In addition, court officials were impressed and wanted to discuss with Mayor Sarno and city officials how the City of Springfield has continued to address the environmental conditions, air ventilation and other public health and safety measures in local municipal buildings and schools. Especially of notice was how quickly the city invested and retrofitted all facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued preventative maintenance efforts.
Mayor Sarno states, “We had a good meeting with my dedicated city team on how we managed to keep our municipal operations open and going throughout this COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. We never closed our municipal buildings to the public last year but amended our hours to via appointment. We kept internal operations and city services going such as trash service and public safety were never halted. I was happy to hear from our Judges and court officials that they will keeping business open and have redirected their operations to the neighboring courts in surrounding communities and temporary standup locations. I also expressed my support that if there are plans to build a new state-of-the-art court facility to replace the current Halls of Justice, the best and only location that makes sense is downtown Springfield. My administration is committed to continue to work with our courts and the Commonwealth for a plausible and sensible resolution for our Hampden County Court System.”