“We have a really exciting time upon us here,” George Mulry, the executive director of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame, told news reporters gathered at the Holyoke nonprofit on Feb. 6, 2024.
The press conference centered on a new company, USA International Sports Complex Group, and its proposal to relocate the hall of fame to an “Olympic-style” facility to make “Holyoke the sports capital of New England.” While Mulry spoke, easels to his left and right displayed promising plans. Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia and Director of Planning and Economic Development Aaron Vega waited in the wings for their turns at the podium. In the front row sat Cesar Ruiz, a businessman best known as the founder of Golden Years Home Care Services in Springfield, dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, his white pocket square folded in a three-point peak.
“We commend Mayor Josh Garcia and local businessman Cesar Ruiz for their leadership in spearheading this initiative,” Mulry said.
But when Ruiz took the mic, he said the idea began with Garcia.
“Two years ago, the mayor and I … he shared his vision on the sports facility, and quite frankly at the time I was building my company, Golden Years,” he told the audience. “I didn’t know if I had the time to really devote to it. And a year went by … we had a second conversation, but it turned out very differently that day: I was on fire. I couldn’t sleep for weeks because of this vision … I told the mayor, ‘We can do this.’”
A grinning Garcia demurred. “Now to be clear, this is not just my idea,” he said. “Having a sports complex has been a desire of many Holyokers from every corner of this city since I was a kid, simply because we are a sports city.”
The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, the governing body for world volleyball, reports that 800 million people are fans of the sport. “Volleyball has come a long way from the dusty-old YMCA gymnasium of Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA, where the visionary William G. Morgan invented the sport back in 1895,” the federation reports on its website.
At the press conference, Garcia called volleyball the city’s biggest worldwide export. Now, USA International says it wants to use the sport to “bring the world to Holyoke.”
When Vega took the mic, he said, “We’re here to talk about something that we’ve been talking about for a long time: How can Holyoke capitalize on being the home of volleyball?”
This is the $41-million question. But despite the city’s initial enthusiasm about the project, nearly two and a half years later, no one seems to know the answer. What’s more, some residents have resisted the idea of putting the development in their neighborhoods. The project is now at the center of a lawsuit accusing city leaders of having “plans to destroy” a strip of woodland near downtown, known as Elmwood Forest, in order to “use the site for a commercial sports complex.” The suit is part of a protest movement to protect that forest.
The project seems to have plenty of excited supporters whenever the mayor posts about it on social media. But in news articles, video segments, Facebook posts, and interviews with The Shoestring, residents who would have to accommodate construction of the mammoth sports complex have wondered: Where will it go? Will their neighborhoods be sacrificed? Why don’t they have a voice in what their “home” will look like, or whom it will belong to?
Many have complained to their city councilors that the powers-that-be are not listening.
One of the project’s biggest cheerleaders, Garcia, has maintained that there were never any formal plans for the complex. In an op-ed published in MassLive in July 2025, he also disagreed with the suggestion that he and other city officials haven’t been transparent about the project or cooperative with those who oppose it.
After declining an interview with The Shoestring, Garcia sent a statement that echoes what he’s told residents. As for Ruiz, he did not respond to multiple emails and attempts to contact him. Those include a message shared in-person with his son, Matthew, a bartender at the Ruiz-owned Wyckoff Country Club, and a request that Vega pass a message to the developer.
As more details about the complex have emerged in select publications or USA International’s marketing materials about the sites under consideration — primarily Elmwood Forest and Wyckoff Country Club — residents found evidence they say suggests that Garcia and possibly other city officials had been paving the way for the politically connected developer from the beginning. Eight Holyokers filed a lawsuit against the city in November 2025.
As a result of residents’ grassroots efforts, it’s possible the momentum is shifting. An amendment that Rep. Pat Duffy, D-Holyoke, included in a bigger statewide financing bill would see the city of Holyoke receive $2 million for site preparation and environmental cleanup related to a sports complex to house the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. But Duffy told The Shoestring that while she supports a sports complex, she won’t support its placement in Elmwood Forest.
“The neighborhood doesn’t want it,” she said. “It’s not a productive path forward.”
Garcia, though, has said Holyoke isn’t a community that says “not in my backyard.” The sports complex, he said in a promotional video, is “just another opportunity for us to prove to the world that Holyoke is here to play.”
But complicating the plans of two powerful men who want to make Holyoke an international sports destination, there has been considerable opposition to the project — quite a few dissenting residents who, it turns out, are here to play, too.
WHO’S ON OFFENSE?
“A volleyball game is like chopping down a tree. You don’t win with one big swing of the ax. You win with lots and lots of good swings.” – Carl McGown, 2010 inductee into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame
Ruiz and Garcia
The paths of Ruiz, 70, and Garcia, 40, have been interwoven for years.
State records show that Ruiz, who is now among the top campaign contributors to Garcia’s political career, first donated to Garcia’s historic run for mayor in October 2021. Soon after, Garcia was elected as the first Latino mayor in a city where more than half of its residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to census data.
Four decades earlier, in 1981, Ruiz was “the first Hispanic to hold public office in Massachusetts at age 25,” according to a bio published by the Economic Development Council of Western Mass.
Garcia, elected at 35, and Ruiz, elected at 25, are political trailblazers whose paths weren’t easy; Ruiz, for example, faced staggering racism after his family came to Springfield from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, when he was an infant. Before he was elected to the School Committee, then-Mayor Theodore Dimauro told The Morning Union newspaper that the young politician was “very attractive and articulate. He’s closer to the Anglo-Saxon image. He doesn’t have an accent. He dresses.”
The “Hispanic candidate,” as he was often referred to in the press, was elected by a joint convention of the City Council and School Committee to fill a vacant seat on the school board after 61 rounds of voting. According to The Springfield Republican’s coverage at the time, Ruiz won when the mayor was persuaded to vote for him instead of the white frontrunner in the 61st round.
Likewise, in July 2021, several local news outlets reported that Garcia, then a mayoral candidate, and Israel Rivera, who was campaigning for a seat on the Holyoke City Council, found racist messages attached to two of their lawn signs that “sought to blame ‘minorities’ for Holyoke’s problems.”
A strong supporter of Latino candidates, Ruiz was one of Garcia’s biggest campaign donors in 2021. In 2023, Ruiz established a SuperPAC, a form of political action committee, to elect Latinos across Massachusetts. But just a year later, he had to dissolve the organization because the state found he had violated campaign finance laws by contributing directly to candidates’ campaigns, including several of Garcia’s allies running for City Council. He ended up paying $190,000 to charity as part of his resolution with the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance. In early 2025, he founded another political fundraising organization, the Latino Agenda Independent Expenditure PAC. (Garcia was also penalized $1,000 last month for violating state campaign finance law after he failed to disclose in a timely manner having spent money on mailers that his campaign sent out to support eight candidates’ bids for seats on the City Council.)
State campaign finance records show that in the past five years, Ruiz and his wife, Lillian, have given $7,500 to Garcia. (Ruiz also contributed $1,750 to Vega in 2018 and 2019 when he was Holyoke’s representative in the state House of Representatives, and $1,250 to Duffy, the district’s current state representative.)
According to the timeline Ruiz shared at the press conference, his and Garcia’s initial conversation about the sports complex would have happened shortly after Garcia was sworn in for his first term in office.
Now, Ruiz says that Garcia is a big reason he is banking on Holyoke and a project that could bring millions in revenue to a city with the lowest reported median family income in the state.
When asked at the press conference how the sports complex would be funded, Ruiz explained that while it was a private initiative, USA International could also receive support from MassDevelopment, the state agency that partners with businesses and nonprofits to finance projects.
“We have preliminarily given them a taste last June when my team and the mayor’s team went up to Boston and met with the Mass Development Corporation, and let me tell you, no exaggeration, they’re over the moon about this project because [they], like I, believe in this man,” he said.
“We believe in Josh,” Ruiz continued. “That’s why we’re investing in this community — because we’re investing in him.”
USA International Sports Complex Group
Ruiz incorporated his company, USA International Sports Complex Group, in April 2023 — almost a year before the press conference.
According to public records, the company’s purpose is “to develop, construct and manage various sports complexes in the United States and internationally.”
USA International’s home page, titled “The Future of Sports Real Estate,” reads: “The Hall of Fame delivers brand gravity and consistent visitation, supporting a dynamic mix of internal commercial spaces including chef-driven food and beverage, live entertainment, experiential retail, indoor mini golf, bowling and arcade gaming—all designed to maximize dwell time and capture discretionary spend beyond tournament play.”
One page of the company’s website, titled “Our Team,” doesn’t include bios for any of its members, including Ruiz. The name of George Mulry, who leads the International Volleyball Hall of Fame, is spelled incorrectly. Their “Services” are not described beyond headings like “Birthdays,” “Rentals,” and “Trainings.” According to public records, USA International’s address is Ruiz’s residence in East Longmeadow. There is no phone number. A contact form filled out by this reporter yielded no response.
Eight months after the press conference, USA International’s promotional video for the state-of-the-art Holyoke sports complex was unveiled at the 2024 International Volleyball Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where Chief Operating Officer Andrew Melendez introduced the endeavor to a worldwide audience.
“He has led the way in making sure that this vision is being conquered and being created,” Melendez said of Garcia.
“Welcome to Holyoke, Massachusetts, the future home of the USA International sports complex,” begins the video’s narrator, who gives the location of the nonexistent entity as Sullivan Road.
Since October 2024, USA International has used the video to woo investors including officials like state Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, and volleyball executives in Spain and Monaco, according to a review of Ruiz’s social media posts and public statements. Gilles Brillant, the president of AS Monaco Volleyball, and Gary Acosta, the founder of AVANCE Global, did not return emails requesting interviews for this story.
On a recent episode of the podcast Common Ground, Ruiz told the hosts, “When you see the video, especially when I speak on a one-on-one or even in a group, people get inspired.”
TIMEOUT: WHERE’S THE GAME?
Wyckoff Country Club
When Ruiz showed an interest in Wyckoff Country Club as a potential site for the sports complex, the neighbors in Ward 7 — the city’s wealthiest, northernmost area — came out in droves.
In June 2024, Western Mass News ran a video segment on a public input meeting at the country club, which Ruiz purchased in February 2025. In the station’s coverage, a large group of neighbors looked restless while Ruiz and USA International pitched them on making “Holyoke the sports capital of New England.”
“It doesn’t make me happy to have a concrete jungle here in my backyard,” one neighbor, identified as “Jackie,” said into a microphone.
According to several residents of the neighborhood who spoke with The Shoestring, Ruiz was caught off guard when they told him that the golf course abuts wetlands that naturally limit development.
“They kind of presented their idea to us, but as they were talking, it was clear they had not investigated or vetted this idea,” explained Nicholle Harrison. “Because everyone was like, ‘Are you aware there are wetlands and that we also have a terrible traffic problem?’ The idea is great, but this is not the proper place to do it.”
Ruiz has since pivoted to saying that the country club isn’t completely out of the game. As USA International’s website states: Wyckoff will “be a complementary pillar within Holyoke’s broader sports, hospitality, and tourism ecosystem.”
So far, however, there have only been more problems with the neighbors.
Since Ruiz bought Wyckoff, there have been multiple noise complaints about loud music on Sunday afternoons when Wyckoff has held deejayed outdoor brunches, as well as some outdoor evening events on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
At-Large City Councilor Patti Devine told The Shoestring that she, City Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti, and Vice President Meg Magrath-Smith have been contacted repeatedly by the club’s neighbors. But even after a meeting with the mayor and the police chief, residents say noise complaints have not been addressed with Ruiz.
David Wernick, who lives a “chip shot” away from the 18-hole course with his elderly mother, said that some good has come out of all this: “Nothing in 65 years has united neighbors more than this issue of the noise from Wyckoff.”
Elmwood Forest
A year after Ruiz bought Wyckoff, MassLive reported that Whiting Farms Road — or a 22-acre wooded area known as Elmwood Forest in Holyoke’s Ward 3 — would now be his focus.
But by then, he had his sights set on it for at least a year.
The forest is broken into five parcels: two are owned by Holyoke Gas & Electric but managed by the Holyoke Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, or HEDIC — an economic development tool established in the 1970s.
The organization had put out a request for proposals, or RFP, on its two parcels at the end of 2023. At a meeting less than a week before the press conference, HEDIC reported in its minutes that “a unanimous vote was made to allow staff to conduct negotiations with the RFP respondent regarding price and terms as dictated by the HEDIC and HG&E.”
Shortly after the press conference, BusinessWest reported that Ruiz had responded to the RFP with a letter that read in part: “This is not a dream, but a vision already being put in place … We will build a sports facility that the city of Holyoke will be proud of … one of the top sports and event destinations in Massachusetts.”
According to the minutes, then, it appears that Ruiz had been negotiating with HEDIC since at least Feb. 1, about a week before the press conference.
When The Shoestring checked in with current HEDIC Chairperson Joe McGiverin and current Director of Planning and Economic Development Eric Nakajima, neither was able to verify when Ruiz reached out, stating that the employee who handles administrative records for HEDIC was on leave. Vega, who moved on from being the city’s planning and economic development director to lead the Economic Development Council of Western Mass in January 2026, could not recall the exact date that Ruiz responded to the RFP.
Regardless, after a HEDIC meeting in March 2024, Ruiz put down a non-refundable $50,000 deposit on the two parcels HEDIC manages for HG&E, both of which connect to Sullivan Road, the address for the complex USA International cited in its promotional video.
In September 2024, Ruiz purchased a third parcel.
The city filed a tax lien on the fourth parcel in July 2023, seeking to foreclose on property owned by the estates of David Begley and Timothy Lawler. On a podcast two months ago, Ruiz confirmed that he wanted all 22 acres. He explained that he’s watching the process play out in Land Court, and said of the fourth parcel, “We’re the first option in that acquisition.”
The fifth parcel hinges on what Holyoke intends to do with land now slated “for public park use.” In the lawsuit that residents filed in November 2025 against the city over the future of the property, they stipulate that “the justiciable controversy” is whether the city of Holyoke can forfeit this parcel so “that that land along with four other parcels can be used for a proposed sports complex.”
The lawsuit points to public remarks Ruiz has made about his intention to build at Elmwood Forest, as well as remarks made at a HEDIC meeting in a closed-door session in February 2025. Those minutes are not on the city’s website. While HEDIC was largely available to answer questions, The Shoestring’s multiple requests for meeting minutes went unanswered.
WHO’S ON OFFENSE … CONTINUED
So what’s HEDIC’s position?
In March 2026, a meeting agenda shows that HEDIC met in an executive, or closed-door, session and extended Ruiz’s two-year contract. Because he did not build within the agreed-upon timeframe, he lost his $50,000 deposit, which he paid a year late, according to McGiverin. But the organization gave the developer some leeway anyway.
“We entered an MOU [memorandum of understanding] with him, and we recently extended it to give him another year,” McGiverin told The Shoestring. He emphasized that because HEDIC is not an elected body, “it’s just common sense we negotiate in executive session for land deals.” As for why the public was not allowed input into its decision, he said, “We don’t have a mechanism that allows the public to speak in meetings.”
But residents and city councilors have since questioned HEDIC’s leaders about their loyalties.
McGiverin, who served on the City Council for more than four decades, was appointed to HEDIC in 1991 and has been reappointed by every mayor since.
“I’m representing HEDIC, but in my heart, we’re representing the whole city,” he said.
In a meeting of the City Council’s Development and Governmental Relations Committee in April 2026, McGiverin stressed that HEDIC sympathizes with the public’s concerns.
So why was USA International able to use Sullivan Road as the complex’s address as early as October 2024?
“There were never any plans presented, other than having the agreement and the deposit, and we were never really consulted on the [promotional] video,” Vega told The Shoestring.
But minutes from a HEDIC meeting in February 2025 — which form the crux of the residents’ lawsuit against the city — state that Ruiz intended to build on all 22 acres of Elmwood Forest. The Shoestring was able to access these minutes through public records related to the lawsuit.
“Chairperson McGiverin welcomed Mr. Ruiz and asked if he could provide an update on this important development for the City,” the minutes read. “Cesar Ruiz explained the efforts over the last year to evaluate the Whiting Farms Road site as well as to design and fund the development … Mr. Ruiz explained that he also acquired approximately 3 acres to the north of the Whiting Farms Rd. site and is considering the possibilitles [sic] with the other abutting large parcel that is currently in tax foreclosure. He thinks that combining these parcels would provide an approximate 22-acre site that could accommodate the Sports Complex and other possible amenities including a hotel.”
At the meeting, according to the minutes, HEDIC officials spoke to the organization’s limitations and voiced general concerns about USA International’s plan. McGiverin said that HEDIC’s relationship with the company was exclusive to the corporation’s two parcels. Board member and At-Large City Councilor Michael Sullivan “noted that there are different zoning designations for these parcels and that a zone change would be necessary [so he] suggested that it is not too soon to begin outreach especially to the immediate neighbors.”
If Ruiz managed to acquire all five parcels, City Councilor Mimi Panitch — a retired lawyer and 15-year member of the Planning Board who emphasized her “zoning ordinance experience” in her 2025 campaign — told The Shoestring that a zoning change would have to occur. And that would require a supermajority vote of the City Council.
“That’s a big lift,” she said, “particularly when the public hates it.”
McGiverin feels that the public has misunderstood HEDIC’s role in the process.
“We kind of got roped into a riptide,” McGiverin told The Shoestring, noting that when the MOU is up in March 2027, it’s possible that HEDIC won’t further extend the contract. “I think that’d be on the table,” he said, “but we’ll pay attention to what the mayor and the City Council says.”
Garcia’s and Ruiz’s messaging
In the beginning, Garcia was openly enthusiastic about the sports complex.
“We are incredibly excited to unveil this visionary project that will not only honor Holyoke’s rich volleyball heritage but also propel our city onto the global stage of sports excellence,” he was quoted as saying in a press release on the city’s website in February 2024.
In his “State of the City Address” several months later, he again brought up the project.
“In the coming years, thanks to tens of millions of dollars of private investment, the city will welcome a brand new state-of-the-art sports complex, poised to do wonders for the local economy,” he said.
But in July 2025, Garcia wrote in a 934-word Facebook post about the sports complex: “I want to emphasize that no formal plans have been officially submitted to the City of Holyoke for review. As such, there are currently no site plans or proposals before the city that would require our review or approval.”
A year later, the mayor did not grant an interview to The Shoestring, but he did share an almost identical statement in an email.
“At this time, the City of Holyoke has no new updates to share regarding the sports complex,” he wrote. “No formal proposal has been submitted to the City for review, and as a result, we are not in a position to answer specific questions about scope or timeline until we hear from the project owners. I strongly encourage you to connect directly with the developer for the most current information regarding their plans and intentions.”
Melendez, the USA International executive, and Mulry, the hall of fame director who is listed on USA International’s website as part of the company’s “team,” did not respond to requests for comment.
Neither did Ruiz, who has billed the project as one that will benefit Holyokers.
“I’ve always been community-minded,” he told the hosts of the podcast Common Ground in April. “That’s what motivated me to run for public office [and later on] to be in the mortgage industry because of helping family build wealth. And you do that by real estate. My early experience in my early age was investing in real estate at 21 years old in a small group of five friends and within three or four years, we had like 40 units in the Springfield area, and so I know the power of ownership and learned that and experienced that and continued that in the mortgage industry.”
But Ruiz’s business endeavors haven’t always panned out.
During a run for state representative in 1998, Ruiz declared bankruptcy, according to reporting in The Republican. Then 43, he owed nearly $300,000 in debt, much of it to people who had sponsored his various businesses over the years, the newspaper stated.
“Ruiz, who is challenging state Rep. Anthony M. Scibelli in the Sept. 15 Democratic primary, reported that he did not expect more than a dozen unsecured creditors to receive any payment,” the same article continued. “He said the debts stemmed mostly from personally secured business loans and blamed some creditors with being motivated by political concerns.”
After moving to Tampa, Florida, and returning to Springfield in 2016, Ruiz opened Golden Years, which he sold in 2024. He founded USA International in 2023 and purchased Wyckoff in 2025. In August of that year, according to public records, a home-improvement company sued Wyckoff for allegedly not paying them in full for their renovation work. Wyckoff reportedly owed the company more than $57,000. Ruiz argued that the company’s work had been “unsatisfactory” and “flawed,” an assertion the company called unfounded.
The two parties reached a settlement late last month.
WHO’S ON DEFENSE?
“Effective blockers are unquestionably the keystone of a successful defense.” – Don Shondell, member of the International Volleyball Hall of Fame’s Class of 1996
Save Elmwood Forest
According to USA International’s promotional video, the complex “on Sullivan Road” would contain 16 volleyball courts that could be converted into eight basketball courts, “boutique bowling,” virtual reality simulators, laser tag, and space for the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. There would be an outdoor “flex turf field” and room for the “Hall of Fame Hotel.”
“Here’s the real kicker: while this grand plan was showcased to dignitaries and guests at the Hall of Fame, the residents most affected by it were kept completely in the dark,” resident Jordana O’Connell wrote on Facebook when she discovered the video a year after it was unveiled.
Now, neighbors of Elmwood Forest are concerned about what Ruiz has planned for land that some, like Paola Ferrario and Jessica Montagna, say serves as an environmental canopy, a source of clean air, and a spot in the city to hike.
The two are part of an advocacy group, Save Elmwood Forest, that now has a Facebook page with 140 followers and a private Facebook group with 382 members. Eight residents associated with the advocacy group, including O’Connell, ultimately filed a lawsuit against the city of Holyoke.
Local attorney Michael Pill took on the case pro bono.
“I’m an old legal aid lawyer and I don’t like to see people get stomped on in a political matter like this,” Pill told The Shoestring.
He said that “locally unpopular land uses” often “get put in the poorest neighborhoods because they’re the ones who lack the resources to fight.”
“Well, sometimes the pissants fight back.”
The city councilors
At-Large City Councilor Israel Rivera explained to The Shoestring that Holyoke’s “lower wards” are defined by “all the stuff that is not sexy” — from industrial buildings to higher rates of poverty — while residents in the higher-numbered wards have “all these beautiful things.”
According to census data, the higher wards, like Ward 7 where Wyckoff Country Club sits, are significantly wealthier. The census tract covering much of Ward 7 is also 82% white. The lower wards’ residents, meanwhile, predominantly identify as Hispanic or Latino and have the lowest median household incomes in the city. The census tract where Elmwood Forest is located — west of lower-ward neighborhoods like Downtown, the Flats, and South Holyoke — has a 21% poverty rate and a nearly $54,000 median household income. That’s almost $20,000 lower than in Hampden County as a whole. In stark contrast, Ward 7’s median household income is $112,000.
Rivera referenced Charles Dickens’ novel about social injustice while describing Holyoke as “like A Tale of Two Cities.”
“That dichotomy … where someone in a more affluent community in the city agrees with the move, and the people in the lower wards are really not aware as to what’s happening,” he said, “I’m the one that sees it and gets the calls.”
He said he speaks for the “people that don’t go to council meetings, that don’t write letters, that don’t reach out to their elected officials.”
In a city of 38,000 people, where almost 32,000 are registered to vote, only 17% of registrants cast votes for their city councilors in 2025. Garcia ran unopposed.
Panitch, the city councilor, echoed Rivera’s sentiments about Holyoke’s duality.
“The other thing I think is also in play, although more quietly, is that Ward 3 borders on the wards that a friend calls the ‘economic sacrifice zones,’” she said.
In a city as divided as Holyoke, is race another factor in resistance to Ruiz’s plans? Rivera, who is Puerto Rican, said he has a theory about the developer: “He’s kind of like the ‘Monopoly’ guy, except he’s not white.”
“I think he’s getting a significant amount of heat and doubt because he’s not familiar,” Rivera continued.
It’s an issue that Ward 3 Councilor Anne Thalheimer also grappled with.
“Maybe we do need to take a beat and crucially examine if we would fight this hard against a white developer,” she said. “I’m inclined to say yes, but it’s not a white developer.”
Panitch agreed.
“I think concerns about the noise, the forest, would be ferocious if it was a white developer, but it just so happens that it’s Cesar Ruiz instead,” she said. “Also, some people’s feelings — about ‘Do I still belong here? Are we a single city yet?’ — kind of attach themselves to this even though they’re not central to it.”
After speaking with Ruiz “maybe two or three” times about his interest in developing Elmwood Forest for the sports complex, Rivera said he was concerned enough to file a motion that the city designate it as conservation land. Meanwhile, Panitch and Thalheimer asked for an update on Ruiz and HEDIC’s memorandum of understanding.
Both issues were taken up at a meeting of the Development and Governmental Relations Committee in April 2026 — a month after the HEDIC vote to extend Ruiz’s contract.
“What is crucial in this is that the neighborhood has to be involved, and has not been in any substantial way, and that seems to me a subversion of the democratic process,” Thalheimer said at the meeting.
Kestrel Land Trust, a local land-conservation nonprofit, said it was unlikely that Elmwood Forest would receive “private conservation funding” because of its fragmented ownership. At the same meeting, McGiverin defended HEDIC.
The councilors told The Shoestring that they were impressed by how the residents came together to rally their representatives.
“This is Americana,” Panitch said. “This is the Norman Rockwell picture of a neighbor standing up in a meeting.”
SO WHAT’S THE SCORE?
In May 2026, the judge in the Elmwood Forest lawsuit denied the city’s motion to dismiss, saying that a “live dispute” exists over whether the city can revoke the restriction that the fifth parcel be used for “park purposes.” The judge, Robert Foster, wasn’t convinced by the city’s argument that no plans to develop the forest strip have been submitted.
A status report on settlement discussions is due at the end of July.
Save Elmwood Forest also seems to have influenced Duffy, the state representative. She recently filed an amendment to a bill proposed to fund recreation improvements in the state.
Duffy’s amendment states that “not less than $2,000,000 shall be expended to the city of Holyoke for site preparation and environmental cleanup for a sports complex to house the Volleyball Hall of Fame and other local and national sport activities.”
“I just want Holyoke to be in the mix,” Duffy told The Shoestring. “This is a bond authorization, and what that means, if it’s accepted in the final bill, that bond authorization goes into the queue for the governor’s capital outlay, so those funds do not get released unless there is united local advocacy for them.”
“I think a sports complex is coming to this region, but I will not be advocating for those funds to be released for Elmwood,” Duffy continued. “The neighbors have made it clear they’re not interested, and I don’t think I’m the only one who’s heard that message.”
According to Nakajima, Holyoke’s current director of planning and economic development and HEDIC’s executive director, Ruiz has been listening, too. The reason Ruiz wanted his memorandum of understanding extended with HEDIC, Nakajima said, was to mull over what to do next.
“I think the fact that they haven’t moved forward, or sought a zoning change, all of that speaks to the fact that I think [it] has gotten through to Mr. Ruiz,” he said. “For a long-term relationship with the city, it’s not necessarily possible to do something creating that much tension.”
Update: This piece has been updated to correct the spelling of Patti Devine‘s name.
Melissa Karen Sances has been investigating the world since she got her first journal at six years old. She feels grateful to be let into people's lives to honor them in her own words. She can be reached at melissaksances@gmail.com.
