O’Connell: ‘My message is you can change everything’

July 17, 2019 | G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

Mayoral candidate Linda O’Connell officially started her campaign at a kick-off last week.
Reminder Publishing photo by G. Michael Dobbs

SPRINGFIELD – Linda O’ Connell has been a journalist, a co-founder of The Valley Advocate and the co-president of The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. Now O’Connell wants to succeed Domenic Sarno as the next mayor of Springfield.

O’ Connell made her intentions officials with a campaign kick-off on July 13 attended by about 50 people, including City Councilors Jesse Lederman and Tracye Whitfield.

Conducted at the American Legion Post in Forest Park, O’Connell introduced herself as a Springfield native who was the daughter of immigrants: an Italian father who worked as a pharmacist and a Lithuanian mother who was a teacher.

“We were taught to always keep our eyes on the horizon,” she told the audience.

O’Connell said advocacy journalism was her “true calling” and added her mission has been to “giving voice to the voiceless.”

Besides helping to found The Valley Advocate, O’Connell was an editor and associate publisher at New Orleans magazine and an editor at San Antonio magazine, among other positions in journalism. She attended Classical High School in the city and studied at Mount Holyoke College and Brown University.

O’Connell noted that in the last city mayoral election only 16 out of every 100 voters participated. She called that as evidence of a “broken system.”

She added, “My message is you can change everything.”

She noted a variety of issues that she would tackle including improving the city’s police and schools, affordable housing and – to applause – the trash fee.

She did not offer any solutions to the issues raised but said, “For our future it’s time to ask the hard questions and do the hard things.”

O’Connell did say she would support Lederman’s ordinance that Sarno had vetoed concerning establishing a system to alert registered voters to upcoming elections.

“Why does the incumbent act so angry?” She asked. “Why is he opposed to telling people when elections are?”






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