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2009 Springfield Election Endorsements

by Bill Dusty

The practice of issuing political endorsements has been a time-honored tradition in the newspaper industry for generations. Not all newspapers offer endorsements, however, while others have done so only intermittently. (Check out this blog for a brief history of newspaper endorsements.) It’s not really clear when newspapers first began putting out endorsements for their favored political candidates, and it’s very much debatable as to whether the common man or woman out there really cares about what newspapers think.

For those who closely follow politics, newspaper endorsements do little, if anything, to sway their opinions. So does that mean newspapers are aiming to influence the vote of the politically ignorant – thus hoping their candidate will get elected as a result of a compliant (or easily taken) electorate?

Possibly so.

Historically, newspaper endorsements at one time had a real utility. The industry had a huge edge, after all, when it came to researching candidate histories and back-tracking past stories for useful tidbits of information. But these days, most individuals have considerable research resources on their own, thanks largely to the Internet. (Libraries, too, offer online databases of past newspaper and magazine articles going back at least a couple of decades, and film records going back decades further.) But again, it goes back to political astuteness. If people don’t follow politics, they are unlikely to do the research, no matter how easily the information can be had.

Today, there are some famous national newspapers that shun the practice of endorsements – the Wall Street Journal and USA Today being among them. As for the lowly Springfield Intruder, I figure, “What the hell?” My readership’s so low (a mere few thousands), it’s almost certain I’m not affecting the outcome of our local, citywide elections. But then again, the voter count in our city is so stupefyingly low, as well, you just never know how few votes may actually decide a candidate’s fate. And I don’t have a problem with possibly influencing what historically has been a very compliant electorate.

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In making my endorsements, I generally tried to follow two guiding principles: 1.) The candidate should represent a break from the long-time political past, or, barring that, 2.) the candidate should act as a balance between the influence of the entrenched political establishment and special interest groups that commonly pressure local leaders into making decisions that only benefit them, and the greater interests of the city or the particular neighborhoods that make up each respective ward. I should add one more “sub-principle,” and that is that some veteran presence should be included to help act as a bridge between the old government and the newer, less experienced government. Only two candidates qualified for that last principle, however, so you incumbents out there shouldn’t get your hopes up. Lastly, I would also like to point out that I did the best I could with the information I had available and in the time afforded me. In some cases, I had to go with my gut instinct, which oftentimes hovered somewhere around an educated guess. Undoubtedly, there are many out there who will disagree with my assessments and selections. But so be it. That’s what the comments section is for.

Now, onto the endorsements.

I will be making my selections in the following order: Ward rep. City Council, from Ward 8 to Ward 1, followed by At-Large; School Committee, District 3 and At-Large; and lastly, the Springfield Mayoral endorsement. Also, if I don’t mention you or you’re not on the list, that means I’m not endorsing you (duh). But don’t feel bad. In some cases I didn’t make an endorsement because I didn’t know either candidate that well.

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 8
Ward representation is more than just about new faces and fresh ideas. It’s also about having qualified, reasonable persons with sound intellect and the ability to craft strategies that are best able to move the city in the right direction.

Candidate John Lysak has alternative ideas for both the city and his ward that are in marked contrast to the decades-long, tried-and-failed strategies that progressives have punished the city with since the 1970s. Lysak is pro-business, and he is determined to rebuild the infrastructure and economies of the communities in his ward, such as Indian Orchard, that he says for too long have been overlooked.

John Lysak has been a candidate for office before in Springfield, but has never been able to out-produce the political establishment’s lineup of challengers. This time, with the playing field leveled down to two choices for Ward 8, voters will decide between Orlando Ramos, a candidate who is largely dependent on his establishment friends in high places (and located in other parts of the city) and whose idea of job creation is “road repair,” and Lysak, who man who is genuinely committed to reinvigorating the communities of his ward. The Springfield Intruder endorses John Lysak for Ward 8 City Council. (Visit Lysak’s Web site, here.)

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 7
This selection, much like Ward 8, is not only about new faces but also about who is most likely to move Springfield in the right direction.

Michael P. Rodgers has been on the Springfield School Committee for several years. For me, his most notable contribution in that time has been his role as an antagonist towards the Springfield Finance Control Board, which he and fellow Committee members Thomas Ashe, Kenneth Shea and Christopher Collins fought heatedly with over the job of former Schools Superintendent Joseph P. Burke – to the point of even voting to ignore the Control Board’s decision to look for another superintendent (which ultimately would result in the hiring of current Superintendent Alan Ingram) and re-hire the widely unpopular Burke. (The vote was later declared invalid.)

It is a fairly well-known to regular readers of the Springfield Intruder that from 2007 (the Intruder’s birth year) to this past June, 2009, anyone who goes to war against the Finance Control Board is pretty much drawing his sword against the Intruder, as well (with a couple minor exceptions). And so it was with the Four Conspirators (as I called them) who sought to usurp the FCB’s authority.

In Tim Allen, Ward 7 residents have a sharp candidate who has already shown – via his first place finish in last September’s preliminary – that he can duke it out with the veterans. Allen is not only a life-long resident of Springfield, but also boasts an impressive business background that has been sorely lacking in past councilors. Allen gets the nod from the Intruder for Ward 7 City Council. (Visit Allen’s Web site, here.)

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 6
Ward 6 is one of the most important wards in the city – not because it consists of the powerhouse neighborhood, Forest Park, which has dominated city politics for years, but rather because the once peaceful neighborhood has been sliding into mediocrity for at least the past fifteen years, with poverty creep already capturing streets east of Belmont Avenue and threatening to overcome the northern part of the neighborhood, as well. Meanwhile, the establishment there has seemed oblivious to the ghetto their community is becoming.

There are two official candidates running for the Ward 6 seat: Amaad Rivera and Keith Wright. Rivera is a bright young man with a solid future ahead of him. He carries himself with a sense of purpose and energy that few people – of any age – can manage. Rivera is also well-versed in the issues that face all of Ward 6. Wright, conversely, seems uncomfortable getting into the details about the problems that face Forest Park. He also admitted at a recent candidates forum that he initially only studied the city’s budget and new proposed zoning ordinance, and seemed surprised that other issues might also be a part of the Ward 6 puzzle. For him, it was a learning experience all over again.

After the forum, it occurred to me that it was probably true that Wright’s supporters had probably put him up to the task of running for city council with the idea that he would have little competition during the election cycle. I had already previously held the belief that, should Wright win the council seat, others far more knowledgeable about Ward 6 issues than he would probably be standing very close behind him, ready to “advise” him after he won the election. And so his performance at the forum was a further confirmation of my suspicions. Little did Wright’s know that a political tornado by the name of Rivera was entering into the mix.

Now that I’ve built up Amaad Rivera as a commendable individual, it may surprise many of you reading this to know that he is also not my choice to lead Ward 6. As I’ve already said, Rivera is a smart young man with good political senses. But many of his ideas are, unfortunately, much too far to the left for me to give him my endorsement. On his campaign Web site, for example, Rivera talks about managing “stimulus dollars” for the city – money that we all know is both tax dollars plus money being printed with an I.O.U. attached to it – the use of which is placing this country in insurmountable debt. The city should be more wisely using the revenue it creates on its own, not depending on debt money from the federal government. Rivera talks about reviving the economy, too, but his solutions are all about workers rights rather than creating a positive environment for businesses. His promise to bring in union jobs, which he promoted at the candidates forum, is also a non-starter. Unionized labor is among the leading reasons manufacturing deserted both Springfield and the entire Northeast. It is highly unlikely companies would opt to call Springfield home with a city councilor espousing – indeed insisting – that jobs must come with union credentials. Also, take a look at Ward 6. It is almost entirely residential, with really only the Food Zone supermarket and perhaps one or two automotive facilities actually employing more than six or seven people. I don’t see any of these small businesses warming up to the task of unionizing their workforce.

[Voters can check out a questionnaire sent out by the Forest Park Civic Association and filled out by both candidates here.]

There is in fact a third option in Ward 6 – although he is at this time not an official candidate for office. His name is Thomas Walsh, and he is currently the Communications Director for Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. Walsh is a bright man with a good measure of political experience, having been a legislative intern for State Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera as well as the Director of Constituent Services in Springfield prior to his current position of Communications Director, which he has held since last year. Walsh is also active in the Ward 6 community, being a board member of the Forest Park Civic Association, co-captain of the Forest Park Neighborhood Crime Watch, and a past board member of the Forest Park/east Forest Park Police Beat management Team, according to a press release issued by his supporters. A law school graduate, Walsh has also worked in the private sector, including a stint at the Hartford law firm Gould, Killian and Wynne and as a public relations consultant for A.L. Cignoli Company.

Walsh himself considered running for council on his own earlier this year, but opted instead to put his full attention to Mayor Sarno’s re-election bid. Should Walsh’s supporters have their way, however, Walsh’s goal of becoming Ward 6’s first city councilor could still become a reality. And so to that effort, the Springfield Intruder endorses Thomas Walsh for Ward 6 City Council.

(Voters wishing to cast their vote for Tom Walsh can write his name in underneath the names of the other city council candidates that appear at the Ward 6 City Council section of the ballot. Under Walsh’s name, be sure to include his resident address, 112 Forest Park Ave, Spfld, MA 01108.)

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 5
Remember when I mentioned there would be two veteran councilors included on my list of endorsements? ‘Yes,‘ you’re saying to yourselves, now. ‘But Bill, there are no incumbents seeking re-election in ward 5.’

You are correct! There are indeed no sitting city councilors running for office in Ward 5. But there is a former city councilor running for office in Ward 5. Her name is Carol Lewis-Caulton, and she lost out on a second term on the City Council back in 2001 after coming in 11th place, with only the top nine vote-getters back then winning a seat in the former all-at-large system. Her challenger, Clodo Concepcion, was recently appointed to the city’s Parks Commission, and is also the 2008/2009 president of the Sixteen Acres Civic Association, according to their Web site. Lewis-Caulton is a member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and served on the Springfield Police Commission prior to its dissolution in 2006, according to her bio on the City’s Web site. She is also currently a member of the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.

This is a tight decision, with no clear personal favorite. I’ll opt with the former one-term councilor, though, who was quite popular in the poorer neighborhoods of the city at the time she lost her seat. This is one of the endorsements I make with the goal of putting a veteran voice on the new city council. Carol Lewis-Caulton is the Springfield Intruder’s choice for Ward 5 City Council.

Read more about Lewis-Caulton from the Valley Advocate’s Maureen Turner, here.

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 4
I wasn’t entirely sure who to pick in this contest until I read each of the candidate’s campaign ads in the monthly local newspaper, African American Point of View.

In his own ad, candidate Normal Oliver made it clear he was running more as a civil rights activist than a city council candidate. That’s not good news for anyone not fitting into his victimized-minority demographic. The problems that face Ward 4 are primarily internal, and must be addressed – and solved – by the people who live there. Finger-pointing and casting blame elsewhere is a failed strategy that has kept the African-American community in this city trapped in a victim mentality for far too long. Only in recent years, thanks to the work of dedicated neighborhood leaders who understand their problems are largely self-inflicted (and no thanks to years of local politicians who have only fed into the victim mentality), has the black community awoken to their real plight. As Mario Hornsby Sr. recently asked aloud at a neighborhood forum when he called for residents to blaming the mayor, the city council and the police: “When are we going to be adults and take control of our communities?”

That time is now, with this election. And it is not by electing Oliver. “I have worked at Job Corps for five years,” writes Oliver in his newspaper ad, “and what do I see? Our young men and women unable to find employment after successful completion and so they resort to endeavors that led them to the wrong path.”

One little tidbit that Oliver conveniently leaves out of his statement is that employment hasn’t exactly been easy to find for white people coming out of Job Corps, either. But that little tidbit doesn’t fit into his agenda. What he wants people to hear is that, as usual, it’s society’s fault that the city’s minority youth are committing crimes. Not poor parenting. Not a negative community environment that preaches resentment of the system.

Haven’t we been hearing the “It’s not my fault” refrain for long enough already? How many decades has the black community in Springfield wallowed in poverty because they’ve been whittling away their time waiting for someone else to make life better for them? How can it be that an ethnic group from the other side of the planet, whose people spoke little or no English when they arrived here, can do better with their lives than generations of minorities who have lived here from birth? The Vietnamese community in Springfield has done quite well, and all without any finger-pointing. The Vietnamese community has stuck together, brought up their children in complete households with firm guidance, found jobs, bought homes and invested in their futures. They took the Forest Park section of the city and made it their own, complete with shops, restaurants and community centers. It’s not about racism. Does anyone honestly believe the Vietnamese haven’t experienced racism since they arrived here? As Hornsby alluded to in his speech last week, it’s about people having the determination to take back your community.

Conversely, Oliver’s opponent, E. Henry Twiggs, sends a far more moderate, inclusive message. It begins as soon as you visit the homepage of his Web site, where visitors are greeted with photos of people from all ethnic backgrounds. Twiggs is a life-long community activist, and although I would usually call being a Democratic Party City Committee member a negative, under the circumstances, and with this being Springfield and all, I can let that pass. (I let that pass for my Ward 3 selection, as well.)

The only thing about Twiggs that irritates me is his rather annoying rhyming slogan, which reads: “Answering the call, because he knows neighborhood comes first of all and he’ll fight for us at City Hall.”

Yyyeeesh.

Nevertheless, the Springfield Intruder endorses E. Henry Twiggs for Ward 4 City Council. (Visit Twiggs’s Web site, here.)

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 3
My endorsement for Ward 3 City Council is no surprise to anyone who knows of my activities in the past six months. I have been on the campaign staff of Melvin Edwards since early spring of this year. In that time, I will tell you this, I may have started out as a less-than knowledgeable staff member for Edwards, but I have since learned a lot about the man and what he believes in.

It begins with community involvement. For the past several years, Edwards has been deeply involved with not only his Maple High/Six Corners neighborhood, where he became involved with the Neighborhood Council there, culminating in his becoming president of that civic group, but also with issues facing Springfield as a whole. Edwards’s list of accomplishments in the community is impressive. On this, he not only talks about how much he cares about his community, he is physically out there, in the streets, working to make his city a better place to live.

Other than his work with the Maple High/Six Corners Neighborhood Council, Edwards is also active with the local non-profit, Keep Springfield Beautiful (currently its president), Springfield Partners for Community Action, and Stop Access, a group whose goal is to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors. Edwards is also the recipient of this year’s Reminder Publications Hometown Hero Award.

Melvin Edwards, a life-long resident of Springfield, is a family man who believes in the responsibility of parenthood. He firmly believes that taking care of the little things, such as code enforcement and respecting the property of others, are the keys to making a community a better place to live. Edwards does not cast blame onto others, but instead has consistently shown he is willing to take responsibility himself in order to get things done. Those are fine qualities in a man, and exactly the kind of qualities the neighborhoods of Ward 3 need in a city councilor.

His opponent, Martin Loughman, in contrast, has been practically invisible in the community despite a lifetime of residency in the city. In a recent Masslive candidate’s profile, Loughman cites his “work as an activist” in the community as one of his qualifications. Yet beyond acting as a volunteer for Special Olympics and coaching youth athletics – both commendable actions on his part – Loughman, according to his own literature listing his accomplishments, has apparently shown no interest at all in actually working to improve the communities that make up Ward 3.

Until now, that is. And one has to wonder why that is.

We will apparently never know. Mirroring his “lifetime of caring for the community,” Loughman has been largely invisible on the campaign trail. In one of his last opportunities to get his views and ideas out to the public (Loughman has no Web site), Loughman took a pass. This was a questionnaire sent out by the Forest Park Civic Association to candidates for both Ward 6 and Ward 3, the latter of which consists of streets and homes on the east side of Belmont Avenue leading up to the X neighborhood. Both candidates from Ward 6 responded and answered the questions. Likewise, Edwards responded and answered the questions. Loughman, apparently, didn’t feel the need. (Read the questions and answers Edwards provided here.) And, in the event he is somehow elected, that is precisely what the people of Ward 3 can probably expect from Loughman should they try to contact him with a concern: No response.

I believe Loughman is not so much a man on a mission as he is a man in front of a political establishment on a mission. Much like Wright in Ward 6, Loughman appears to have been hand-picked by unseen forces to act as the public face for their own designs – only in this case, the result may well end up being disastrous for the residents of Ward 3. That’s because the people who helped run this city into the ground prior to the Finance Control Board’s arrival have apparently determined that the people of Maple High/Six Corners and the poor streets of Forest Park that lie within Ward 3 are weak, politically indifferent, and ripe for the picking. (The votes in the South End, where Loughman lives, have already been taken as a given.) That determination should not only be an insult to the people of Ward 3, but come election day it should also be proven wrong.

The Springfield Intruder endorses Melvin Edwards – the only real candidate in the race – for Ward 3 City Council.

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 2
This is a contest that features two smart young candidates who hope to be elected as the first representative to Ward 2. Both men, Thomas Sullivan and Michael Fenton, appear to be qualified and up to the task at hand – with Sullivan perhaps getting an edge for the experience that comes with a little more age. It’s difficult to say which individual would do a better job, but this is also one of those picks where the interests of the city overall come into play.

I believe that Sullivan, as a city councilor, could have conflicting interests in light of his also being an employee of Sears Real Estate. Overreaching on my part? Perhaps – especially since the relationship between Sullivan and his employer could be quite distant. But the possibility of influence is still there. The Sears family dominates the Forest Park Civic Association, and so most things that go on in Ward 6 (Forest Park) usually pass before them for a ruling. The FPCA is a well-intentioned organization, but is it correct for any group, no matter what their intent, to have any undue influence over another part of the city? Could the neighborhood leaders in Ward 6 have a friendly ear – and vote – from the winning councilor from Ward 2? Possibly so.

Also noticeable about Sullivan’s platform is the candidate’s stale, too-often-stated solution to high crime in the city: More cops on the streets. Our most recent upheavals have already shown that is not the answer. The city can pay through the nose for a hundred more cops with a hundred more hours per week in police overtime, but the thugs in our midst will still be gunning each other down in the streets. High crime – especially drug and gang crime – requires long-term, financially sustainable community solutions.

Michael Fenton, though noticeably young for a candidate, is a man who takes pride in his Springfield roots. Only 22 years old, he has already picked up some political experience by working for U.S. Congressman Richie Neal and Rhode Island State Representative Victor Moffitt. Fenton has even crossed the Atlantic Ocean to work with Member of Parliament John Hayes in England. He is a graduate of Cathedral High School (2005) and Providence College (2009), and has a bachelor’s degree in political science as well as minors in both business and public administration, according to his candidate’s profile on Masslive. Fenton is currently attending Western New England College of Law.

In another close decision, the Springfield Intruder endorses Michael Fenton for Ward 2 City Council. (Visit Fenton’s Web site, here.)

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SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL – WARD 1
I’ll make this endorsement brief:

Candidate Zaida Luna has already made the news with tax issues this election season. If you can’t keep your own house in order, it’s probably not wise for others to elect you to watch over theirs.

Gumersindo Gomez currently the executive director of the Western Massachusetts Bilingual Veterans Outreach Center. He is a twenty-year military veteran, and has lived in Springfield since 1986.

That’ll do.

Gomez gets the nod from the Springfield Intruder for Ward 1 City Council.

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My At-large endorsements for Springfield City Council will be brief and without fanfare:

- Timothy J. Rooke
Rooke has been working hard on the Council for the past few years, making up for the first half-dozen years in office which he has long ago apologized for. Rooke has been a royal pain in the %$#! to Mayor Domenic Sarno, and will probably continue to be so regardless of who wins the mayor’s seat on November 3. Rooke also comes in handy as Bax & O’Brien’s “3rd option” when they can’t get anybody else to come on their morning radio show.

- Vera O’Conner
Any chick who went to high school in Jaimaca, man, can’t be half bad.

At first, says O’Conner in her Masslive profile, she disliked the Finance Control Board when they came to Springfield. But she learned to respect them and appreciate their work after attending several of their meetings. Smart woman.

- Robert Francesca
Francesca is a math teacher in Springfield, which probably means we won’t be agreeing on too much. But he should be good with numbers, which is always a plus (no pun intended). In any event, he’s new and he has no experience with the City Council. Two more pluses.

- Thomas Walsh
If folks in Ward 6 are torn about voting for Walsh in their ward election, they can write him in as an at-large choice. Again, his name goes in the blank spot below the other candidates, and be sure to include his resident address: 112 Forest Park Ave, Spfld, MA 01108.

There is one more at-large seat available, and you folks out there can have at it as you choose. City Councilor Kateri Walsh, who’s been more level-headed in her duties in recent times, gets a half-endorsement from the Intruder because of her friendship with a woman who I’m rather fond of.

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That’s it for the Springfield City Council. We will now be moving on to the Springfield School Committee, which this year will feature four District seats and two at-large seats. (The mayor acts as the seventh member and Committee chairman.) Because I’m not well versed in the School Committee election, I won’t pretend to have any words wisdom for those candidates I’m not familiar with. As a result, this will be the most brief part of my endorsements, with only District 3 and a the at-large candidates included.

DISTRICT THREE – Orlando Santiago
His opponent, Chris Collins, will probably take this election after swamping the preliminary vote last September. But Collins was one of the antagonists fighting against the FCB to keep an unpopular schools superintendent in office, and for that, he gets the Intruder lash.

AT LARGE – Antonette Pepe
Pepe has been fighting waste, corruption and incompetence in the Springfield School Department since she first became a Committee member back in 2004. While everyone else is nodding their heads in agreement, she’s the skeptic with a raised eyebrow. And she can speak her mind, too.

The boys in the Network can’t stand her. Residents and parents love her.

AT-LARGE – Denise Hurst
Why not? She’s in anyway. And she looks like she’ll be as feisty as Pepe.

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AND NOW………….. DRUM ROLL PLEASE…………

The Springfield Intruder’s

2009 Endorsement for the Mayor of the City of Springfield

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Springfield today appears to be facing an unprecedented series of challenges as we grapple with that double-headed monster that has been plaguing us for far too long: poverty and crime.

The city, however, is actually caught in a perpetual cycle – going through the same crises over and over again. Really, it’s a wonder things aren’t far worse than they actually are. Springfield is poorer now than it was five years ago. It was poorer five years ago than it was ten years before that. And so on and so forth going back to the 1960s.

Things aren’t getting any better because we keep doing the same things that don’t work.

Look up the crime headlines for the past three or four years. You’ll notice that each year – usually around springtime – the Republican features a story on some bold, coordinated gang and drug raid by local, state, and federal law enforcement on dealers and gang members in the city. Each story makes each annual raid sound like some grandiose event that will be heralding forth a new era of peace on our streets.

Then the judges let the thugs go after a few weeks and we start everything all over again.

Kids get gunned down on our streets. The community gathers afterward for an “anti-violence” rally where they all declare they’re not going to tolerate it any more. Then the next day two guys get shot in a drive-by.

People blame the mayor first, the police second, and sometimes get around to blaming the city council.

You know who’s really to blame? The number one problem with our society today is our society. We’ve guilt-tripped ourselves into believing and accepting that any kind of behavior is not only okay, but a natural born human right.

Wanna have sex when you’re only 13, kiddo? Why not? Everyone else does. It’s cool, girl. Mom did it, didn’t she?

The parenting in our city’s poorer communities is absolutely abysmal. Single-parent families are the norm these days because we’ve been taught from a very young age to believe that it’s not our place to judge others or to set up rules of behavior. Thus we have tenant projects loaded with single, uneducated mothers who let their freeloading boyfriends shack up with them. Neither Mom nor her dude has much of a future – he dropped out of high school so he could hang out with the boyz, she dropped out because she’s a mommy, now – and they both tell Mom’s kids that life sucks and you have to cheat the system in order to play the system – despite the fact that neither one of them has any idea how the system works because they never stayed in school long enough to learn anything about it. As far as the home environment goes, Mom and her dude are usually up late either partying or arguing about who spent whose money – and hey, what the hell, if they’re up late then the kids might as well stay up, too. Actually, Mom’s kids have more fun and feel more comfortable outside the home than in it. That’s not a problem, either, because Mom could care less how late her kids stay out. And when their friends tell them it’s okay to light up, shoot up, or drink up, then that’s exactly what the kids want to do. Because, ya know, their friends are their family.

That’s how it works, folks. You multiply that household by about 10,000 or so and that’s exactly what this city has in its poorest neighborhoods. Springfield’s leaders have catered to the Poverty Lobby for well over thirty years, and what we are facing today is the latest result. We’ve demanded the region’s poor come to Springfield by building one low-income project after another, and they have come.

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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.

As for his recently mailed out 10-Point Crime Prevention Plan: the first point will almost certainly result in a lawsuit; the second point was already instituted under the Finance Control Board; the third point is just plain stupid – he apparently wants to punish the SPD leadership when it’s been the political leadership that’s failed the city; the fourth point is beyond the mayor’s authority; the fifth point already occurs between law enforcement – unless Williams is talking about paying Longmeadow cops overtime to work in our city, then it’s a freakin’ stupid idea; the sixth point is beyond the mayor’s authority; the seventh point won’t stop a single crime; the eighth point probably already occurs; the ninth point depends on one-time funding, which is not dependable and would probably mean layoffs shortly thereafter; and the tenth point on Williams’s Crime Prevention Plan – investing CDBG funds for neighborhood crime watches – is actually about the only good idea on the whole list.

And just what would we really be getting with a Mayor Williams in office?

I’ve already done a writeup comparing Sarno to Williams, which you can check out over at Masslive here. Below is an excerpt from that post.

It was Williams who back in 2001 pushed out then-City Council President Angelo Puppolo, who was seeking a second term as Council president. Earlier that year, Puppolo had called on Mayor Mike Albano to keep the City Council informed on the scope of the FBI’s ongoing corruption probe of the city’s government. Williams was a long-time Albano ally who had made a go for the Council presidency the year before, but lost out to Puppolo. In losing out to Williams in 2001, Puppolo reportedly said (Union-News, 2001), “I hope Buddy won’t be a rubber stamp for the mayor.”

In June of that following spring, the 2003 fiscal year budget passed with no cuts from the Council, and by the summer of 2004 the city would be under the stewardship of the Control Board.

Old friendships apparently live on, as Maureen Turner over at the Valley Advocate reminds us: “Albano, who now lives in East Longmeadow and works as a “public affairs consultant,” has contributed $600 to Williams’ campaign war chest over the past year, suggesting that perhaps he suspects a Williams administration would be friendlier to his clients than Sarno has proven to be.” [Read the entire article here.]

As for Domenic Sarno, the incumbent mayor spent the first half of his first year in office keeping everyone away from him. He then spent the last half of his first year in office trying making amends for the first half. In the spring of 2009, he made no friends at all even as his enemies circled around him. I’m not really sure why it is he’s never extended an olive branch to the people who opposed him in 2007. Any bridge-building is better than leaving them down altogether.

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.

He’s no Clint Eastwood, that’s for sure, but Domenic Sarno is the Springfield Intruder’s choice for Mayor of Springfield.

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And that, proud citizens of Springfield, concludes the Springfield Election Endorsements for 2009. Don’t forget to go to the polls on Tuesday, November 3.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Oct 28th, 2009 and filed under Elections, Latest Posts, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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