By Frederick A. Hurst

I had never really met Jynai McDonald until she emerged as a Ward 4 candidate during the last Ward 4 Springfield City Council election running against a first-time candidate for city council whose misbehavior as a candidate in the primary was so shocking, unprecedented and so completely ignored by local media that we at Point of View felt compelled then and now to bring his misbehavior to the attention of the voting public and to introduce Ward 4 voters to the misbehaving candidate’s extremely competent opponent, Jynai McDonald, who had always been well known for her community involvement but not so well known to the voters in Ward 4 as one of their city council candidates.
And although Jynai emerged from the September primary to become a worthy opponent in the final election in November against Malo Brown, he ended up winning the final election by a lot of chicanery and a miniscule margin which, given a little more time, Jynai would surely have erased since she rose from a low-turnout primary loss of just under 500 votes to a final election margin of just 131 votes following a much higher voter turnout.
But for the accumulation of blatant election law violations by the winner (many of which we at Point of View personally observed) who was aided and abetted by well-known, nefarious political junkies (who are unnamed herein), and but for time constraints beyond her control, we believe Jynai McDonald would have easily closed that narrow gap because, as election day came closer, Ward 4 voters were waking up to her candidacy and to the duplicity of her opponent.
To her credit, on January 12th, Jynai McDonald declared her intention to launch a rematch for the Ward 4 City Council seat she was so crudely denied by the incumbent, Malo Brown, whose lackluster performance during his short period of service as a Springfield City Councilor has left much to be desired.

Jynai wrote of her candidacy:
“The residents of Ward 4 deserve a councilor who will be present at meetings, which is one of the most basic functions of a City Councilor. Additionally, residents need an advocate with a clear vision for neighborhoods and businesses as opposed to a Councilor who refers to the area they represent as the “ghetto” during official City Council meetings.” Even though she didn’t mention his name, it wouldn’t take a genius to know that Jynai must have been referring to the failings of the current Ward 4 City Councilor, Malo Brown, whose performance on the council has been as disastrous as his performance as a campaigner was duplicitous.
For those who might think I am biased against Malo Brown, it simply was not the case when I first learned he was running against several candidates in the last primary and Jynai McDonald in the final election. In fact, I had decided early on to remain neutral in deference to my old friend, Bud Williams, Malo Brown’s mentor and boss. I didn’t owe it to Bud but I had decided to stay out of the race (as they say in the song) “for the good times” even though I had a bit of insight into aspects of Brown’s reputation that might otherwise have moved me in a different direction.
But sentimentality prevailed only until I witnessed some of the most abhorrent campaign behavior by Brown that I have ever witnessed in a local election by any candidate ever before both in the primary and as he openly repeated it in the final election. And I have been involved in politics for decades and witnessed and participated in countless campaigns…some well before Brown was even born. So you might say I am biased. But only because I believe Ward 4 needs and deserves better. Which is why I was determined to reintroduce Jynai McDonald to voters early in the current election season by way of a front-page biography.
There were other reasons not the least of which is that I knew – without judging the merits of their standard practice – that local media would miss the story because of their past practice of ignoring city council races until just before elections and even then covering them only scantily which gives an enormous advantage to incumbents while challengers struggle to get attention. But sometimes the mainstream media practice buries a good story and the current Ward 4 City Council race is just such a good story.
Ward 4 is the historical homeland of Springfield’s Black community. Black folks have been migrating to Springfield’s Mason Square neighborhood from the South since the days of slavery through the “Freedom Trail” and throughout the period of the Great Migration in a desperate flight from “Jim Crow.” Many migrated to the North End of Springfield but urban renewal, aka “Urban Removal” as we called it, drove them out and up to “The Hill” to Mason Square (formerly Winchester Square) where we were able to establish a united, robust community and gain a treasured foothold in politics that has grown and matured slowly, though unsteadily, in Ward 4 and beyond.
It wasn’t a perfect community but it was and remains ours and no matter where we migrate to – other wards in the city, neighboring cities, other states or other countries – a good part of our hearts and souls belong to Ward 4 in Springfield where most of us still have family and friends and the fondest of memories and an appetite for news about the current state of affairs in our spiritual homeland, which Mason Square and Ward 4 certainly are.
And wherever we are, we want to know the news of our community as it is unfolding, including and especially news about impending election contests no matter how small and especially when the barely-functioning incumbent city councilor, who presides mostly to the detriment of the people in Ward 4, is being challenged by the well-qualified Jynai McDonald who was unfairly defeated by the same opponent in the last election.
It’s big news and it is big drama and we at Point of View intend to follow it and report on it every month until Election Day out of respect for the history and for the residents of Ward 4 and the many others of us who still consider it our home. ■