I’ll admit, I was expecting this week’s organizational meeting of the Springfield City Council to be a pretty dry affair.
As the Council’s first gathering of the new year, the meeting—scheduled for Monday morning, after the Advocate’s deadline—comes with a certain amount of pomp: there’s a procession into the Council chambers, a prayer offered by a local minister. The councilors elect this year’s president and vice president, and the president announces subcommittee assignments.
But 2010 wasn’t a municipal election year, meaning there’s no new batch of councilors to be sworn in. And the one potential moment of electoral excitement—the selection of the Council president—yields no surprises this year: Jose Tosado, the 2010 president, announced all the way back in July—July!—that he’d secured enough votes to win that seat again. (Really, do we need any more evidence at this point that Tosado intends to run for mayor this year?)
All in all, a pretty dull meeting, right? Ah, but is there ever a dull moment in Springfield politics?
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Much of this year’s excitement—some would say drama—revolves around the addition of the one councilor sworn in this week, Amaad Rivera.
Rivera takes over the Council seat in Ward 6, which sits in the city’s southwestern corner and covers the Forest Park neighborhood. Keith Wright won that seat in 2009 but recently resigned to spend more time caring for his infant son, who was born prematurely earlier this year. In the case of a mid-term resignation, the vacated seat goes to the candidate who finished second in the race—in this case, Rivera, who lost the 2009 contest with 1,292 votes to Wright’s 1,444.
In broad strokes, the Wright/Rivera race boiled down to a contest between a candidate (Wright) who had strong support from Forest Park’s civic-activist core, including much of the Forest Park Civic Association, and a candidate (Rivera) whose supporters touted his dedication to issues of social and economic justice. (Rivera drew strong backing from organized labor, as well as activist groups like the Gay and Lesbian Labor Activist Network and Oiste, a state-wide Latino political action organization.) As Springfield Intruder blogger Bill Dusty recently put it, “the ‘establishment’ entity in Forest Park was noticeably averse to [Rivera’s] candidacy,” and critics questioned whether he had the neighborhood-level experience and relationships to serve the ward effectively.
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Some of those criticisms re-emerged when news broke that Rivera would become Ward 6’s new councilor. Adding to the controversy were questions about whether Rivera, who attends graduate school full-time in eastern Mass., still lives in the ward. In response to a couple of public inquiries, the city’s Election Commission and Law Department confirmed Rivera’s residency. But the controversy has apparently left a bad taste in the mouths of Rivera and his supporters, with at-large Councilor Tim Rooke, who asked for confirmation of Rivera’s residency, absorbing much of the criticism. (Rooke told the Advocate that he wasn’t picking on Rivera personally, but rather calling for the city to establish a fair and uniform means for confirming that, under the new ward system, councilors live in the neighborhoods they represent.)
In the Springfield forum of MassLive.com (an admittedly suspect, but undeniably intriguing, source of information), the “debate” quickly degenerated into nasty name-calling: Rooke is a “racist,” and so are Rivera’s critics; Rivera is a dangerous “socialist.” And, in the surest sign that things have gone completely beyond the pale, mothers were dragged into the mud-slinging.
The drama aside, starting this week, Rivera will be Ward 6’s councilor, and, if he’s to be effective in that role, he and his critics will have to forge a workable relationship. Given how much of the residency-and-representation controversy played out in cyberspace, perhaps it’s fitting to give the last word—for this week, at least—to the Western Mass. Politics and Insight blog, which urges Ward 6’s new councilor and what the blogger calls the Forest Park “establishment” to move forward: “Rivera … should thicken his skin in the wake of Springfield’s often-tough politics and understand that a modicum of scrutiny is not too much to ask, especially as he becomes the first mid-session Council replacement under ward representation. The Forest Park powers should just suck it up. Maybe they will find Rivera acceptable and in sync with their needs.
“And if not, they can find a better candidate and if they are really determined that candidate could very well win. November looms large.”
