2023 is heading for the history books, and Western Massachusetts continues to evolve. Over the past year, residents in the region have seen breakthroughs and investments holding the promise of changing life for the better. New and reoccurring challenges have also reared their heads.
Reflecting back, staff in The Republican newsroom compiled what we thought were the biggest news stories of the year, the issues dominating headlines poised to change the way we travel, work and live.
In no particular order, here are the stories and trends we see shaping the region.
Eastfield Mall: You’ve got it all!
The end finally came in July for the Eastfield Mall as crews began demolishing the 56-year-old shopping center following decades of decline and years of warnings from its owners that redevelopment was near.
Today, much of the 45-acre property is cleared of rubble as demolition continues, making way for an $65 to $85-million redevelopment, turning the property into a new shopping center called Springfield Crossing.
A billboard at the property proclaims “Coming in 2025″ and “Now leasing.”
By the end, a cadre of 43 small local businesses that kept the Eastfield Mall active in its declining years had to find other locations.
Hannoush Jewelers moved across Boston Road, Donovan’s Irish Pub reopened in Holyoke and Greek restaurant Mykonos is working to open in the TD Bank building in downtown Springfield.
Meanwhile, questions continue to hang over the Enfield Square Mall, in Enfield, Connecticut. Over the summer, town officials threatened to shut down the property first opened in 1971 after a gaping hole opened in the roof. The town says it is in contract with potential buyers at the site.
MGM Springfield rebounds
MGM Springfield was quiet heading into 2023 — too quiet — but following a City Hall sit-down with Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, economic development chief Timothy Sheehan and casino committee chairman — and now soon-to-be council President — Michael Fenton, MGM Resorts International CEO William Hornbuckle acknowledged the casino’s shortcomings and promised more activity, reopening various restaurants, for instance.
August was the casino’s five-year anniversary.
In came entertainment — including a comedy show by comedians Jon Stewart, John Mulaney and Pete Davidson at the MassMutual Center. It worked, and the casino saw big crowds and steady and sometimes improving gross gambling revenue and long-promised job gains.
The casino had 1,490 employees — 960 of them full-time — in the third quarter, up 12% year-over-year.
East-west rail picks up steam
Washington, and Beacon Hill, had good news this year for supporters of improved Boston-to-Springfield passenger rail service in 2023, despite some local reservations about a report from the legislature that came out just a few weeks ago raising fears that focus of the project might be shifting into Boston.
In September, U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal and Gov. Maura T. Healey announced $108 million for track work between Worcester and Springfield, a project that would initially add two new daily train trips between Boston, Worcester and Springfield.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Amtrak and the freight railroad CSX are currently doing planning and engineering ahead of construction.
But in November, the state legislature came back with a much-delayed report advising against creating a regional rail authority to administer the project and instead give it to MassDOT.
The report also disappointed some advocates by focusing on work needed at Boston’s South station. It raises fears of another “Big Dig” where Boston’s needs draw resources from Western Massachusetts.
In December, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $500,000 in planning and research funding for east-west rail and at the same time named the route between Boston to Albany, New York, a priority corridor for the project.
At the same time, ridership on Amtrak’s New Haven-Springfield route rose 36% over the recently completed fiscal year, the railroad announced in November.
Amtrak passenger counts through Springfield’s Union Station were up as well. There were 56,279 on and 56,479 off in fiscal 2022 for 112,758 total. There were 76,076 who got on at Springfield Union station in the 12 months that ended in September 2023 and 73,296 who arrived here for a total of 149,372. That’s a 32% increase.
Buzz wears off cannabis
Cannabis shops are still opening — such as Zaza Green in Springfield that opened in July — and others are under construction, such as EMBR, also in Springfield, but the legalized industry might be going through a contraction.
In May, Trulieve cannabis exited the state, closing a factory in Holyoke and stores in Northampton, Worcester and Framingham. More than 90 employees were laid off.
The Holyoke factory sits empty and is not on the market.
The move came while the publicly-traded company came under regulatory pressure, and now a lawsuit, following the 2022 asthma death of a worker there, Lorna McMurrey, of West Springfield. State regulators said dust and poor ventilation triggered the reaction that killed her. She was 27.
The Cannabis Control Commission says at least 17 businesses have returned or lost state-issued licenses.
And the price of marijuana keeps falling. Last month it was $159 an ounce, according to the commission. That’s as low as it’s ever been and down from highs around $416 an ounce in 2020 and 2021.
Westfield detective found guilty of murder of wife
They seemed the perfect family. A hard-working husband and member of the local police department. A devoted wife. The two high school sweethearts built a home, raised two children and were stalwart members of their local church.
But Amy Fanion died of a gunshot wound to the head on May 8, 2018, seemingly of an apparent suicide. Husband Brian Fanion told his colleagues he had come home for his typical lunch of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, which he usually enjoyed with his wife at their dining room table during his lunch hour. Brian Fanion said the couple’s relationship had become tense, and they argued. Amy Fanion, 52, shot herself with his service weapon while he was in the other room, he told investigators.
While his family, longtime friends and colleagues were inclined to believe it, others in law enforcement weren’t so sure and continued their investigation. Brian Fanion was arrested and charged with murder on Nov. 6, 2019.
State police and prosecutors theorized Brian Fanion had begun an affair and wanted his wife out of the way as he headed toward retirement. Fanion’s lawyer Jeffrey Brown told jurors in Hampden Superior Court that Amy Fanion had become despondent as she sensed her husband becoming more distant.
Brown said during Fanion’s trial in early 2023 that Amy Fanion said “It’s obvious you don’t want me around anymore” before she raised the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. That version was according to his client.
Assistant Hampden District Attorney Mary Sandstrom painted a far different picture — that of a hen-pecked husband who met who he perceived as his soulmate with whom he could start anew.
“I hope and pray we can be together forever, eternity included. I would be devastated if that cannot happen,” the prosecutor quoted from one of the hundreds of texts the couple exchanged over several weeks before Amy Fanion’s death.
Brian Fanion also had been conducting internet searches on divorce and gunshot residue, the jury learned.
The panel convicted Fanion of first-degree murder in March. He is serving a life sentence. His conviction is on appeal.
Gun violence spikes in Springfield
The city saw its first homicide of 2023 on New Year’s Day. Justino Bigio was shot dead at 285 Allen St. It has tentatively been deemed a justifiable homicide. But that shooting started a juggernaut of fatal shootings that would bring the city’s death toll past 30 by year’s end — an all-time high.
Police cannot point to a specific common denominator for the violence, aside from a proliferation of illegal guns on the streets including a rise in popularity of “ghost guns.” The do-it-yourself weapons can be assembled by parts ordered on the internet and bear no serial numbers, making them untraceable and thus attractive to those looking to own guns while skirting the law.
Another thorny issue that has driven up crime this year is the drug-filled neighborhood around Union, School and High streets, police say. On one Saturday night in June, there were four shootings in that neighborhood — two were fatal. The shootings came in pairs and erupted just one city block and within two hours of each other. A police spokesman said they were not believed to be related.
Police Capt. Trent C. Duda, who heads up the department’s detective bureau, has said that while much of the city’s gun violence stems from turf wars and revenge shootings born in that neighborhood, Springfield’s gun problem is more diffuse.
“Some people in this city have no value for life. And it’s become too easy to pull a trigger,” Duda said.
As this story is published, Billy Spivey Jr., 44, was the city’s last homicide victim of 2023 after he was shot dead on Albemarle Street just after 6 p.m. on Dec. 4. No arrests have been made in connection with that shooting.
Flood waters wreak havoc
Record-breaking rains this summer and fall wreaked havoc on Western Massachusetts flooding farms, basements and one flash flood even stranded motorists on Springfield roads.
The weather woes began in July when heavy rains caused rivers, including the Connecticut, to overflow its banks flooding farms just ready for the first harvest. The flooding, which impacted at least 148 farms across the state, caused more than $15 million in damage. It also caused devastation in Vermont.
Then a freak storm on Sept. 11 dumped two to three inches of rain on the region in less than an hour trapping some motorists in their cars and causing sinkholes to open around the region. Central Massachusetts took the brunt, with as much as nine inches falling in a short time.
In Springfield that storm caused a culvert behind Liberty Street to wash out and caused a 36-inch high-pressure water main to rupture. As results were coming in from the preliminary election that was taking place in the city, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno was announcing a two-day boil water order instead of celebrating his victory, due to concerns that the break caused contamination of the city’s drinking water.
That pipe and culvert has now been fixed at a cost of about $5 million. The city has applied for federal emergency funds to help pay for the disaster.
Connecticut River gets cleaner
Decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to improve the quality of the water in the Connecticut River has started showing payoffs.
Western Massachusetts hosted its first Ironman 70.3 triathlon and as a nod to improvements in the river, the first leg of the race was a 1.2-mile swim down the Connecticut River in Springfield. Then in the fall, South Hadley resident Kari Kastango became the first person to swim all 410-miles of the river, which she did over four years.
Efforts to continue the cleanup and stop communities from dumping raw sewage into the waterway also expanded when Holyoke signed a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency in March that calls for the city to make about $27 million in improvements to reduce the overflows into the river.
Chicopee has been working a similar order for about 20 years and has spent about $225 million to separate sewage and storm drain pipes. It will take another at least $300 million to finish the work.
F-35 fighter jets come to Westfield
The Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 104th Fighter Wing received good news in April that its aging F-15 fighters will be replaced with the latest-generation F-35A Lighting II jets.
The news, which was the culmination of a years-long lobbying effort from local, state and federal officials, and will guarantee the future of Westfield’s Barnes Air National Guard Base for decades.
The $78 million fighter jets are not expected to arrive until 2026. Meanwhile, there will be improvements made to the Westfield base to prepare for the upgrades.
The jets were debuted a few weeks later at the base’s air show. Although they are known to be louder than the existing F-15s stationed at the base, people lauded the decision.
Holyoke schools call for an end to state control
The Holyoke School Committee petitioned the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in mid-September to call for an end of the eight years of state receivership.
The about 5,000-student school district has been under state control since the department’s board of trustees voted in 2015 to take charge due to poor standardized test scores, a high dropout rate and other problems.
Under state regulations, state Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley has four months from the time of receiving the petition to respond to the call for a return to local control.
Just before Christmas break, Anthony Soto, who serves as the state-appointed school receiver, submitted a letter supporting the transition to local control.
While the schools continue to have challenges, improvements have been made and systems are in place for students to succeed, he said.
Murder-suicide claims life of three people, family dog
Tragedy struck an entire family on Aug. 14 when a gunman under the effects of cocaine shot three of his downstairs neighbors on Berkshire Avenue in Springfield.
Without provocation, Victor Nieves fatally shot Kim Fairbanks, 52, who opened the door to her killer while babysitting her three grandchildren. Nieves next shot at the children, hitting two and missing the smallest child, before turning the gun on himself.
Nieves died by suicide. Ten-year-old Aubrianna Serra lingered in the hospital for three days before succumbing to her injuries. A 12-year-old girl shot in the belly survived. Nieves also fatally shot the family’s dog — all while still standing in the family’s doorway, police said.
The eldest child hurried her siblings into a back bedroom where they hid in a closet. Then she called 911.
“The 12-year-old caller reported that the second-floor tenant, Victor, shot three people and himself,” a police report says.
When they arrived, police found the children huddled together in a bedroom closet, covered in blood.
Nieves’ live-in girlfriend — who told a reporter Nieves and the family downstairs had been close — was charged with improper storage of firearms as she left legally possessed guns around the apartment. The children’s mother, Stephanie Croteau, died in a single-car crash just after midnight on Oct. 6.
Migrant influx strains emergency shelter system
An influx of migrants to one of the nation’s only right-to-shelter states made its way in earnest to Western Massachusetts this year, as elected officials and human service agencies struggled to manage what Healey quickly deemed a crisis.
Many asylum seekers from countries torn apart by rampant violence, and hunger had been flooding Boston’s airports and hospitals once their emergency shelters reached capacity. Municipal heads and social service leaders said a similar trend began in the Pioneer Valley last year, with state officials vowing to cap the number of migrant families they sent to this region.
That was an empty promise. Migrants and homeless families began arriving by the dozens. Local hotels and motels began overflowing and serving as default homeless shelters while city and state leaders wrung their hands over support services that went beyond shelter: food, health care, schooling for children, transportation and public safety services.
“We’re a welcoming community and we’re always going to welcome refugees, but the process hasn’t been great,” West Springfield Mayor Will Reichelt said during an interview in July.
Healey called a state of emergency over the homeless crisis the following month, also pleading with federal officials to offer more funding to mitigate the crisis and speed up work permits for asylum seekers. Just last month, the governor predicted expenditures on emergency shelter over two years may hit $2 billion.
Springfield Gardens sells properties amid statewide housing crisis
The Springfield Gardens landlord that had become an antagonistic figure in Springfield began selling some of its properties this year. City officials, including Mayor Dominic J. Sarno, blamed Springfield Gardens’ mismanagement of its properties for rising crime rates and worsening conditions within the buildings.
The landlords have been facing mounting criticism, which has culminated in court-mandated inspections of the buildings and the withholding of federal rent assistance payments. Patriot Property Management LLC, a West Springfield based company, purchased four properties in August and then seven properties in October. In November, Patriot Property Management picked up three more properties.
The sales come at a time of skyrocketing home and rent prices and a dearth of available places to live in Massachusetts. To address the issue, Healey’s $4.12 billion housing bond bill was passed in October and looks to build 40,000 new homes in the state.
Veterans’ home begins rebuild
Three years after 77 veterans died at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home during the COVID-19 pandemic, construction began in August on a new facility now with a new name: the Veterans Home at Holyoke. The name change occurred in March to reflect the facility serves veterans from all branches of the military. The $483 million project is due to be completed in 2028.
The home will have 234 long-term care beds, most of which will be in private bedrooms with private bathrooms to better manage infection control.
Mayoral races dominated this year’s elections
A tightly contested mayoral race in Springfield resulted in voters reelecting Mayor Domenic J. Sarno to a record sixth term, having amassed over 57% of the vote. The race featured a field of politically seasoned candidates that for the first time in several years was the most serious challenge to Sarno’s tenure at city hall. But in the end, City Councilor Justin Hurst brought in 42% of the vote and Sarno received 57%.
In the waning days of the race, city officials called for an investigation and accused Hurst’s mayoral campaign of voter fraud after surveillance footage appeared to record a man associated with the Hurst campaign distributing $10 bills to voters, who had been picked up and dropped off by a convoy of cars. Voters were allegedly required to present “I Voted Early” stickers to receive the money.
“Any accusations that my team paid residents in exchange for their votes is unequivocally false and nothing more than an attempt by Mayor Sarno to spread fake news to influence the election,” Hurst said in response to the accusations.
The FBI requested a meeting nearly a month after the allegations came out, said Gladys Oyola-Lopez, the city’s elections commissioner.
In Greenfield, Virginia “Ginny” Desorgher trounced incumbent Roxann Wedegartner, winning by a three-to-one margin. Desorgher has past experience in politics, having been a City Council member in recent years and serving as chair of the Ways and Means Committee. A police discrimination suit grew to become a key issue in the race.
Following William Sapelli’s decision to not run for re-election following a three-term stint as the mayor of Agawam, Christopher Johnson defeated Cecilia Calabrese in a tightly contested election between two former city councilors. Johnson earned 54% of the vote to win the two-year term.
