This week, James Leydon left the Hampden District Attorney’s office after nearly nine years as its public affairs director. Leydon held one of the few major government spokesperson positions in the region amid upheaval in media itself.
Springfield’s longest-serving mayor, Domenic Sarno, is said to have seen Tom Menino as a model. He ostensibly envied the power, both official and political, the Hub’s former ruler wielded. Yet, in last week’s Democratic primary, a year on from the tightest mayoral prelim Sarno ever faced, he has shown himself no threat to his enemies.
SPRINGFIELD—After a race that veered into mendacity and nastiness at its climax, Democratic State Senator Adam Gomez bulldozed primary challenger Ward 4 Councilor Malo Brown to again secure his party’s nomination for the Hampden Senate District. Brown’s boss, State Representative Bud Williams, fared better.
From the moment the contest began the subtext of the Hampden Senate District’s Democratic primary would be who could represent it best. Therefore, it was probably fate that the battle between Senator Adam Gomez and Springfield City Councilor Malo Brown would take a nasty turn. That happened mid-August.
Generally, when the United States Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) comes up in Springfield, it is about the Community Development Block Grant program. At worst, it is usually middling news, such as a lower Congressional appropriation. On July 25, however, HUD came knocking
Five months after the Springfield City Council and Mayor Domenic Sarno forwarded an age waiver for now-Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers, the bill has finally passed Beacon Hill. What is moving to Governor Maura Healey’s desk is not what city officials passed in February.
The two surprise legislative races anchored in Springfield may yet rock political foundations in the city. However, on the fundraising front, the races are proceeding more or less typically for incumbent challenges. Both State Senator Adam Gomez and State Rep Bud Williams maintain healthy fundraising leads.
On Monday, the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Service reported out the age waiver to allow Springfield Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers to serve until age 70. As WMP&I reported last week, the Committee redrafted the home rule petition, which the Springfield City Council and Mayor Domenic Sarno had forwarded in February. The Committee’s changes essentially reverse those the city had made.
The attempt to gut the Police Commission was part of a broader legislative package that would facilitate Lawrence Akers’s appointment as superintendent. Another piece was a home rule petition to let him remain a cop beyond the state’s mandatory retirement age of 65 and cap his pension. That bill, too, went to the rewrite desk. Now the original language could make a return.
An audio recording has surfaced in which the outgoing superintendent trashed a School Committee member. Superintendent Daniel Warwick calls relatives of at-large member LaTonia Monroe Naylor “scumbags” and “crazy.”
In the recording, Warwick was ostensibly speaking with Chief Schools Officer Kim Wells, a finalist for superintendent.