My name is Jasper Fluff Lapienski. I live in a purple house on Washington Street that I rebuilt with my own two hands, and I have just been elected as your next city councilor from Precinct 7.
My family moved from Brattleboro to Amherst when I was 3 years old, where I was a black sheep among the well-to-do in Pioneer Valley Co-Housing. After high school I moved to Northampton, where I engaged heavily in local politics and was visibility coordinator for the Bardsley (mayoral) Campaign Committee in 2011.
I experienced a profound philosophical shift in November 2016, when I attended a Bearing Witness retreat led by indigenous Dakota elders. Seeing their ways through their own eyes taught me how deeply our connection to the land influences our sense of home and where we belong.
In 2017, I emptied my humble savings account to go in on a condemned house in Greenfield with a friend under assurances he knew how to fix it (ahh, hindsight), and was left to fend for myself after he backed out. Long story short, I painted it purple.
I’m actually not a very political person, at least not anymore. I agreed to stand for precinct office because no one else was willing to do so and here I am, ready to do the job. So where do we go from here?
I believe that all government meetings should be in person, and that members of the public should be allowed to speak on any topic.
I think that our municipal government leaves a lot to be desired in terms of transparency, fairness, and access to information; and that there is a lot more the Council can do to facilitate this.
As a former member of the FRTA Advisory Board and public transportation user, I know firsthand that our region lacks even the most rudimentary form of transit service. I intend to pursue investment in more useful public transit as well as better sidewalks and safer bicycle routes.
As far as I know, I will be the only Jewish member of the Council, the youngest member in our Council’s history, and the only one who was recently homeless. Diversity and inclusion are very important to me, and I hope to seek out and bring forward minority voices that are seldom heard in our city government — those of the Jewish community, those who reside in public housing, those who don’t drive (or wish they didn’t), and yes, those who choose to dissent from mask and vaccination mandates.
I am a newcomer to the Greenfield political arena, and this means that I have no enemies. I will gladly be a partner in progress with the Mayor, the schools, city departments, and social service agencies in the hard work that they do, and I sincerely hope they will take me up on this. That said, like any good partner, I will work to keep them honest and insist that they acknowledge and remedy their mistakes. Government can only function in the presence of public trust, and this trust is arguably in short supply at the moment.
My vision for Greenfield is not a modernized, new-age city centered on boutique shopping and performing arts. For people who want that, we have Northampton. Instead, I would like to live in a town where families who have lived here for generations share a laid-back, simple life with indigenous people who have been here for 10,000 years and outsiders who come to town because they like what we have. In pursuing this vision, I hope I can help achieve a combination of affordability and inclusion that would make Michael Bardsley proud.
Jasper Lapienski is city councilor-elect for Greenfield Precinct 7.