Springfield resident Pat Markey is running for City Council. Following are his answers to questions I sent via email. The interview is part of an attempt to reach candidates for City Council and learn more about their background, unique qualities, and thoughts about the city.
INTERVIEW WITH PAT MARKEY
About the candidate
Education: University of Notre Dame, BA in Government (1986); Georgetown University Law School, JD (1992), with honors. Bilingual (English and Spanish).
Employment: Since January, has worked as an attorney with O’Shea, Getz & Kosakowski, PC in Springfield; was employed at Robinson Donovan from 1997 through December 2006. Worked as City Solicitor from 2004 to 2006. Served as a trial attorney in the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice from 1993 to 1997, and as Special Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, DC in 1996 and 1997. Began legal career as a clerk in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1992.
Volunteer and civic involvement: Springfield Library Commission chairperson; Springfield Retirement Board member; served on the committee to locate a site for a new Mason Square branch library. Worked as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay from 1987 to 1989.
Where have you lived besides Springfield, Washington, and Paraguay?
I spent three and a half of my four college years in South Bend, Indiana at Notre Dame. I did one semester of college in London, and spent the summer between my junior and senior years living with cousins of my father in Northern Ireland.
My dad’s cousin is a builder, and he took me on as what he called an “apprentice plasterer.” I mixed the cement for the plasterers who knew what they were doing, and we rehabbed housing in Belfast.
During law school, I got to spend three months each in Buenos Aires, where I had an internship at a human rights organization, and in New York, where I was a summer associate at a Wall Street law firm. After I finished up with that law firm, I spent a year clerking on the Federal District Court in Boston for Judge Edward Harrington.
What was your job in the Peace Corps?
I think my official title was “Sanitation Engineer.” There were seven volunteers in Paraguay in my particular specialty. We worked with locals in rural communities on improving health and sanitation.
One of the points we stressed was the importance of not locating your latrine too close to your well. Most of my work in the rural community where I was stationed, however, actually involved building. The community I was assigned to was 50 miles from a paved road or electricity. It had been originally settled only eight years prior to my arrival.
The campesinos who had originally moved to this part of Paraguay moved from other areas where they had no land, and were extremely poor. Here, they hoped to better themselves and improve the circumstances of their families. They farmed the land, built their own houses, and dug their own wells. They had no health facilities to speak of. Infant mortality remained high, due primarily to diarrhea and dehydration. Infections from simple cuts sometimes became debilitating and deadly for lack of medical treatment.
We built a small health post and arranged to have medical professionals visit once a week. I was also able to obtain a scholarship from the Paraguayan government for a young man from the community, which enabled him to study rudimentary nursing in the capital for one year. When he completed his course, he returned to serve full-time in the health post.
I also worked with the families in the community to build the first secondary school in the region, and recruited teachers from the capital to come work there.
When I say we built the school and the health post, I mean we chopped down the trees, loaded them on ox carts, had them milled at a saw mill, and built with hand tools. I worked on the building projects every day. Each family in the community sent at least one person to work with me on a rotating basis. Both projects were truly community projects.
Neighborhoods
How has Springfield changed since you were a kid? How has it stayed the same?
The neighborhood I grew up in, East Forest Park, is virtually unchanged. My kids now play some of their baseball and soccer games at Nathan Bill Park, where I spent a significant portion of my youth. The houses around the park and the park itself are as nice today as they were when I was a kid.
Some other neighborhoods, however, have changed. We have lost much of our middle class. Springfield is also far more culturally diverse today than it was when I was a kid.
What do you miss most about the city from your childhood? What do you like best now that may have changed?
As I have looked back on my childhood over the years, I have often reflected on the impact that being part of a tight-knit neighborhood had on me. I always had the sense that neighbors and other parents were looking out for me, and other kids, and that they were rooting for us. After leaving home, when we would return to our neighborhood and our parish, Holy Cross, folks were anxious to hear about the things we had done since leaving home.
I don’t think that has changed. Our neighborhoods are still tight-knit, and neighbors and parents are still rooting for their kids. We now live in Forest Park, and are part of Holy Name parish. I feel the same sense of community there as I did growing up in East Forest Park and at Holy Cross. I think our kids feel it as well.
One thing that has changed for the better is diversity. Our kids have close friends of all colors. Most of my friends growing up looked just like me.
No one place is perfect. Why do you live where you do?
Other than a few summers during college and holidays, I didn’t live in Springfield from the age of 18 to the age of 33. I always felt a strong connection to the city, though, and kept up on local events through my parents and younger siblings.
After Jennifer and I got married in 1996, and particularly after she became pregnant, we started thinking seriously about where we wanted to raise our family. We really enjoyed living in Washington, but the more we thought about it, the more the idea of raising our kids in the same sort of supportive community we were raised in made sense. Jennifer grew up in Forest Park. The idea of raising our kids near old friends and parents, including four youthful grandparents, was very attractive to us.
We had idyllic childhoods in Springfield and we expected that our kids would have the same. We haven’t been disappointed in this regard. The fact that Springfield had become more diverse since we left was an added bonus. We also were attracted to Springfield’s beautiful homes.
Decent housing in Washington was, and remains, very expensive. To live there, we had two options: (1) I could work at a big law firm and spend 15 hours a day in the office. With my salary and Jennifer’s combined, we could purchase a nice home in Washington, DC or in one of the near-in suburbs; or (2) I could take a lower-paying but more lifestyle-friendly job, and we could purchase a home an hour and half outside of DC.
I liked the idea of working and living in the same community. Since we have moved back to Springfield, I have always worked downtown, and lived a mile and a half from the office. My commute has never been longer than seven minutes. I love to brag about that when we are with our friends who live in larger cities.
Read the rest of the interview here.
