SPRINGFIELD—An early wave of enthusiasm has greeted the start of only the second mayor-less election cycle in the region’s largest city. A sizable clutch of candidates for City Council and School Committee took out papers Tuesday, the first day they were available for the 2017
SPRINGFIELD—A short agenda sailed through the City Council’s Tuesday meeting here without any banality or vainglorious interrogatories. In addition to the usual financial housekeeping and grant acceptances, the meeting’s focused on a new library and new labor pacts set to last into 2020. The early
SPRINGFIELD—The Community Preservation Act (CPA) came another step closer to realization with passage of first step on an ordinance formally establishing its organizational structure in Springfield. Last November, residents approved a referendum adopting the CPA and with it access to moneys to fund historic preservation,
SPRINGFIELD—Marking a continuation of ward councilors’ hold of the Council presidency, Ward 8 Councilor Orlando Ramos took the oath as President Monday morning. In a modest ceremony before friends, family and City Hall denizens, the Council formally voted to install him to succeed Ward 2
SPRINGFIELD—City councilors called Mayor Domenic Sarno’s bluff and overrode his veto of an ordinance reviving a commission to oversee operations of the city’s police department. The veto had come within hours of the Council’s initial approval of the changes two weeks ago, but Sarno has signaled
SPRINGFIELD—Every schoolchild in America hears about separations of powers and checks and balance. They exist on all levels of government. In Massachusetts’s third largest city, however, another phrase wins out: “Plan A,” often shorthanded as strong-mayor. The city charter and other state laws do endow
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
SPRINGFIELD—It is not exactly an open secret that Massachusetts’s third largest city has a number of unmet needs both small and large. Because of any number of disparities, there are few tools Springfield can apply that its neighbors can: except one. Virtually all of Springfield
SPRINGFIELD—The battle over charter schools dominated Monday City Council meeting, injecting the body into the fraught battle over the ballot question that would raise the charter cap in Massachusetts. But that issue did not monopolize councilors’ attention, as the body also spent a considerable amount
SPRINGFIELD—Fairly or not, Thomas Ashe’s political scorecard perhaps invites charges of being a political climber. An ambitious run for mayor and a stab at Clerk of Courts were unsuccessful. But unlike those other bids, the four-term councilor appears to have many of the goods voters Hampden County