While Springfield has had its share of exciting mayoral elections in recent years—the re-emergence of former Mayor Charlie Ryan, who took back the seat in 2003; Ryan's surprising loss four years later to Domenic Sarno, the current incumbent—City Council races have typically been decidedly less thrilling affairs, with incumbents reliably re-elected year after year and only a handful of new faces livening up the proceedings.
Not so this year. The long-overdue addition of ward representatives to the Council, as well as decisions by several incumbents not to seek re-election, has drawn a record number of names to the race. Thirty-eight people were recently certified by the city's Elections Commission as candidates for the Council, which, starting this election, will comprise five at-large seats and eight councilors elected from individual wards.
Only four of the nine incumbents are seeking re-election this year, and all four—Tim Rooke, Jose Tosado, Jimmy Ferrera and Kateri Walsh—are vying for one of the at-large seats. The other at-large candidates include some familiar faces, including long-time School Committee member Tom Ashe, who in a surprising move decided to make a run for Council, and Mo Jones, who served on the Council in the past and was the 10th-place finisher in the 2007 election. Also running for at-large seats are Library Commissioner Vera O'Connor and Robert Francesca.
With no incumbents running for any of the newly created ward seats, those races are filled with different, if not necessarily new, faces. Former City Councilor Carol Lewis-Caulton (whose independent voice endeared her to many voters, if not the political powers that be) is running again, this time as Ward 5's representative; Lewis-Caulton was a ward rep activist, as was Gumersindo Gomez (running for the Ward 1 seat) and long-time Democratic party leader E. Henry Twiggs (running in Ward 4). School Committee member Mike Rodgers is attempting to move to the Council, running for the hotly contested Ward 7 seat.
A number of the candidates come from strong backgrounds in neighborhood councils and civic associations, including Traffic Commissioner Gil Perron (Ward 2); Mel Edwards, president of Keep Springfield Beautiful (Ward 3); and Pine Point Council board member Gloria DeFillipo (Ward 8). DeJuan Brown, a co-founder of the anti-violence group AWAKE, is running for the Ward 5 seat.
Things are less exciting on the School Committee, where a couple of races are essentially already decided. Only two candidates—incumbent Antonette Pepe and Denise Hurst—are running for the two open at-large seats. Starting this year, the Committee will also include four district seats, one of which—District 1—only has one candidate, Norman Roldan. The other three districts will see races.
Meanwhile, the city will also see a mayor's race, as City Councilor Bud Williams attempts to unseat Sarno. (Of the two people who'd previously taken out papers for the office, one, Jeff Donnelly, failed to turn in enough valid signatures, while the other, David Parkhurst, withdrew from the race, citing a "personal matter in my life that I feel would not benefit the City of Springfield during this election year").
With no other candidates, Williams and Sarno will be spared a preliminary vote in September, saving them from having to dip into the war chests they're building up for the big push in November. According to his most recent campaign finance report, filed in mid-July, Williams has thus far raised $55,000. Sarno's last report, which covered the period through June, showed $43,000.
