By Frederick A. Hurst

Springfield’s recent Ward 5 special election to find a replacement for Marcus Williams, who unexpectedly and abruptly resigned from Springfield’s city council, revealed some unpleasant things about Black politics in Springfield.
As with so many others I’m sure, the first thing that came to my mind when Williams made his surprise announcement was “Who might be the best person to replace him?” I must admit that my idea of “best person” will not be shared by everyone, certainly not by the cadre of Black opportunists and politicians who “suck up” to White politicians for a pittance while so many of the needs of the Black community remain unmet, as is the case with several of our existing elected officials. And it won’t be shared by those aspirants for political office who are inexperienced and unprepared or unwilling to suffer through the rigors of running for political office and whose chances of winning are negligible but who choose to run anyway.
When I refer to “best person,” I mean the person who meets the requisite qualifications and who has the best chance to win. Not a person who simply wants to win or who we want to win but, rather, one who can win – which is why, when I heard that Springfield School Committee’s Latonia Monroe Naylor lived in Ward 5 and was considering running for Williams’ city council seat, I thought it was a great idea for many reasons, not the least of which is she would have been the best person to represent the Black community and all of Springfield on the city council just as she has done so well as a school committee member. And, I was pretty certain she would win decisively in both the primary and final elections and preserve the Ward 5 council seat for the Black community which needs as much political representation as it can manage to take.
To me, it was an easy call. Latonia has solid name recognition and is a member of a highly regarded Springfield family. She is smart, experienced, politically savvy, a proven vote-getter, independent and tough enough to stand up to the mayor when it is called for. Had she chosen to run for the Ward 5 council seat, more than likely several others in the crowded, mixed-race field that ran in the primary would have chosen not to run. So, when I heard she declined to run in deference to her Black colleague, one of the current mayor’s aides, Lavar Click-Bruce, I couldn’t have been more disappointed and I concluded that once again, the Black community of Springfield may have let another opportunity slip away.
My biggest concern was that I don’t know Click-Bruce very well and I’m certain there are many others who don’t as well. All I know is that he has a reputation for being a nice person and and he works for Mayor Domenic Sarno.
“Nice” doesn’t impress me. Marcus Williams was nice and also a pushover for the mayor. And, absent more, the fact that Click-Bruce works for the mayor is unsettling. In my opinion, Mayor Sarno has little respect for Black people other than for those who are fooled by his ever-present smile and for those who slavishly comply with his every wish, which, unfortunately, may explain why the mayor openly campaigned for Click-Bruce and risked angering the other 6 candidates whose future votes he may soon need for a contested mayoral race next year.
If Click-Bruce is going to garner the enthusiasm of enough Black voters toward a September victory, he should at least let more people know who he is and where he stands and offer some credible assurances that he will be his own man. And he should ramp up his door-to-door efforts for the final election on September 13th. Otherwise, a council seat presumed to belong to a Black candidate since the beginning of the charter change from all city-wide to mixed ward and citywide voting will be lost to Edward Collins Jr. and after him, possibly to other White candidates – who, by now, must realize the power of the White vote in Ward 5 – for a long time to come.
Another even more important thing that the so-important Ward 5 special election has demonstrated is that all this talk of generational unity that I’ve been hearing about from some pretty involved younger folks appears to be illusory. The primary vote count strongly suggest that Lamar Cook and Nicole Coakley would have served the Black community best by not running at all. Both are good people but they had no chance of winning. All they accomplished was to divide the Black community vote and cause Lavar Click-Bruce to limp to an uncertain victory on September 13th, a result that may well cause the loss of a council seat that the Black community can ill afford to lose.
When Point of View preemptively endorsed Latonia Naylor for the Ward 5 seat on the front-page flag of our June issue and in my June “Bits,” I had no idea Lavar Click-Bruce planned to jump in the race. We endorsed Latonia for the sole reason that she would have been the best candidate. She was most qualified and she could win, and her failure to capitalize on the opportunity can only be considered an uncharacteristic miscalculation.
Latonia was so well positioned that it never occurred to me that she would decline, no less than it occurred to me that the Black community would split as it did. It was and is depressing. Sad to say, we’ve been here before and may have never left. And, like it or not, time is no longer on our side.
I know when people read this, some will conclude that I have something against Lavar Click-Bruce, which I most certainly do not. I genuinely congratulate him for his narrow victory in the primary but my regret is that his victory in the primary is too narrow to assure that a Black person will continue to represent Ward 5. White candidate Edward Collins, Jr. came in second having trailed Click-Bruce by a mere 59 votes. A quick analysis of the primary vote count would lead any politically seasoned person to conclude that Collins has as good a chance as Click-Bruce at winning in the final election on September 13th or maybe an even better chance given the combined number of votes garnered by the other three White candidates. To put things in stark perspective, of the two dogs in the fight for victory in September, the primary numbers suggest that Collins may well be the bigger dog as we approach the final election on September 13, which does not bode well for Springfield’s Black community.
All that we can do to save the Ward 5 seat is to reprise our commitment to unity, throw all – and I mean all – of our support to Lavar Click-Bruce and hope for the best. And if he wins, let’s hope he will appreciate who put him in office and governs accordingly. (Notably, in a good start, Nicole Coakley, Lamar Cook and Edward Green have endorsed Lavar Click-Bruce) ■