UPDATED 2/3/21 1:14PM: To include details of Gomez’s resignation letter. Springfield State Senator Adam Gomez, who also held the Ward 1 City Council seat, has announced his resignation from the municipal legislature. In a press release his senate office issued, Gomez said he was leaving
SPRINGFIELD—On Monday, the City Council dispensed with a financial order left over from the last meeting and passed first step to reform an ordinance that regulates tax breaks in the city. Being the last meeting before an election, the Council also formally set the city’s
SPRINGFIELD—A relatively straightforward Council agenda experienced some delays due technical difficulties rather than legislative loquaciousness. For example, the meeting paused briefly as one councilor’s connection to Zoom was severed. Then there were the pauses between recognition of councilors. Overall, though, the meeting proceeded with little
SPRINGFIELD—The growing ambition of the City Council beached itself onto the body’s widening political gulf, amid procedural and substantive disagreements on civil liberties and a public works project. While the Council ultimately voted to kill an order that could frustrate the X intersection project, it
SPRINGFIELD—For whatever reason, Hampden County has a number of missing people—at the polls. Data from 2012 indicates that the county, which contains the commonwealth’s third largest city, falls well below the state’s turnout level. The problem is particularly pronounced here—though not unique countywide—but efforts are
UPDATED 2:28PM SPRINGFIELD—Only another four weeks separate candidates for local and statewide office from the primary that will decide many of their fates and, in many cases, the election, too. That leaves precious little time before voting begins and it may be even less as
SPRINGFIELD—A relatively quiet agenda Monday night made for a hefty number of speakers at the beginning of the meeting and then a fight over polling places. The Council’s few summertime meetings usually make for packed schedules, but overwhelmingly the items in play were small financial
SPRINGFIELD—Although long, the City Council’s agenda was not particularly controversial or compelling. A few items offered councilors the typical, out-of-context grandstanding, but even that was fairly spare given limited opportunities. At-large Councilor Kateri Walsh was absent from Monday’s meeting. The Council’s agenda was largely transfers