Since the editor, Marjorie Hurst, and I have different creative inclinations based on our decidedly different temperaments and on my well known inclination to tell the “controversial” truth along with the “noncontroversial,” rather than trying to push Marjorie into writing the controversial truth about her rocky journey to becoming a member of Springfield School Committee, as part of her front page article on Denise Hurst, we agreed to share the task by letting her tell the “noncontroversial” parts of the story and me tell the “controversial” parts.
I was never more pleased when, at a casual family gathering, Marjorie announced that she would not run for school committee again after twelve years of commendable service. And, I was even more pleased when my daughter-in-law, Denise Hurst, expressed interest in running in her place. Not only did we think she would be a perfect replacement but we were also certain her victory would be the “slam dunk” it was and has been.
And when I heard that in November, Denise will be voted in as President of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) effective January 1st, and that Marjorie was honoring her with a front-page article in October’s issue of Point of View, I recalled the rough battle we had getting Marjorie into office and decided to tell the story, if for no other reason than to preserve it in the historical record for the benefit of our grandkids and others who might consider starting out in elective politics. And, yes, it is controversial.
Marjorie’s journey into school committee politics can best be described as a political brawl that pitted a stagnant political status quo against those of us who were committed to change. And I am certain if Marjorie had known what she was getting herself into, she would not have run. By running, however, she laid the important political foundation, not just for Denise Hurst but also for our son, Denise’s husband, Justin Hurst and others who might benefit from knowing that politics is not all bad.
We (meaning me and others who I’ll let reveal their own names) had spent years struggling to gain political leverage in a political arena in which only those chosen by the “powers-that-be” were supposed to be allowed in and only if you obtained the “proper permission.” But we were never inclined to ask anybody for permission to run ourselves or anybody else for public office because we have always been free spirits who would not hesitate to challenge the status quo.
So, when a school committee seat appeared likely to open up in 1997, we convinced Marjorie to run. Only three seats were being contested and Marjorie came in fourth. I believe she would have come in the top three but for fierce opposition from then State Representative Ray Jordan, who was, understandably, adamant about keeping the Hursts out of Springfield political office because he and I had been fierce competitors since I ran for mayor of Springfield in 1969. (But that’s a future story.)
But, along with the close loss, we received the good news that incumbent School Committeeman Ray DiPasquale won his race for city council, which left an open seat on the school committee, which we wrongly assumed would go to Marjorie because she was next in line. Our hopes were dimmed when we learned that, unlike the city council which falls under the automatic-next-in-line rule, by law, the vacant school seat was to be decided by a joint vote of the school committee and city council, which meant we were in a bigger political fight pitting the Jordan political faction, which was much more powerful, against the Hurst’s.
We appealed to then State Senator Linda Melconian who was sponsoring a law to give the next school committee candidate in line the seat in the event of a vacancy. We visited her in her Boston office to ask her to push for the law’s immediate passage. (At the time, Melconian was in the top leadership of the Senate and powerful enough to get it done.) Even though her Black aide from Springfield was a Raymond Jordan pick, we were appealing to her integrity. Needless to say, we were a bit naïve. The law didn’t pass until after the joint vote was taken and we lost by one vote of the joint committee.
We still put up a fierce fight. We lobbied every school committee person and every city councilor, but two other things had gone against us in the names of Bob (Robert) McCollum, who finished fifth, 200 hundred votes behind Marjorie, and City Councilor Bob (Robert) Markel, who held the final, tie-breaking vote.
McCollum promised Marjorie that he would not allow himself to be used against her but Ray Jordan and his crowd successfully pressured him, as the only other Black candidate, to run. In spite of the forces against us, we remained hopeful that Markel, who had the reputation of being the “most honest” city councilor but who also held well-known ambitions to be the next Mayor of Springfield, would cast the lone remaining vote in Marjorie’s favor.
But the ever-persistent Ray Jordan concocted a way out for Markel by claiming that our new development corporation had cheated other bidders in order to win our bid for a vacant building on Eastern Avenue that the Springfield Redevelopment Authority had put out to bid. We couldn’t have cheated against others because we were the only bidders and Bob Markel absolutely knew that. But whatever integrity he had yielded to his mayoral ambitions and he cast the final vote for Bob McCollum and against Marjorie, who was so distraught at the loss and how it came about that she refused to run again until eight years later when she ran and came in first place, where she stayed for almost every election until her retirement.
Of course, I wanted Marjorie to start running for the next election the day after the close loss because I understood politics. I didn’t take the loss too personally and I was not too upset with Ray Jordan or Bob McCollum, or others they recruited like City Councilors Moe Jones and then Council President Frank Keogh, both of whom led the council charge against Marjorie. After all, politics is a brutal sport.
But I never forgave Bob Markel for his dishonesty. And, after he served several terms as mayor, in his last term, when the business community had turned on him and stopped funding his campaign for re-election, and he was depending on the Black vote for a victory, I ran against him and took enough votes to deny him a victory in the four-person primary, which ended his political career in Springfield.
(It’s worth mentioning that, at
the time I decided to run, unknown to me my own minister, who eventually moved (not voluntarily, I’m told) back to Pennsylvania from where he had been recruited, led Markel’s Black community charge and scuttled any outside chance that I might have had to win the primary.)
As I said, politics is brutal. And that’s the rest of the story. ■