Courting 36 Court Street is a series of quick interviews with Springfield’s at-large candidates. **All interviews are edited and condensed for length.** Three of five current at-large councilors predate ward representation. Two of them are retiring. Thomas Ashe started just as the new council format
Media remains an essential part of the landscape within which politicians and government officials operate. This is true on almost all levels except, perhaps, very small towns—where it is possible to get to know everybody—and some small cities that behave as such. Springfield is not
UPDATED 8:35PM: The Republican reports that Sarno has vetoed the ordinance. Tells paper on his flip-flop from 2007, “Quite frankly you learn that campaigning is much different than governing.” SPRINGFIELD—Edging closer to its second major rebuke of Mayor Domenic Sarno this year, the City Council
The operation of the Springfield Police Department is perhaps the civil rights issue of the moment in the City of Homes. The reporting on the actions of Detective Gregg Bigda had already shaken City Hall, the Hampden County Hall of Justice and Pearl Street, the
UPDATED 10/30/16 1:17PM: For Grammar and clarity. The case of Detective Gregg Bigda has rocked Springfield in a way few other police events have in some time and the contagion has spread throughout the Springfield Police Department. Concerns about civil rights and doubts about Police
Amid the current national climate of community-police relations, Springfield has been relatively lucky. Tensions are often high, but since Melvin Jones, there have been no Charlottes or Tulsas caught on cell phone cameras. Nevertheless, the actions of Gregg Bigda, a Springfield narcotics detective, threaten the
SPRINGFIELD—For the second year in a row, Mayor Domenic Sarno’s municipal budget achieved passage without any modification from the City Council. The $594.9 million spending plan was touted for needing no reserves or layoffs to bridge deficits. However, councilors did express reservations about the city’s
SPRINGFIELD—In a lavish ceremony last year featuring city vehicles festooned with flags and all the pomp and circumstance the City of Homes can muster, Springfield swore in John Barbieri as its top cop. Some observers likened it to a coronation, and Barbieri, possessing a humble mien, probably would have
To many political insiders in and around Springfield, the top cop is the second most important position in the city after the mayor. In a large (by New England standards) minority-majority city of 150,000, which, to many, has seen its revival bedeviled by both the
SPRINGFIELD—Once again a light agenda confronted the City Council Monday evening. Even divisive and controversial concept like a Council Facebook page were not voted on that night. Most of the city and the region’s attention was focused a couple of miles away at Van Sickle