Whately town clerk running for state rep seat

WHATELY — Town Clerk Amy Lavallee is running to be the next state representative of the 1st Franklin District, a responsibility she sees as an extension of her “favorite aspect” of serving her town.

Lavallee, 49, is seeking election to the open seat left by state Rep. Natalis Blais, who resigned on

Jan. 19. As Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano opted not to call a special election to replace her, Blais’ seat will remain open until the November 2026 election and the winner will be sworn in next January to represent the 1st Franklin District.

Since Blais’ resignation, Corinne Coryat, a Deerfield resident and former aide for Blais, and Johnathan Creque, a Greenfield resident and former staffer for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have announced plans to run for the open seat. Deerfield resident David Wemhoener also filed paperwork with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to run, but decided against it. He did not elaborate on his decision when reached by email.

For Lavallee, Whately is more than the town she serves. Lavallee has lived in the area since the age of 12, when her family moved to where her father and grandparents grew up.

“I’ve been here ever since,” Lavallee said with a smile.

Off the clock, Lavallee has traveled with veterans on five Honor Flights to Washington D.C.; volunteered with the Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit that sends kids in New York City to rural areas like Whately for outdoor adventures; delivered meals with the MANNA Soup Kitchen in Northampton; dropped duck nets with the Delta Waterfowl Connecticut River Valley Chapter; started a Giving Garden with Whately Selectboard member Julie Waggoner at the Town Offices where residents can donate and pick up produce from the town’s farms; and served on the School Committee for Franklin County Technical School.

“I live here, I work here, I’ve been here, I understand the community,” she said. “I’ve been immersed in so many different aspects of this community.”

If elected, the switch from town clerk to state representative would not mark the first career pivot for Lavallee, who earned a degree in early childhood education at Greenfield Community College. After 15 years of teaching, she decided to switch lanes to nursing school. She worked as an emergency department technician for six years and in outpatient and urgent care for three years. In 2021, she took a step back, re-evaluated and left the medical field.

When she told her neighbor about her decision, he mentioned there was an opening for an administrative assistant position in the Whately Town Offices.

“I definitely didn’t set out to do it,” Lavallee said of her town clerk position.

After working as an administrative assistant for a year, she started as interim town clerk in March 2023, filling a spot that became empty amid retirements and shuffling seats. About three months later, she ran unopposed and secured her spot as Whately’s official town clerk.

“I basically am the front line for residents to their local government — if they have questions, they come see me, and I figure out how to solve their questions or problems.”

Dealing with dog licensing, gathering census data, handling town records and ensuring town elections run smoothly fill her time.

“I love it,” Lavallee said. “I love my residents. I really like helping them problem-solve or [helping] them with whatever they need.”

Once, when a resident called in a panic asking for help picking up medication in the freezing cold and the go-to organizations could not make the trek, she drove to the pharmacy and delivered the medicine to the resident herself.

She sees becoming a state representative not as a 180-degree turn, but rather a next step.

“I can do the favorite aspect of my job now on a broader scale — I have a bigger community that I can help and that I can problem-solve with,” Lavallee said. “I have a chance to be a voice for people on this side of the state, when sometimes it feels like we don’t really have that voice from Boston, and to be able to have that opportunity — I don’t know how to say this without sounding hokey — but it fills my soul. I don’t know any other way to put it and that’s why I’m doing it.”

Lavallee sat on the decision to run for about a year. Then, news of Blais’ resignation broke.

“Now’s my chance,” she remembers thinking.

Blais resigned three days before the town clerk flew to Puerto Rico for a vacation. Instead of her thoughts slowing to a sweet stop on the beach, they clung to Blais’ open seat. She meditated on the decision for days until finally “[putting] it out to the universe.”

“I [was] like, ‘Should I do this?’ and a wave hit me and then a shooting star went across,” Lavallee recalled. “So I took that as a yes.”

The Whately resident will run as an Independent, which she feels is the key to best representing the 1st Franklin District.

“I think that is the easiest way to represent everybody, because you don’t have a party bias or a party lens that you look through, and so I think that’ll make it a lot easier for me to help the people in the community in an unbiased way,” Lavallee explained.

Currently, Rep. Susannah Whipps of Athol is the only Independent serving on the House of Representatives.

Instead of a set list of priorities, Lavallee plans to follow the issues that 1st Franklin District residents raise, expecting agricultural, housing and road infrastructure problems to be the most prominent concerns.

“My vision and my goal is to go back to the basics of the residents in the community. It’s about their needs and not my opinions or needs. They would lead the discussions. I don’t bring the discussions to the table, because I’m representing them; I’m not representing myself,” Lavallee said. “I’m here to listen and to help as much as I can.”

Lavallee stressed that the range of experiences in her 49 years gives her a unique empathy when she is listening to the people she serves.

Before coming to Whately, Lavallee moved about every six months as an “Air Force brat” while her father served in the Vietnam War, spending most summer breaks in New Jersey with her abuelo and papito. Her mother, who grew up with little money in Puerto Rico, raised her. At 17 years old, Lavallee became a mother with her first of three sons.

“That’s not even the tip of the iceberg,” Lavallee said with a laugh.

“I’m in a place now that I can take all of those experiences, everything I’ve learned from that and be able to bring that experience when I’m with people, and I just have a better understanding of where they’re coming from,” she said. “I know what it’s like to be homeless, I know what it’s like to have a home, I know what it’s like to be a mom of three kids growing up today, I know what it’s like to have kids in public schools and I’ve experienced a lot, and I’ve seen a lot, and I think that that’s a really big strength that I’m able to bring.”

Lavallee views her run for state representative not as a step to reach the next rung of a career ladder, a perspective she believes sets her apart.

“I’m not a career politician. I’m just a person,” Lavallee stressed. “I’m in it for the right reasons; I’m not in it to benefit myself. It’s not something that I’m looking for for just a cushy job for the rest of my life. I’m actually in it to help people, and that’s what politicians are supposed to be, and I think we’ve lost — I’m not going to say everybody — but I think a lot of people have lost sight of that.”

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