UPDATED 9:34PM: To clarify Perez’s position in Women of the Vanguard.

Gonzalez has a new yearbook photo, but will Ward 1 vote him most likely to succeed, well, Perez? (submitted photo)

The municipal political season has kicked off in Springfield. On Wednesday, School Committee member Joesiah Gonzalez announced that he would run for the Ward 1 City Council seat Maria Perez now holds. As 2025 is not a mayoral election year, city races will likely receive less attention. Still, Gonzalez’s apparent challenge to Perez will ensure it will be a top race to watch among the 413’s local races.

The race will be a test for Gonzalez as much as for Perez, should she seek reelection. Gonzalez, 27, is completing his first four-year term on the School Committee representing Wards 1 and 3. He won in 2021 without any opposition, something he is all but certain to encounter in this year’s race. His lone term on the Committee has been eventful, though. That, he says, sets him up well for the Council.

“I’ve invested a lot in the city and in the community in terms of the good fights I’ve taken up on the School Committee,” he said in an interview. “I know how to build coalitions. I know how to get votes that get rhetoric and platform into actual legislation and performance.”

A product of public schools himself, Gonzalez credits his career in public service to his mother. She supported his family while he was growing up, sometimes with the help of public assistance.

To run for Council, Gonzalez must forego reelection to his spot on the School Committee. His seat, along with the rest of the Committee, is on the ballot in 2025, as is the Council’s eight ward seats and five at-large slots.

Why then is he risking a likely reelection to the Committee to run for Council? He says the municipal legislature itself needs a reboot.

“That coordinating or coalition-building to move change forward has been lost,” he said.

Some would object to this characterization of the Council. However, in quarters where the Council once attracted praise for its muscular role in city politics, it not infrequently draws only contemptuous side-eyes.

Ward 1 consists of the North End neighborhoods of Memorial Square and Brightwood as well as downtown. Outside of residential areas in downtown’s historic quarters, the ward is largely Latino.

Ward 1 in aqua and turquoise blues. (via Springfield City Hall)

Conventional wisdom this year that is all incumbents will seek reelection. A dearth of open seats has not historically deterred challengers, though. Moreover, since the introduction of ward representation in 2009, Springfield has seen several incumbents fall citywide.

Indeed, Ward 1 was among those that saw an incumbent lose. Now-Senator Adam Gomez defeated Councilor Zaida Luna in 2015. Gomez resigned in 2021 after winning his Senate seat. The Council selected his father, Gumersindo, to serve out the remainder of the term. Perez, who had applied to finish the term, too, won the seat unopposed in the Fall of 2021. Gumersindo Gomez declined to seek a full term.

A longtime neighborhood activist, Perez is of a generation that first cemented Latinos’ political influence in Springfield. Like others closely associated with the New North Citizens Council, she has been an ally of Mayor Domenic Sarno and other establishment pols. Given this context, while Gonzalez’s press release announcing his run never mentioned Perez, its disavowal of “division or backroom deals” left an obvious implication.

Perez did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Gonzalez’s challenge. Online, Perez allies active in Women of the Vanguard, a civic group she leads as its president, expressed disapproval of his bid.

Now looking over her shoulder? Perez had her ballot line all to herself since 2017, when she joined the School Committee. (still via YouTube/Focus Springfield)

The city’s Latino population is less monolithically Puerto Rican than it once was, but the North End remains an anchor for Hispanic politics in Springfield. Many Latino electeds continue to live in the ward. Still, the old factions among city’s Latino community have broken down. Prominent figures like Gonzalez and Gomez have ties with the old order even as they have sought to succeed it.

Speaking to WMP&I via phone this week, Gonzalez acknowledged Perez’s long history of “fierce” advocacy for the North End and the Latino community. Without expounding, he suggested some policy differences with Perez.

Rather, Gonzalez reflected on changes in his own life. He and his wife, Melanie, recently bought a home in the North End, where they now live with their four year-old daughter, Annalise. A generational change is seemingly on Gonzalez’s mind.

“This is more about our community passing the baton and allowing new leadership to come out,” he told WMP&I.

The North End has historically been the gateway neighborhood of Springfield, a Gateway City. Irish, French Canadians and Jewish immigrant had settled there first before moving on to other neighborhoods.

Now, growing housing costs are seeping into the Springfield area, including the North End, squeezing lower and middle income residents. In his day job, Gonzalez does marketing and fundraising for a housing nonprofit. He argues his experience could be put to use to encourage more housing construction. The other component, however, is better advocacy.

He pointed to a blighted building on the corner of Arch and Main Street that could be for rent. Instead, it remains fenced off and boarded because of “no leadership to actually turn that into housing.”

As for public safety, Gonzalez cast a wide net. While he indicated support for upkeep and security at the ward’s open spaces, Gonzalez also wants to see more investment in code enforcement to improve the conditions renters live in.

Gonzalez is hardly the first School Committee member seeking a Council seat. Moreover, his term in office has been anything but dull. Last year, while serving as vice-chair of the Committee, Gonzalez gained prominence as part of a faction of the School Committee that boycotted meetings as trust in the School Superintendent search broke down.

That faction, consisting of Gonzalez, Barbara Gresham, Denise Hurst and LaTonia Monroe Naylor, ultimately ended the impasse. They later became the majority that selected now-Superintendent Sonia Dinnall. That irked Mayor Sarno at the time, but Gonzalez indicated they have worked well together since.

The School Committee in less felicitous times last spring. (still via YouTube/Focus Springfield)

Rather, Gonzalez highlighted other work on the Committee, including advocating for the replacement of the Gerena School, a poorly-built, environmentally-compromised Brutalist fortress on Birnie Avenue. He also helped establish regular drills for emergencies at schools. Previously, emergency response only existed in a manual, Gonzalez said.

This race also comes at a time when pols—namely Democrats, though city elections are nonpartisan—are looking to solidify contacts with younger voters, especially those of color. It is on Gonzalez’s mind, too.

“We are at a critical point where we need to reenergize young people,” he said. Among his initiatives on the School Committee was pushing for local civics education that can count toward graduation.

“How many of our students even know what a strong mayor is?” Gonzalez observed.

Interest in civic affairs is not only a function of municipal literacy, though. Turnout in Ward 1 lags several other areas of the city. This is partly a function of poverty and neglect from City Hall, which is a reminder of the magnitude of the challenges in the ward.

Indeed, they match the scale of the fight Gonzalez is taking on in challenging Perez. That does not intimidate him, however.

“There is no doubt that I know how to fight,” Gonzalez said.