With just a couple of days until Tuesday’s election, it’s time for the local media to endorse candidates, and this year there’s a lot of work to do: In addition to a mayor’s race, Springfield voters will also choose five at-large city councilors, and eight ward representatives.
The Big Endorsement—even in these days of shrinking page counts and shrinking readership—will, of course, come from the Springfield Republican. While the paper’s already announced its endorsements in some of the Valley’s smaller communities, I assume the newspaper is saving its Springfield endorsements for the Sunday paper.
But Springfield also has a lively alternative media scene, thanks to its dedicated (and opinionated) field of bloggers. Bill Dusty of the Springfield Intruder kicked off the cyber-endorsement season earlier this week, giving this nod to incumbent Mayor Domenic Sarno: “Sarno has made some unpopular decisions as mayor of Springfield, but he’s also played it pretty straight. And he has, to be fair, also backed some very good things for the city. These include redevelopment plans for downtown Springfield, both in the central district and in the South End, as well as moving ahead with funding for single-family housing initiatives and block grants for projects located throughout the city. Together, these short-term and long-term projects make the communities of Springfield better places for residents to live in, even if they don’t make the front page headlines.”
As for Sarno’s challenger, Dusty writes: “If I believed for one minute that City Councilor Bud L. Williams would make things any different in this city, I would endorse his candidacy in a heartbeat. But the truth of the matter is this: Williams’s entire platform is based on the ‘Whatever the Mayor is for, I’m against’ political strategy.”
Dusty has little use for the current crew on the City Council (Tim Rooke is the only incumbent who gets his endorsement) but offers long explanations for (most of) his choices in each ward—including, in a bit of a surprise move, write-in candidate Tom Walsh for the Ward 6 seat.
I’m still waiting for Tom Devine to offer up his take on the Nov 3 election; until then, here are his typically succinct and hilarious endorsements (and anti-endorsements) for the Sept. 15 preliminary (some of his choices were eliminated that day). Among his earlier picks who will be on the Nov. 3 ballot are Ward 2 candidate Michael Fenton, Ward 5 candidate Carol Lewis-Caulton and Ward 8’s John Lysak.
Meanwhile, at MichaelannLand, Arise for Social Justice cofounder hasn’t weighed in with her thoughts on the entire field of candidates, although she did name her pick for her Ward 6—Amaad Rivera—back in September.
