More to do on ward representation in Springfield

Today Arise had a press conference with some of the Springfield's most stalwart warriors for ward representation, to talk about what's gone right so far with the new system and what still needs to be done.

Successes:

• We now have geographic representation.  In the 10 years previous to changing to ward representation, an astounding 89% of at-large candidates came from only three of the city's eight wards.  Now every ward has a councilor.
• We have increased racial diversity.  In the 45 years previous to ward representation, only four African-Americans and one Latino had ever been elected to city council-- in fact, Jose Tosado got his first seat on the council when a councilor resigned and he moved up from 10th place. Now we have three Latino/as and two African-Americans in ward seat.

Still to be done:

• Increase voter turn-out.  Voter participation has been declining for decades, and ward representation is not going to turn that around in just two years.  However, in the 2008 election when ward representation was on the ballot, an astounding 74.2% of those who voted said YES to ward representation.
• Get more candidates running.  2009 was a truly competitive year for ward seats, but 2011 has only one ward with a contested race.  But instead of considering that a failure, it may very well be that people in each ward are pleased the with performance of their representative!

In the "fair and balanced" category, Pete Goonan of the Springfield Republican got comments from the two people who voted against placing ward representation on the ballot-- Tim Rooke, still currently serving in an at-large seat, and Bud Williams, who hopes to regain an at-large seat this November.  Bud gives ward representation a "C+."  I wonder if he enjoyed the good old days of the at-large system, when he got to be the only African-American on city council?

Yesterday's press conference featured some of the real heroes of ward representation.  Frank Buntin and Gumersindo Gomez, Exec. Dir. of the Puerto Rican Veterans Center, started meeting about ward rep in 1992, and we built on their experience.  Both stayed involved for the long haul.  Joe Fountain tried to file a lawsuit against the at-large system in 1996, but was denied standing as a white person.  He brought the lawsuit to Arise and we recruited the NAACP and the Spanish American Union (now sadly defunct) to join with us in the first federal lawsuit.  Rev. Talbert Swan II was a plaintiff in the second lawsuit, and involved his network in pushing the work forward.  Council president Jose Tosado, a long-time supporter of ward rep, got the city council to approve placing the ward rep question on the 2008 ballot.  And there were so many more that if I get started, I'll be bound to forget important people, but I do have to give a shout-out to E. Henry Twiggs, Min. Yusuf Muhammad, Nick Camerota, Norm Oliver, Alan Howard and Mable Sharif, to name a few, and, within Arise, most especially Joe Oliverio, Tory Field and Liz Bewsee.

We have a lot more to do to make sure democracy really works in Springfield.  I called the Election Office last week to see if there were any community groups leading the charge on voter registration, and sadly, there were not-- not even, to date, Arise.  But we're going to turn that around.  We need a new coalition in Springfield that focuses on voter education and participation, that helps identify potential leaders and that mentors them through the electoral process.  The Springfield Institute and MassVOTE have already offered support.  Who else would like to join us?



Photo from the Springfield Institute.

Politics as usual-- beginning of the end?

Just came back from another ward representation standout at Wilbraham and Breckwood. There were seven of us, including City Council candidate Vera O'Connor. I'm not one to be overoptimistic, but it sure does seem like ward representation has a lot of support in Springfield .

98 hours until the results start coming in. Vera will be waiting for results Tuesday night at the Caribbean American African American Social Club, and she has graciously offered to let us join her. We'll bring the pizza.

I've wanted to write more about this campaign as it's gone along, but everything has moved so quickly! We didn't even know for sure the question was going to be on the ballot until October 2nd, putting the election only a month and a few days away.

I say the ward representation campaign has moved quickly, but of course that's not true. Some people have been fighting the at-large system since it was implemented 46 years ago. Arise, my organization, has been involved since 1995, when a young man named Joe Fountain brought us a discrimination lawsuit he had filed. The ball started rolling from there.

Ward representation will be no magical cure for Springfield's sick politics, and it won't undo all the damage of the entrenched at-large system all at once. But here's what I see will start happening between now and the first election (2009) actually to have both at-large and ward rep seats on the city council and school committee:

People who have considered running for office-- or who have run before, unsuccessfully-- will start believing that they could run successful campaigns from their wards. Some of these people will make great city councilors and some will be mediocre or worse. However, in a ward campaign, it'll be a lot harder to get over on the community. People will know who you are.

People running a campaign from a ward will have a real reason to encourage voter registration and, more importantly, voter participation. Ward candidates will have to turn out the vote to win.

An unknown number of current city council incumbents, numbering nine, as well as any challengers, will have to decide if they are going to vie for one of the at-large seats, reduced from nine to five, or if they are going to go back to their community and run from their ward-- a bit of a problem when nine of the current councilors come from only three of eight wards. This is all just lading up to the first mixed election.

The Springfield Republican had a very favorable editorial about ward representation today, posted at MassLive: