The race for mayor of Northampton is getting crowded, with at least three candidates vying to unseat current-Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra. Among them is a familiar face in the city’s restaurant and business scene. WAMC spoke with Jillian Duclos about her campaign.
Earlier this year, word came that Duclos would be stepping down as executive director of the Downtown Northampton Association, or DNA, a group devoted to promoting and fostering the city’s small businesses and beatification.
Within a few months, it became clear what she had her sights on next – leading the city.
“I've been talking to a lot of people - I've been in this community, talking to people for almost 12 years – and there's a lot that's shifting and changing around us and I really believe that we are stronger while being united,” Duclos tells WAMC. “I really want to empower this community to have more voice. I think that our most-untapped resource here in Northampton is the people who live here.”
It was early May when Duclos announced her intentions to run. She’s no stranger to politics - her resume includes campaign work for former Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and former State Rep. Aaron Vega. She also served as Vice Chair of the Holyoke Democratic Committee for a time.
But while she grew up in Holyoke , Duclos says Northampton has long been integral to her life.
The Hampshire County city of about 30,000 is where she started working as a barista at 19 at the now-closed Sylvester’s Restaurant, working her way up from there.
“I had the ability to move from being a barista to the Vice President of Operations - that was a key role I played in COVID and I think that's really where I learned a lot, of how to move and shift moment-to-moment around operations and building relationships around how we could share resources as a business community, at a time where there weren't a lot of resources available,” Duclos says.
That work would carry over to the downtown association, where she became interim executive director in 2023.
Advocating for businesses, event planning, and helping organize happenings like the annual Chalk Art Festival, Ice Art Festival and other economic drivers came with the job. So did building up DNA’s board and its operations, she says.
Now, Duclos tells WAMC she’s looking to take her organizational skills to the mayor’s office at a time when Northampton’s growing in different ways, and that community engagement would be a high priority if she were to take office.
“What I'm going to bring to this conversation is a lot around process - a lot of questions around process and how we make decisions as a community or when decisions fall to the community, when do decisions fall solely to the local government, the team within the mayor's office,” the candidate says. “How do we decide what feels good around the decision-making process? Who should be part of that decision-making process?”
Duclos says that philosophy would apply to some of the community’s biggest ongoing concerns – school funding and the upcoming “Picture Main Street” project, a three-year effort to redesign a downtown artery, set to start in 2026.
The candidate also says the city needs to figure out how to build a strong educational foundation at Northampton Public Schools – keeping level services and having a concrete plan to expand.
Contentious debates also follow the NPS budget. This year’s budget put forward by Mayor Sciarra features service reductions for the school system, though the spending plan avoids the kinds of layoffs the district experienced last year as it tried to balance deficits.
During an interview with WAMC, Duclos didn’t focus much on the current administration. Instead, she emphasized how engaging with Northampton community members is key.
“I want to help bring the community into the conversation and I want to help put together a plan that makes sense for the community about what we're going to do now and what we want to see in two years from now and five years from now and ten years from now,” Duclos says. “But, it really starts small - what are the little things that we can do now and how can we build on those to be where we want to be?”
As it stands, Duclos is running not just against the incumbent Mayor Sciarra, but also former Northampton police officer, David Dombrowski. According to the city clerk’s office, a fourth candidate has also recently taken out papers to run – resident Daniel Eric Breindel.
This year's election is Nov. 4.
