For the first time, a vacancy on the City Council in Springfield, Massachusetts has been filled by a special election.
First-time candidate Lavar Click-Bruce, an aide to Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and the basketball coach at the city’s High School of Commerce, won the special election for the Ward 5 seat on the City Council, capping a campaign that was marked by civility and struggles to make voters even aware of the summertime election.
Click-Bruce defeated retired labor leader Ed Collins Tuesday by a slim 44-vote margin. Fewer than 1,300 ballots were cast, according to the city’s Election Office. That translated to a voter turnout of just 8 and-a-half percent.
After the race was called, an emotional Click-Bruce thanked about 50 family members, friends, and supporters who gathered at Marlee’s Bar and Grill to celebrate.
“I’m going to work hard for my community,” Click-Bruce said. “I am going to make sure we have resources and access to city hall. That’s my job, to listen to each and every constituent’s concern and make sure they are heard and have a voice in the city of Springfield.”
He added the job of a City Councilor is “not to fight, not to bicker.”
Collins left a gathering of his supporters to personally congratulate Click-Bruce, praising him for working hard and running “a good clean race.”
“And you are going to have to get use, very soon, to a new nickname ‘Landslide’,” Collins joked.
An exhaustive effort to knock on thousands of doors throughout Ward 5, which is made up largely of the Sixteen Acres and Pine Point neighborhoods, was the reason for his success, Click-Bruce said.
“It definitely was grueling, but we knew what we signed up for,” he said in an interview with WAMC.
The need for the special election was triggered by the surprise resignation on May 31st of then- Council President Marcus Williams. He had represented Ward 5 since 2016.
Previously, vacancies on the City Council were filled by runners-up from the most recent past election, or by the Council itself. Earlier this year, a home rule petition was approved on Beacon Hill that authorized the scheduling of special elections when a Council seat becomes vacant.
As a result of the timing of the special election, Ward 5 voters had the opportunity to go to the polls three times in four weeks. First was the August 16th preliminary vote that reduced the initial field of seven Council candidates to Click-Bruce and Collins. Then the state primaries on September 6th followed just a week later by the Ward 5 final election.
While serving for the remaining 15 months of the current Council session, Click-Bruce said he will run in 2023 for a full two-year term. He also plans to leave Mayor Sarno’s staff to avoid any conflict of interest.
“I looking forward to working with the administration,” Click-Bruce said.
He said he wants to expand the city’s C3 policing program to areas of Ward 5 and get gunshot detection technology installed in Pine Point.
Sarno was present to congratulate Click-Bruce on his election victory, as was State Representative Bud Williams and City Council President Jesse Lederman.
