Councilor Clodo Concepcion (WMassP&I)

Clodo Concepcion (Ward 5)

Contact:
Phone: 413-787-7716
Email: [email protected]

First Elected: 2009
Committees: Elder Affairs, Chair; Finance, General Gov’t.
Education: Unknown
Work: Retired.
Prior Public Service: President, Sixteen Acres Civic Association (presently serving)
Other Elections: City Council 2005 (l), City Council 2007 (l)
Political Distinctions: Member, Ward 5 Democratic Committee.

Poll of last contested election: City Council Ward 5 2013 general:

City Council Ward 5 2009 general:

*winner

Key Votes:

Biomass Repeal:    Yes
Police Oversight Board:    No
For Mayors FY 2013 Budget: Yes
For Mayor’s FY2014 Budget: Yes
Limiting Residency Ordinance Waivers: No
Pawn Shop Regulations: No

All tagged stories here
Concepcion did not sit for an interview during the 2013 campaign.

Political Note: For a man with a union history and former Cuban citizenship, one would think dissent would exist more forcefully in Clodo Concepcion’s bones.  Rather, the always impeccably dressed Concepcion is possibly the most pro-establishment and/or conservative ward councilor in Springfield, aside from opposition to Biomass.  His arguments for opposing changes to many things have been as basic as: we should not change it.  For example, he telegraphed opposition to prohibiting future employee contracts from containing waivers from the residency ordinance simply because the current contracts contain such a waiver, end of discussion.  That Concepcion beat former City Councilor Carol Lewis-Caulton is not itself surprising, given his presidency of the 16 Acres Civic Association.  However, it is more puzzling that nobody challenged him in 2011, since 16 Acres, which makes up the bulk of the ward, is among the city’s most politically active.  In press accounts from years past, he appears active and engaged, but at Council meetings, he can seem detached and disconnected.  Consequently, councilors are rarely breaking down his door to get his support on items either.  More recently he has taken to excoriating colleagues and others almost irrationally, such as attacking one proposal he called a backroom deal, actually forged during public meetings.  He may be the closest thing to an ally of the mayor’s on the Council.  Although not necessarily out of any loyalty, but rather this would be because Concepcion appears to favor inertia, which tends to benefit Domenic Sarno.  Still he does not appear totally out of it.  He uses his Elder Affairs Committee to court senior votes.  More importantly, he got the Greenleaf Community Center named after himself little more than a week before he faced voters in the September 2013 preliminary.  While his work in the community may have merited the recognition the timing was suspicious.  Perhaps, more to the point, it was unwarranted as Concepcion crushed his competition in the preliminary and general.