Hello darkness our old friend… (created via WMP&I and Warner Bros. images)

If 2023 in Springfield was defined by its election, there is ample irony that transitions would define 2024. They just would not be transitions in municipal elective office. The pieces had been moving below deck for some time.

Several retirements and departures came to 36 Court Street, Pearl Street and the School Department HQ. Many of the most significant political stories in Springfield this year were the fruit of these choices or the processes that led to them.

This should not really be a surprise, when considering the seminal event that began the year: inauguration. Mayor Domenic Sarno did not announce any agenda or any new initiatives or priorities. This was fair. He did not campaign on any policies in 2023 and has not implemented any in 2024.

Rather, he promised to continue the “tremendous achievements” of his earlier terms. Whatever that means, attention quickly turned to personnel. Sarno’s first major move of 2024 was naming then-deputy chief Lawrence Akers as the new leader of the Police Department.

Akers would not take the post immediately. Then-Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood had a few months left. Indeed, before Akers could move into Pearl Street’s corner office, there was legislating to do. Among the necessities were a home rule petition to let the 64 year-old Akers serve as a cop until age 70. (State law establishes 65 as the mandatory retirement age.)

Akers would not be the only new leader to onboard.

The City Council welcomed back a familiar face to the presidency. Ward 2 Michael Fenton, who served as president from 2014 to 2016, returned after a contentious, if lopsided vote the previous year.

The Chief Administrative & Financial Officer (CAFO) position was empty after Timothy Plante’s exit. The choices Sarno received from the screening committee were the Office of Community Development’s administration and finance director Cathy Buono, Deputy CAFO Lindsay Hackett and Jolita Lazauskas, a chief financial officer of a Connecticut state agency. Sarno picked Buono in early February.

Following Patrick Sullivan’s retirement, Sarno named his chief-of-staff, Thomas Ashe, Executive Director of Parks, Recreation & Building Management. That, in turn, reshuffled the mayor’s office. He elevated his communications director William Baker to chief-of-staff.

Sarno named former state senator Stephen Buoniconti the city’s topped lawyer.

School Superintendent Daniel Warwick shocked the city in January by announcing his retirement at the end of the school year. That set off a new and historically short selection process.

The choice of Akers was almost universally feted, the legislation needed to effect his appointment was, well, not. As the Council began its review of its legislation, things were not as they seemed.

Sarno: Hang on tight, Larry. It’s going to be a procedurally bumpy ride. (via Springfield City Hall)

Despite the acclaim for Akers, the appointment was not really Sarno’s to make. Under ordinance, the Police Commission should have made it, if only as a formality. Curiously, after two years of insisting—in defiance of the ordinance’s plain text—the Commission had no power over hiring, promotions and regulations, Sarno advanced legislation to codify his preferred structure.

This touched off a political firestorm unlike any in years. The city’s legislative delegation, in a rare show of force on a municipal matter, opposed it fervently. They packed a Committee hearing and a full Council meeting. The latter was somewhat theatrical as a deal had been cut by then. The Council would amend the legislation to make it apply only to Akers. Afterward, the original language—that Sarno had been ignoring—that empowers the Commission will return, barring further amendment.

How did the delegation get Sarno to back down, if slightly? Sarno needed Beacon Hill’s blessing to let Akers serve until age 70. Senator Adam Gomez spelled this out plainly at a Council meeting, assuring the petition would not pass his chamber if the deal on the Police Commission did not go through. It did.

The home rule petition would have troubles of its own. Before the legislators’ intervention, it received scrutiny from several councilors including Victor Davila and Zaida Govan. Under questioning from Davila, Akers said he did not know the bill would cap his pension at what he would receive if he retired at 65. In other words, as originally written, only a few months of his pay as superintendent would be factored into his retirement pay.

On the night of the Police Commission deal, Sarno said the city was writing a new petition without the pension language. He indicated state officials were on the same page. They were not, in fact. Akers would take office in April with the bill’s fate uncertain.

Gomez’s intervention did not sit well in the mayor’s office. Nor did Ward 4 City Councilor Malo Brown care for it. The latter pulled papers to challenge Gomez in the Democratic primary. Sarno jumped on board, quietly at first but later publicly.

Williams and Gomez were Springfield’s challenged incumbents in 2024. (WMP&I)

Few expected Springfield to host any primaries this year. While Gomez is a formidable campaigner, a challenge from a sitting elected is significant.

Then there was another challenge. Johnnie McKnight, a two-time municipal candidate, challenged State Rep Bud Williams. McKnight has had a presence in city politics long enough for grandees to know who he is, but surely the well-funded Williams campaign would crush his opponent, right?

On the School Committee, cracks were forming in the superintendent search. While the Committee greenlighted an unusually expedited process, complaints bubbled up from the community. The winnowing of candidates before reaching the search committee irked many residents.

A majority of the Committee became uneasy about going forward, but attempts to address this in meetings met procedural blockades. This, in turn, led to boycotts. Committee meetings would open only for Mayor Sarno, as the Committee’s chair, to gavel them closed after a few minutes.

The boycotts did end and ultimately the Committee had a choice between Kimberly Wells, widely tipped as Warwick and Sarno’s preferred candidate, and Sonia Dinnall. This set up an uncomfortable visual of the Committee’s white members backing Wells, who is white, and its nonwhite members backing Dinnall, who is Black. Dinnall prevailed.

The consternation and accusation aside, the rancor among members did die down in the following weeks. However, the drama had one more act to play out.

A recording of unclear provenance ended up on social media and in the press. In it, Warwick, ostensibly talking to Wells, blasted Committee member LaTonia Monroe Naylor in particularly hurtful and nasty terms. Residents from across the city rallied to Naylor’s defense. Warwick resigned a few weeks before his intended retirement. It became an unfortunate coda to what had been, the selection of successor aside, a widely praised career.

“A knavish speech sleeps in a fool’s ear.“ (image made via Springfield mayoral portrait & loc.gov files)

In Boston, the home rule petition for Akers was going…nowhere. Such routine legislation, especially those with tight timelines, usually escape the inertia that dooms many bills on Beacon Hill. However, this was stuck. State regulators and the legislative committee that oversees such measures quietly objected to the changes Sarno had assured would address Akers’s pension.

As the end of legislature’s session came into view the bill moved—with the pension cap restored.

The legislature hardly covered itself in glory this year. It left many bills on the cutting room floor and returned to work amid widespread criticism. That was not Akers home rule petition’s problem.

As Springfield’s primaries for the state House and Senate raged on and an unprecedented switcheroo took place on the Democrats’ national ticket, something else was on the move in Springfield. The city removed the historic bench from Stearns Square. Officials claimed it had become unsafe, but it seems likely that the congregation of the homeless at the square was a factor. Removing the bench did not discourage sitting in the square, though.

While plans for the bench’s return remain hazy to nonexistent, the city initiated some additional homeless programs. However, none address the root cause of the problem: housing prices are getting out of hand because not enough new homes have been built.

The tight housing inventory is also fueling what are now perennial battles over property tax bills and the use of free cash to lighten the tax burden.

In the primaries, Gomez would vaporize Brown at the polls. Even in Brown’s own Council district, Gomez dominated. How much Sarno did to help Brown is up for debate, but the failure to even dent Gomez raises question about how much influence Sarno has when he is not on the ballot.

For McKnight, a victory in defeat? (submitted photo)

The surprise was in the House race. Williams won—but by only 245 votes. By percentage, it was a seven-point difference. In other words, it was not a nail-biter mathematically. However, McKnight, who did not raise a fortune and had to self-fund to some extent, came incredibly close to ousting a pol who has held elective office almost continuously since 1994.

There were reasons for this. Councilor Brown is also Williams’s chief of staff. Normally, Brown helps with Williams’s ground game. This time, he had his own race. Williams’s acquiescence to his aide challenging a colleague also turned off Gomez voters. The objection is not the challenge itself. Rather, it was allowing Brown to keep working while running. Plenty of pols in the region have aides run for office. However, it is either for an open seat or the aide takes a leave of absence.

Back at the City Council, legislation puttered along in December. An automatic pay raise was voted down, but veterans can park at meters for free. A resolution to demand a plan for the Stearns Square bench was sucked into committee. The last legislative item of significance was a bill to give city employees two years, instead of one, to move into the city. However, it faltered, too, until agreement could be reached to sunset the changes. It still requires another vote in the new year.

Before the Council closed out the year, it informally selected Fenton to serve another year as president. At-large Councilor Tracye Whitfield will be Vice President in 2025.

Looming over these closing acts and the new year is the national election. Donald Trump will return to the White House, having defeated Vice President Kamala Harris. The gains Trump made among some demographics occurred in Springfield, too. However, the shifts were muted compared to some cities. Trump’s gains look larger than they are numerically when considering that turnout in Springfield fell in comparison to the last few cycles.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Richard Neal easily won reelection. Neal, 75, will remain the top Democrat on the Ways & Means Committee. By contrast, House Dems nudged aside other Democratic committee leaders, some only a few years older than Neal.

The new administration casts a pall over Springfield as it does the rest of Massachusetts. However, the impact on the city specifically is unclear. Trump’s mass deportations are not yet tangible. His tariffs will raise prices, but he may not have the votes to cut federal programs Springfield relies on.

This is a different doubt than eight years ago. Yet, the fears are familiar. Maura Healey, now governor, has a different role to play than she did as attorney general. She appears on guard while her successor, Andrea Campbell, promises push back.

What will Sarno do?

The mayor’s overtures eight years, in retrospect, look like an attempt to forestall a Department of Justice investigation of the Police Department. This utterly failed. Even Trump’s right-wing then-attorney general, Bill Barr, and then-US Attorney Andrew Lelling castigated Pearl Street for its abuses. City rules now bar official police participation in immigrant roundup and, while presidential constraints have eroded, state courts can enforce ordinances on the mayor.

For a year in Springfield defined by transition, the most significant shall loom for the next four years.

Doubt or redoubt? (WMP&I)