By Mary Whitfill and Miharu Sugie, News Staff
Stepping down after the longest mayoral stint in Boston history, Mayor Thomas M. Menino opened the floodgates of the 2013 election in March of this year. In the months following Menino’s retirement announcement, 12 candidates jumped into the race for mayor.
A recent private poll estimates that more than a third of Boston voters remain undecided in the race. Sage Systems, a private political consulting firm, asked 821 voters, all whom have participated in at least once municipal election in the last six years, for their opinion on the race.
Among the 12 candidates, three are standing above the rest on the way to the Sept. 24 primary. John Connolly, Martin Walsh and Daniel Conley are all in a tight race for the top spot, pushing their individual agendas and vying for the votes of Boston residents.
Dan Conley
Dan Conley, the Suffolk County district attorney and former Boston city councilor, is currently at nine percent, according to the recent survey done by Sage Systems.
Conley, the first college graduate in his family, plans to create a community in which college students and graduates can depend. He will gather several representatives of colleges and universities, start-up companies and leading employers in Boston to create the Council of Future Planners. This council, according to Conley’s website, will guide college graduates in search of jobs and opportunities.
For college graduates hoping to create start-ups, Conley will team up with members of the local real estate industry and developers for more short-term leases and affordable spaces for young innovators and entrepreneurs. The Hyde Park native hopes to give start-ups more space and therefore an opportunity for big dividends. Not only does Conley aim to provide an intellectual and innovative environment for young people, but he also hopes to promote start-ups and serve as a connector for communities with similar interests, according to his website.
In addition to promoting entrepreneurs, Conley plans to promote safer neighborhoods across Boston. He plans to do this by reaching out to the city’s youth and providing them with opportunities for learning, sports and the arts and giving them positive role models. Conley plans to focus on prevention and early intervention with children and promoting programs aimed at young women to help victims of human trafficking and child exploitation. On his website, Conley calls public safety “the foundation on which everything else in a community rests.”
Marty Walsh
Standing just two points ahead of Conley, Democratic state Representative Marty Walsh is making a splash in the mayoral race. Focusing on becoming a voice for the working class, Walsh has taken strong stances on workforce development and housing policy, his campaign has said.
In the legislature, Walsh has a resume of accomplishments in economic development, education and substance abuse treatment. He is currently the chair of the House Committee on Ethics, and took an early stance in support of marriage equality, a vote he calls his “proudest ever as a legislator” on his website. Walsh is a lifelong resident of Dorchester and has represented Suffolk’s 13th District since 1997.
In response to recent residents upset about the city’s public transportation system, Walsh says that, if elected, he will begin by developing a city-wide assessment of the condition and durability of the city’s current transportation. His goals include increasing MBTA service to neighborhoods without current access, increasing access for disabled persons and designing projects that ensure residents can easily bike, walk or take public transportation to essential services.
In the legislature, Walsh has been recognized as a leader in creating and protecting jobs, an accomplishment he plans on continuing as mayor. Walsh hopes to increase the productivity and accessibility of the workforce by creating partnerships with schools, city agencies, workers and residents. According to his website, Walsh believes living wages, safe working conditions and health and social benefits are non-negotiable components of the workforce.
John Connolly
Currently, Boston City Councilor John Connolly is most favored among the 2013 mayoral candidates. The first person to announce his candidacy, Connolly declared the start of his campaign nearly a month before Menino’s official retirement announcement. He is just barely leading at 12 percent, according to Sage Systems, which is headed by former councilor Paul Scapicchio, a formal endorser of Connolly.
Connolly, the chair of the City Council’s Committee on Education, prioritizes education and makes sure “young voices are heard at the table,” Martha Bixby, the Connolly campaign’s communications director said.
To give Boston Public School students a safe environment in which they can fully concentrate on education, Connolly hopes to make sure local public safety, public health and housing resources are interconnected. He hopes to cultivate trust between the students and the police force in Boston by recruiting officers from every neighborhood, his campaign has said.
As the mayor of Boston, Connolly plans to provide students with more affordable office spaces for innovative projects and link entrepreneurs to colleges via accessible career fairs and internships, according to his website. Besides expanding summer jobs into year-round programs, Connolly wrote on his website that he wants to “remove the red tape that stifles our creative economy.”
Connolly believes that attracting start-ups, local businesses and tech businesses to the main streets in Boston will create a “college-to-workforce pipeline,” as said on his website.
Editor’s note: One of this piece’s authors works for John Connolly for Mayor. She had no role in the reporting of that part of this story.
