In only days, Springfield will hold its first ever special election for City Council. A large field has formed, but voters at the August 16 preliminary could be spare. Nevertheless, with seven contenders, the special election has become perhaps the most competitive preliminary since ward representation returned in 2009.
The hottest race involving Springfield at the end of summer could be one nobody saw coming. In the few days since the Election Commission released petitioning papers for the Ward 5 special election ballot candidates have flooded the field faster than Lake Massasoit has refilled its lakebed.
Springfield City Council President and Ward 5 Councilor Marcus Williams will resign both positions, thus triggering a new succession process. Just over a year ago, Williams oversaw the filling of now-State Senator Adam Gomez’s Council seat.
Four years after the United States Department of Justice opened its investigation into the Springfield Police Department—the only such probe Donald Trump’s administration opened—the city and the federal government have come to an agreement on how to move forward.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively settled a lingering question. Who really controls the government of the city of Springfield? The justices of the commonwealth’s highest court clearly, decisively and unanimously found in favor of the separation of powers. The City Council shares that power.
Raymond A. Jordan, a titan of Springfield politics, history-making figure and sought-after endorsement in state and local races, has died.
After 15 years leading the Springfield Law Department, City Solicitor Ed Pikula is filing a motion to withdraw—metaphorically. The longtime city lawyer will retire this year.
In the end, for Springfield, 2021 may have come to define the city’s limits. Some of those limits were long overdue. Courts ruled twice on the limits of Mayor Domenic Sarno’s power and the coronavirus revealed the limits of his influence. But those limits also
BOSTON—The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts on Monday has not yet crushed Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno’s belief in his sweeping power over the city during oral arguments for his appeal of a lower court’s greenlight of the Police Commission’s revival.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has received the briefs in Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno’s appeal of a decision that found he must appoint a Police Commission. On April 16, Hampden Superior Court Judge Francis Flannery found that the Springfield City Council was within its rights to revive the former police panel.