside of western Mass. His most significant expense, totaling over $1,000, has been for “campaign outreach support” from an organization called “Spill the Tea.” With a number of smaller expenses for events and campaign materials, Breindel had $1,543 on hand at the end of August.

Gina-Louise Sciarra

With a first four-year term as mayor mostly behind her, Gina-Louise Sciarra — who previously spent eight years on the City Council — is running a campaign focused on her experience.

Among the accomplishments she drew attention to is the launch of the Division of Community Care — the city’s non-police crisis response team, which was a recommendation of the Northampton Policing Review Commission. Sciarra said the DCC has served over 1,300 people in its two years of operations. She also highlighted the creation of the Climate Action and Project Administration department, which she said brings a “climate action lens” to all city projects now and has helped reduce energy use in city and school buildings by 20%. And she mentioned her support of Picture Main Street.

Sciarra called herself “unabashedly progressive” and espoused her belief in the value of a “fiscally responsible approach” to city government. 

During her time as mayor, Sciarra’s budget strategy has come under fire from some members of the public and city councilors, who have criticized her for failing to “reduce the footprint” of policing in the city — another of the Policing Review Commission’s recommendations — and for funding the school system below level services. A grassroots movement known as Support Our Schools formed in reaction to the staff cuts that resulted from her budget in 2024, which a majority of the City Council supported. SOS, as it’s known, has now formed a political action committee to challenge Sciarra and others at the ballot box.

Sciarra defended her record of school funding under difficult circumstances, mentioning in particular her creation of a special education stabilization fund. She pointed to her first budget as mayor, which increased the Northampton Public Schools budget by 5%. She said that represented the largest increase in school funding in over a decade. Each year since then, she has also increased the school budget by more than 5%, a trend she said in a statement earlier this year is without precedent in the last 50 years. This all occurred at a time when “the state has been really falling down on providing equitable funding for our schools, across the commonwealth but particularly in Northampton,” she said.

“My commitment has always been to squeeze every sustainable and responsible dollar I can for Northampton schools,” Sciarra said. “My record shows I can do that.”

Sciarra has largely stuck to the city’s fiscal stability plan, developed in 2013 under her predecessor David Narkewicz, which involves the maintenance of strong stabilization funds, occasional withdrawal from those funds for city services, and property tax overrides every few years to keep the tax rate up with inflation. She said that although her focus has been on adequate and responsible funding for the schools, she is also creating new positions for the fire department and dispatch to deal with an increase in call volume. The city is also increasing its revenue projections to be able to incorporate more into the city’s operating budget, she said.

Sciarra hopes voters consider her experience, and her “strong” relationships with state and federal legislators, at the ballot box. The state has 25% of its own budget hanging in the balance, she said, with cuts from the federal government coming at a breakneck pace. “A lot is at stake right now,” she said.

“There are so many ways that the federal and the state government aren’t fulfilling people’s needs,” Sciarra said. “A lot of these systemic problems are talked about on a larger scale, and many of them are only funded on a larger scale, and not funded sufficiently. But they are felt locally.”

Sciarra’s campaign had almost $31,000 in cash on hand at the beginning of September. Since renting out the Iron Horse Music Hall for her campaign kickoff, which cost over $3,000, the campaign has spent conservatively, with the next largest expenditure being $555 for door hangers in August. 

Siarra’s biggest financial supporters are Michael and Katherine Aleo, who have collectively donated $2,000 since 2024. Her list of contributors is a who’s-who of current and former city politicians, including Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge, Ward 2 Councilor Debby Pastrich-Klemer, at-large Councilor Garrick Perry and his fellow hopeful for an at-large seat, Benjamin Spencer, former city councilors Bill Dwight, John Thorpe, and Jim Nash, Ward 3 council candidate Laurie Loisel, District Attorney David Sullivan, and former mayor Clare Higgins. 

Sciarra’s interview for this profile is the first she has given to The Shoestring as mayor.

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Dave Dombrowski

Northampton native and retired city police officer Dave Dombrowski said he is running with an eye towards affordability.

“Everything’s increasing, and pay is not increasing — at least, that’s my experience,” he said.

Dombrowski graduated from Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School with a machine shop concentration, took courses at Holyoke Community College and Springfield Technical Community College but never earned a degree, then worked in his trade for a few years before being laid off as companies shipped jobs overseas.

“I’ve always wanted to run for some sort of office,” said Dombrowski, who is 66. “And at this age, I think I have enough life and business experience and common sense.”

Dombrowski said that he is the “only one with a plan” for building the city’s tax base, which he plans to do through “mixed-use development.” (That plan, however, cannot be found on Dombrowski’s campaign website). He expressed support for pre-fabricated commercial buildings and for encouraging the construction of accessory dwelling units on residential properties. He also lamented what he characterized as a decline in the city’s population over the time he has lived in Northampton — a claim that is not supported by federal census data.

Among Dombrowski’s other visions for city government are a “forensic audit,” which his website explains would look for “waste, fraud, and other irregularities” in the city’s recent budgets. He writes on his website that he opposes Picture Main Street, but also hopes to make downtown more walkable and bikeable, and to expand public transit options with an eventual reimplementation of local trams.

Dombrowski’s campaign has been primarily self-funded, with only 14 donations — none higher than $100 — by press time, in addition to his own contribution of $1,400. Among his donors are Jay Fleitman, who chairs the Republican Party’s city committee in Northampton, according to the MassGOP website, and city residents Robert Cahillane, Christopher Hurn, and Christopher Cahillane.

Dombrowski’s only major expenditure has been an order for yard signs, door hangers, and postcards from a Worcester-based designer and printer.

Jillian Duclos

Jillian Duclos came to the mayor’s race most recently from leading the Downtown Northampton Association, a business group that she helped usher to nonprofit status as interim director. 

But Duclos began her career working at restaurants and local credit unions starting at age 16, and on local campaigns in Holyoke, where she is from, including Alex Morse’s successful 2011 mayoral campaign. 

Transferring from Holyoke Community College to Mount Holyoke College, Duclos went on to work in public relations for the influential firm SKDKnickerbocker — now known as SKDK — where her LinkedIn says she worked with “non-profit, corporate, and political client teams.” She then worked for the New Jersey Reentry Program, which she said was important to her given her mother’s own struggles with addiction and incarceration. 

Duclos said she moved back to western Mass to explore an offer to take over ownership of Sylvester’s restaurant, where she had previously worked her way up to a management position, in 2019. When that offer fell through, she took her job at the Downtown Northampton Association, which works to hold events, promote and beautify downtown, and advocate for business interests. Before it became a nonprofit, the organization had a long list of city businesses, property owners, and other community partners as its members, according to an archived version of its website. In recent years, one of the association’s biggest initiatives has been partnering with the city to support Main Street businesses during Picture Main Street construction.

Duclos said she moved to Northampton proper in 2024.

“I really come from a working-class background, but I have built my way up,” Duclos said. Referencing her experience in a variety of sectors, she said that “there are pieces of me that bring different parts of the community together in unique ways.”

Duclos said the issue that stood out the most to her from a summer of door-knocking was a lack of transparency and access in city government. 

“A lot of people feel they’ve been trying to reach out to the current administration,” she said. “They never hear back, or they are told the mayor doesn’t meet with people.”

Otherwise, Duclos said, what she heard most from city residents was a desire for an investment in services, to keep city roads and sidewalks navigable, and keep the city’s education system strong. 

To that end, Duclos said she wants to reverse trends she sees in city government in which capital projects are approved before the operating budget and bring clearer planning back to the mayor’s office — something she said Sciarra’s predecessor, David Narkewicz, did well. In contrast, she pointed to four years of what she described as stagnation on the development of the city’s Community Resilience Hub. She also criticized the lack of a trial run for Picture Main Street, saying there have been no plans for deliveries or snow removal while the project is in progress.

“What is the role of municipal government?” Duclos said. “To me, it’s to build a strong foundation, to invest in our public services, to run the city really really well. That’s roads and sidewalks, that’s public education, that’s police and fire.” 

Duclos has the support of the Support Our Schools PAC, and the entirety of her website’s “proposed policies” section is devoted to a detailed plan for a budget process that would prioritize the schools. She has raised over $13,000 for her campaign, with $6,500 coming from her own pocket, and had less than $400 on hand when her last report was due in early September. 

Duclos’ campaign has received $500 donations from Northampton School Committee member Emily Serafy-Cox, the Texas-based lawyers Emily and Robert Hilliard, personal injury attorney John DiBartolo, and several other city residents: James Nager, Caitlin Jemison, and Leo and Alysia Campbell. Other contributions include $300 from Roberto’s Restaurant manager Christopher St. Martin, $250 from city resident Benjamin Barnes, and $100 from Herrell’s Ice Cream owner Judith Herrell.

Her largest expenses have been to pay Dori Dean and Cherilyn Strader as campaign managers.

UPDATE 9/12/25: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the timing of Jillian Duclos’ move to Northampton.