Springfield Municipal Government
The City of Springfield has 20 elected municipal officials: 13 City Councilors, 6 School Committee members, and 1 mayor. The official websites of each are available by clicking the links here:
Below are WMassP&I’s Political Guide pages on each Councilor. They are organized with at-large councilors listed first in alphabetical order, followed by Ward Councilors listed by ward, following the blog’s conventions on style, which refers to Councilors in this order in blog posts. Furthermore, until all links are fixed, some WMassP&I posts linked on each councilor’s page will redirect to our archived site, rather than our current site.
Mayor
Domenic Sarno
At-large Councilors
Sean Curran
Jesse Lederman (Vice-president)
Tracye Whitfield
Ward Councilors
Ward 1: Maria Perez
Ward 2: Michael A. Fenton
Ward 3: Melvin A. Edwards
Ward 4: Malo Brown
Ward 5: Marcus Williams (President)
Ward 6: Victor Davila
Ward 7: Timothy C. Allen
Ward 8: Zaida Govan
School Committee
At-large: Denise Hurst
At-large: LaTonia Monroe Taylor
District 1 (Wards 1 & 3): Joesiah Gonzalez
District 2 (Wards 4 & 5): Barbara Gresham
District 3 (Wards 6 & 7): Christopher Collins
District 4 (Wards 2 & 8): Peter Murphy
If any of the information included in the profiles above is inaccurate or incomplete, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond to all requests for accuracy. Additionally, we have limited our own stories highlighted in each profile to selected posts from the past year, but we welcome the public and officials to request other WMassP&I stories be added to profiles.
The Government of the City of Springfield
Springfield operates under a heavily modified Plan A form of government. As the Supreme Judicial Court has said of Boston’s City Charter, there is no written document that is that city’s charter and that holds true for Springfield, too. Boston has a charter approved for it specially from the Massachusetts Legislature, but it has been heavily modified and has numerous special pieces of legislation and adopted General Laws that truly define the city’s power.
Springfield does not have a unique charter any longer, but a Plan A charter, as outlined in the General Laws. However, like Boston, the text of a Plan A charter is not the whole story. Several special laws have been passed that modify the Plan A itself, including the process for filling vacancies as well as, of course Ward Representation. There are others, too, including, powers and variances from state law the city has requested from Beacon Hill, in addition to general laws the City has adopted. These too, are part of the charter, as they empower the city to act in one way or another. Additionally, there are other laws, like the 2004 Control Board law, which did not technically require the city’s petition as it was introduced by the governor and approved by a 2/3 majority.
By far the introduction of Ward Representation is the biggest variation from the Plan A Charter. Plan A however, remains the city’s primary framework, including the large grant of power given the mayor. Indeed, it remains correct to call Springfield a Plan A city, albeit modified to include Ward Representation. Compare this to Boston, which has a strong-mayor system, too, but it never formally possessed a Plan A charter and therefore it is incorrect to call that city’s Charter “Plan A.”
Archived elected official files:
Jimmy Ferrera (Council at-large 2007-2013)
John Lysak (Council Ward 8 2010-2013)
Antonette Pepe (School Cmte at-large 2004-2013; d. 2015)
Norman Roldan (School Cmte district 1/ Wards 1 & 3 2010-2013, School Committee at-large 2016-2017)
Zaida Luna (Council Ward 1 2010-2015)
Clodo Concepcion (Council Ward 5 2010-2015)
Timothy J. Rooke (Council at-large 1996-2017)
Bud L. Williams (Council at-large 1994-2017, current state rep)