A Holyoke City Council member is stepping down from leadership roles and promising to make amends after a December drunk driving arrest. The pledge comes amid continued calls for his resignation from local police unions.
Before tackling a large agenda and passing items like landmark financial reforms at City Hall, council leadership addressed what’s been an elephant in the chamber since the start of the year – Councilor At-Large Israel Rivera’s Dec. 21 OUI arrest and a series of comments the 40-year-old made as he was arrested.
Rivera was still elected vice president of the council two weeks after the incident, but as various comments he made and bodycam footage became public, calls for action intensified.
Already declining to reappoint Rivera to a public safety subcommittee, Council President Tessa Murphy-Romboletti announced Tuesday that, following conversations with the councilor, more changes were coming.
“We both agreed that what will be best is for him to resign from his roles … as [council] vice president and chair of the Development & Governmental Relations Committee,” she said as the Feb. 3 meeting got underway. “Holding people accountable matters, but I also believe that accountability does not require cruelty and disappointment does not require dehumanization…”
The news came as about 30 members of Local 388 and 409 filled the chamber’s gallery and spilled into the main hall.
While admittedly inebriated the night of his arrest, Rivera made a series of comments, including some that implied he would vote against future budget items concerning the Holyoke Police Department.
Also a concern, according to Police Lieutenant Andrew DiNapoli, president of Local 409: the councilor using “the ‘N’ word dozens of times.”
“During that arrest, he repeatedly used a racial slur, attempted to use his elected position to avoid accountability, stated that he hates the Holyoke Police and threatened to cut our budget in retaliation for being arrested,” DiNapoli said during public comment. “Our concerns relate to the broader implications for public trust, officer morale and the integrity of city governance. The repeated use of the racial slur by an elected official is a direct contradiction of the values this city is entrusted to uphold as Holyoke rightly publicly promotes diversity, equity and inclusion…”
Rivera identifies as Black/Afro-Latino. WAMC also notes that while he was arrested near Holyoke PD’s headquarters, it was Massachusetts State Police who observed and booked him.
During Tuesday’s meeting, the councilor at-large spoke at length about his regrets stemming from that night in December. He also vowed to work to regain the trust of his family, colleagues and the broader Holyoke community, including members of law enforcement.
“I’d like to be clear and direct with everyone - it was irresponsible for me to get behind the wheel inebriated,” he said. “I put lives at risk, including my own. I am grateful that no one was physically harmed, but I understand that my actions caused real damage to public trust: I own that fully.”
Since the incident, Rivera has appeared in court. The case resulted in a continuance without a finding, leading to a year-long probation period as well as the councilor losing his license for 45 days.
Rivera told WAMC his path to regaining trust will be long and that he believes what happened in December has created “ripples” felt across different communities. He added that relationships across the board are in need of “repairing.”
Rivera said that as a former inmate who served time for drug-related charges and now fights for former inmates regularly, there’s a need to lead by example.
“I've always been a champion of trying to make sure that we highlight recidivism, but here I'm trying to make sure that we're highlighting it in a way … and making sure that people struggling with substance abuse issues - people that are formerly incarcerated, people that are trying to continue easing back into society and being a part of society - feel that what they're doing is productive, in a sense,” he said after the council meeting. “I kind of feel like I [took] a couple steps back with what happened and I want to make sure that I am giving back, to bring it back to the same level.”
While commending Rivera for owning up to his drunk driving infractions, DiNapoli said he still has concerns over the language used the night of the arrest.
“I commend the councilor for … admitting his wrongs, but I think he really thought that our frustrations was with him having the OUI, that was not clearly the case at all,” the police lieutenant said. “We're upset because, throughout the video cam footage, he repeatedly used the N-word and I'm talking dozens upon dozens of times. If I used the N-word once in my capacity as a police officer, I would be fired tomorrow. He's an elected official: he is held to a higher standard.”
Rivera says he does regret his use of the term while he was being arrested by a white state police trooper. But he added that while he makes no excuses for Dec. 21, he does have one additional observation.
“I should not have said those terms, but I strongly want to highlight that as a Black/Afro Latino, using the quote/unquote slur to a white male and hearing a predominantly-white union come after me about using the N-word … doesn't really sit right with me,” he said. “But I'm not going to go tit-for-tat on that right now, because that's not important. What's important is: I broke the law, people could have gotten hurt, and I want to make sure that we're highlighting that.”
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This story originally aired on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.
Some audio for this story was provided by Holyoke Media.
