SPRINGFIELD MUNICIPAL POST-ELECTION BITS

MY NOTES
We endorsed nine candidates for contested offices in Springfield. Two lost, Jynai McDonald and Ayanna Crawford, and seven won. Two of the winners ran for City Council ward seats, Zaida Govan and incumbent Victor Davila, and the other five were At-Large incumbents, all of whom won (Justin Hurst, Kateri Walsh and Tracye Whitfield for City Council and Denise Hurst and LaTonia Naylor for School Committee). My candidate-by-candidate post-election bits below provide some of the interesting back stories that most folks wouldn’t otherwise know.

WARD 4 CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE
JYNAI MCDONALD
Jynai McDonald was running for the Ward 4 City Council seat for the second time against Malo Brown, the incumbent Ward 4 councilor who won this time the same way he won his first term, by cheating in a manner almost unheard of. Almost unheard of because he cheats regularly and openly with total disregard for the rules and the law and, for the most part, gets away with it. Although his cheating this time was no different from the last time (in some ways worst), he didn’t quite get away with it because of good police work at the polls and because Jynai McDonald, who ran a good race and almost won, is fighting back and some lawmakers are taking a good look at Malo Brown’s misbehavior. We encourage Jynai to stay in the fight and to run for city council again or maybe for another office between now and the next city council race. (For more details on the Ward 4 race, read “My Point of View” on page 24.)

DISTRICT 4 SCHOOL COMMITTEE
CANDIDATE AYANNA CRAWFORD
Ayanna Crawford took on a tough assignment going up against long-term incumbent Peter Murphy. But it was a well-calculated move by an extremely qualified candidate to challenge an incumbent who is not known for much more than being a passive vote for the mayor. Ayanna ran a good and thorough campaign and lost by a relatively small margin against a candidate whose only strength was his name which is why Ayanna should be planning to run again in the next school committee election. The city needs her.

WARD 8 COUNCIL CANDIDATE
ZAIDA GOVAN
Anyone who has watched the Kentucky Derby or the Belmont Stakes or the Preakness, which combine to make up the Triple Crown, knows that the horse that is the fastest out of the gate is rarely the one who wins. And Zaida Govan couldn’t have provided a better demonstration of that as the political jockey who knew the race track and her opponent well and guided her political campaign to a well-measured victory. Someone close to me said, just before the election, that they feared that Zaida was going to lose. I didn’t think so. Besides having interviewed her, I live in Ward 8 and Zaida writes for Point of View. So I had a better view of things. And I also knew her opponent, whom I also interviewed, and I was well aware that Zaida knew her too. So, when I saw her opponent out of the gate first and fast, I was not impressed. I was impressed that Zaida was telling her story which is something that most candidates don’t do well and don’t even seem to understand the value of giving voters an intimate personal view of who they are, especially those who are new to elective politics. Her compelling story was at the front of her campaign and the issues were the background and her resulting sincerity became the humanizing force of her campaign that everyone related to, including me. And near the end of campaigning, besides going door-to-door, she didn’t send the standard leaflet most candidates send at the very end…the ones that I, and most voters, simply toss in the trash. No! She didn’t send “a” leaflet. She mailed out a series of well thought out leaflets that told her story again and again and effectively incorporated her accomplishments and issues as background material. And that is why she won and deserved to win.

WARD 6 INCUMBENT
COUNCILOR VICTOR DAVILA
What Victor Davila did by winning reelection as Ward 6 City Councilor was to prove a point that many of us already knew and that some have yet to learn. Victor is a well-known Latino who has given much to the city and to his community. And he is honest and hard working and contributes to his ward and to the city as a whole. His reputation is solid. The days are long gone since any old White person can run against any reputable Black or Brown person and win just because they are White, which is why Victor Davila never had to worry about the perennial White candidate whom he soundly defeated.

AT LARGE INCUMBENT COUNCILOR
JUSTIN HURST
Justin Hurst is my son, a fact that I’m obligated to put front and center but not to ignore. I’m proud of him for winning again and coming in first place for the fourth time in a row by winning votes from a cross section of the city. He didn’t win by the Black vote or the Brown vote or the White vote alone. He won by a consensus of them all because he earned it by always representing them all. And they all know it. And they vote for him because they all know that he is doing his job well and in the best interests of everyone who longs for good government. How do they know? Because he shows them so by his behavior and tells them so by his words. Most of the folks who voted for Justin had no idea that the mayor and his minions put up several White candidates to run at large with hopes of beating Justin Hurst simply because Justin refused and refuses to play the “Uncle Tom role” that so many other Black incumbents past and present have been so willing to play for a pittance in return – these Uncle Toms who are so willing to sell out the city and their own community for a small piece of a legacy of corruption that has never been so effectively challenged before Justin Hurst was elected to the council. But, as Justin’s father, my message to the mayor, which is something the mayor should have learned by now, is: “You can go around the Hursts by way of shameless Uncle Toms but you can’t go around the truth that Justin Hurst demonstrates and speaks when the people see it and hear it.” I hope Justin runs for mayor but I also am reluctant to see him run because I know the price it will take on him and his wife and children. But if he does, he has a diverse army behind him. And no amount of political skullduggery will stop it.

AT LARGE INCUMBENT
COUNCILOR KATERI WALSH
Kateri Walsh is special. She is the dean of the council who has never lost in her many years as a candidate because her appeal to voters is real and broad. As always, she won again, coming in third place. Yet, in her run for city council, she chose to highlight her close relationship with Justin Hurst in a well-publicized, well-timed TV advertisement that was epic in its intent and precise in its message even as Justin was coming under huge fire from those in the mayor’s office who were determined to take him down. Kateri’s ad was a tribute to their long term relationship that has been a perfect example of how government should work and how it can cross age and gender and racial lines for the benefit of all. I know the Walsh family, Kateri and Danny and their many kids, including Bennett who is unfairly under attack for a situation that is unfortunate but not his fault. (As I was writing this, I received a call from my son, Justin, to inform me that all of the charges against Bennett have been dismissed, as well they should have been.) They are all honorable people and most people know that as does Justin Hurst who benefited from the timely well-advertised endorsement by Kateri Walsh.

AT LARGE INCUMBENT COUNCILOR TRACYE WHITFIELD
At large City Councilor Trayce Whitfield has always polled well enough to win but some hoped not high enough to withstand an attack by the mayor and his minions who preferred to defeat Justin Hurst but were also quite willing to defeat Trayce, who is also outspoken and unwilling to submit to the mayor’s desire to have submissive Black councilors. Like Justin, she fights for what is right and best for the city and she is fearless and uncontrollable. She won by coming in fifth place and that is good for the city.

AT LARGE SCHOOL COMMITTEE
INCUMBENT DENISE HURST
What more need be said about Denise Hurst. She got more votes than anybody in the city, including more than her husband Justin who was the second highest vote getter citywide. They both received more than 6,000 votes. No other candidate on the ballot reached 6,000. But the mayor and his minions came after her, too. So they put up a White woman attorney to knock her off. This idea that any old White person can defeat any Black person is ancient and Tom Ashe and his boss, the mayor of Springfield, should know that by now. The real question, though, is how in the hell did they think that they could get to Denise Hurst (a three-time first place winner) without destroying Black at-large incumbent school committee person LaTonia Naylor, whom they claimed as an ally?

AT LARGESCHOOL COMMITTEE
INCUMBENT LATONIA NAYLOR
Any way you look at it, to the mayor and his minions, LaTonia Naylor, a very effective school committee woman, was merely “road kill.” She is a very intelligent, competent Black woman from a very intelligent and large Black family and she cannot be easily fooled by racist nonsense. She now knows that the mayor, his chief of staff, Tom Ashe, and others were perfectly willing to take her out to get to Denise Hurst just as they were willing to take out Tracye Whitfield to get to Justin Hurst. It was the typical, racist “any old N—-r will do” strategy. But it didn’t work because all four of the aforementioned candidates cross racial lines in a city in which all four have been repeatedly elected to office by a diverse cross section of voters from all over the city, which suggests that the mayor and his minions are out of touch.

MY NOTES
Mayor Sarno has some truly qualified Black folks on his staff but he prefers the narratives of White political hacks like his chief of staff, Tom Ashe, who is hardly a good replacement for his former Black chief of staff, Denise Jordan. But there are many more Black folks working in city hall who could give him better guidance than Tom Ashe if he would take it. But Mayor Sarno prefers White minions and Uncle Toms whom he can control by stroking their heads and offering them a pittance for their silence and their guaranteed vote which is why he is so determined to be rid of the Hursts and other competent Black and Brown elected folks. But Springfield voters thought differently and they are the true hope for the future. ■