SPRINGFIELD—The City Council returned from its Election Day hiatus to a relatively tame agenda. The items most prone to discord did not get an airing. A separate reserve servicemembers program has support, but councilors agreed more financial information was needed. However, a new tax work-off
E. Henry Twiggs, Springfield City Councilor and local civil rights icon, has died following a recent illness. The five-term Ward 4 Councilor had marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, fought to restore ward-based seats in city government and lived to see the election of the
UPDATED 2:15PM: To include comments from Councilor Whitfield. SPRINGFIELD—With the sun setting and not quite 48 hours to go until the polls closed, Kelli Moriarty-Finn gathered supporters at a stately Atwater Park home to rally the troops. A fixture in the area neighborhood association, she
SPRINGFIELD—In its last full meeting before the November 5 election, the Council tackled principally financial items. More contentious ordinances and interventions, many of which were sent to committee at the last few meetings, remain on the backburner. Instead, grants, perks and tax breaks were on
SPRINGFIELD—Once again, the City Council logged some mileage to get through the agenda. This past Monday, it was worth it. More than a dozen items were approvals of recommendations from the Community Preservation Committee (CPC), the panel that develops spending plans under the state Community
SPRINGFIELD—Queasiness about the city’s marijuana process had seemed set to dominate Monday’s meeting of the City Council. However, ratification of the first four host community agreements (HCA) flew by with little trouble. Instead, the struggle to reform police oversight stormed back to the fore, exposing
Injustice had no greater foe in the City of Springfield than Michaelann Bewsee. After co-founding what would become the city’s feistiest community organization, Arise for Social Justice, Bewsee contributed to innumerable battles for equality and fairness. She embraced the city’s cultural mosaic without losing sight
SPRINGFIELD—The legislative sausage-making continued for another meeting of the City Council Monday. A veto override, regulations for vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and historic preservation were all on the menu. Virtually all went by without incident or political indigestion, even the much-awaited Election Notification
SPRINGFIELD—It could be easy to overstate the stakes of the City Council’s impending decision on a new City Clerk. Aside from opening another front in the simmering battle over separation of power in city government, the decision’s consequences are hard to fully parse. But both
SPRINGFIELD—A proposed effort to bolster voter turnout here, if not cure its anemic state, cleared the City Council Monday night. The victory was short-lived. Mayor Domenic Sarno quickly vetoed the measure, offering a garbled explanation. However, it would not be his nonsensical valley this week.