CHICOPEE, Mass. - Both Chicopee Mayor John Vieau and City Councilor Delmarina Lopez say they believe they have the leadership skills needed to be the mayor moving forward to address some of the city's biggest concerns.

Earlier in October, the city voted to reduce the speed limit on Chicopee Street to 25 miles per hour following the third pedestrian fatality on the street since last November. Vieau said roadway safety is one of his biggest concerns, and said he has been working with MassDOT along with city engineers to improve the cities streets.

"Chicopee Street is a lot safer today than it was a year ago," Vieau said. "We've implemented and installed with the preliminary safety improvement project five locations on Chicopee street that now that have rapid flashing rectangular beacons that allow you to push a button, get halfway across the street to a refuge island to regroup, where a regular is available to cross the second half of the street."

Lopez believes roadway safety has been an issue for years and said a large part of it is due to the city not being proactive in supporting local law enforcement with enough staff and funding to be able to properly monitor drivers.

"It's a common trend in our city that people are underpaid and our police officers are underpaid," Lopez said. "We don't have enough officers. We can't attract any new talent. We can't retain our new talent because we aren't paying them enough. When you compare us to surrounding cities, the disparity between salaries is rather large."

Earlier this year, the school committee, with Vieau serving as chairman, voted to open contract negotiations with the Chicopee school teachers and teaching assistants a year early. They were provided with a 2% raise for the 2024-25 academic year as well as retroactive pay.

Vieau said the school district had around 90 job openings in the school district in August and while it has been difficult, the city has been able to address several of those open positions in the last few months.

"It's hard to right now find qualified teachers to work in our school district," Vieau said. "But we do retain our talent. It's my understanding that there's over 500 of our teachers that are in the top step. That's just retaining your talent so we want to continue to do that. We want to be the best district in western Mass., providing safe and comfortable learning for all of students."

Education is one of the many areas Lopez says she's most concerned about. She said it was important to re-open the teacher contracts, but also says it's time for a more long term solution and better approach to making sure teacher and student needs are met.

"We did what the state mandated us to do," Lopez said. "The state mandated an increase, so we did that, but we didn't really go above and beyond that. We are funding the profession, but not the professionals. You can't say that are schools are fully funded if we're not paying the teachers who work so hard everyday, the paras who work so hard everyday, accordingly. Our students deserve better."

Vieau believes the city is moving in a more positive direction and says his goal will be to continue making the city a viable destination for it's new and current residents.

"We are fiscally stable," Vieau said. "We have a robust stabilization account, not just on the city side but also the school side, and our taxes are 25% cheaper than our neighbors. I'm trying to keep Chicopee affordable. We're promoting new businesses. The downtown is seeing a renaissance. We're renovating buildings and getting properties that have been defunked back on the tax roles like Uniroyal. I'm excited for what's happening and I want to continue that progress." 

Lopez has been serving on the city council for one term, but believes the city needs new leadership to address issues especially in the academic and public safety areas.

"For the past few years, we've been stagnant," Lopez said. "We need some reinvigoration. We need some new energy and I bring that. I bring the energy. I bring the knowledge, the background. I have both private and public sector experience to lead this city, and I believe that I will lead this city into a new place, a new era where we will see businesses thriving, where we will see our schools thriving, where we will feel safe."