At the first regular council meeting of the year Monday, a new face as well as a returning, familiar one took their seats in the Springfield City Council chambers.
A former council president who tried running for mayor is once again a councilor at large, while a new addition hopes to bring a new perspective to City Hall.
Hurst returns as new Ward 7 Councilor Martin settles into role
“It feels excellent, we couldn’t do it without the residents of Springfield: we’re really blessed - all thanks goes to God, as well,” Councilor at Large Justin Hurst told WAMC soon after he and other councilors were sworn in on Jan. 5.
Speaking at the body's organizational meeting, Hurst said he was looking forward to being a vocal advocate for residents again as he returned to the council for the first time since his run for mayor in 2023.
He ended up earning the second-highest share of the vote during last November’s council at-large race, effectively knocking off Councilor Sean Curran.
With at least a decade of experience on the council, Hurst says he’s been ready to get back to work at City Hall for some time, with priorities that include reining in residential taxes and ensuring city services remain intact.
“We’ve got to get the little things right here in the city of Springfield - if taxes are going to keep going up and up and up, we need to make sure, at the very least, that folks are going to get the services that they rightfully deserve,” he said. “Whether that's the terraces, whether that's making sure your streets are clean, whether that's making sure your parks are clean, whatever it is: we're going to continue to fight for the residents of Springfield and make sure we have a city that we all can be proud of.”
An attorney and also former city council president, Hurst has already been entrusted with a special committee formed by new Council President Tracye Whitfield -- a “Building & Permits” committee intended to reduce delays and accelerate rehabilitation and construction projects in the city.
He’s also chairing both the city’s Audit and General Government Sub Committees right off the bat.
Also getting a chair position: fellow incoming Councilor Gerry Martin.
“I am very excited. Ward 7 has been my home since I was born - I'm a neighborhood guy and my neighborhood, my ward, has instilled with me the values that I hold dear,” Martin told WAMC. “I'm very excited to be representing it [on] the city level and for our local government.”
Representing much of southeast Springfield, the 25-year-old Martin unseated longtime Councilor Tim Allen last year, and also got his wish of chairing the council’s Public Safety sub committee.
“Public safety has been and … will always be my top priority,” he said ahead of learning this year's committee assignments. “I campaigned on trying to get a police substation and walking patrols out in Ward 7 and … I’m going to continue to work for and fight for that.”
Exiting post-November defeats, Allen and Curran reflect on time on the council
Martin ended up pulling off one of the biggest upsets of last year’s elections, unseating Allen by a vote total of 2:1.
It marked the end of one of the council’s longest-serving members. Allen, along with Councilors Mike Fenton and Melvin Edwards, was first elected in 2009. Only Councilor at Large Kateri Walsh has served longer than the three of them.
Often leading the council’s Finance sub committee, Allen was known for playing key roles during budget debates with the mayor’s office and financial team – talks that, at times, helped secure tax levy relief or minimized cuts. A retired MassMutual vice president who also teaches at Springfield College, Allen did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
His farewell speech at the council’s last meeting of 2025 featured Allen touching on how ongoing work to replace the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse and the possible return of a biomass project motivated him to run again.
He also noted one of his earliest motivations to keep running came just over a year into his time as a councilor – the 2011 tornado that ripped through part of the city.
“I kind of established my legacy of service through that: we lost a hundred houses in East Forest Park – a hundred houses were blown away, and … we did information sessions at Holy Cross Church and I walked the neighborhoods and talked to people to help them out - whatever I could,” he recounted. “And that's when I realized what really matters was really being there."
"It was great to do all the other things - residency and budget and all these other things - but it was walking around after the tornado that I really realized what people need," he continued. "Everybody was struggling, everybody in East Forest Park was struggling. Either they lost their house, part of their house, their friend's house … I think it established what I wanted to be as a councilor and that was to be there for people.”
His also outgoing colleague Sean Curran didn’t join the council until 2019, though he did represent part of the city via the 9th Hampden House seat for a decade, from 2005 to 2015.
Curran tells WAMC that as a councilor, exploring economic development opportunities was always a priority, and contends that, in a time when remote work remains popular and housing prices in major cities like Boston aren’t coming down, Springfield has a golden opportunity.
“We are positioned, right now, in this new reality of Microsoft Teams and Zoom, to be a remote work capital of New England in between Boston and Worcester and New York,” he said in a phone interview. “With a semi-reasonable price of real estate, you could really have a real turnaround, and you can have a real situation where younger remote workers - who have jobs [with] significant incomes - move into the city and become contributing city residents.”
“But I think we need to work on that … but hopefully, my time in the council has raised those issues,” he added.
Curran’s final months on the council included the passage of an ordinance establishing firm apartment dimension regulations, cracking down on developers and property owners attempting to pass off small units as something bigger than they actually are.
The councilor was also an advocate for bringing a food hall to Springfield, similar to the Parkville Market in Hartford and the Worcester Public Market. A feasibility study on the matter was released two weeks after Curran and Allen’s departure.
He also tells WAMC Springfield would benefit from further tapping more into its basketball roots, and that the city could do well to bring a modern basketball court complex to the area.
“These basketball complexes are springing up all over the country, and they bring millions and millions of dollars of revenue into the cities that host them,” he said. “And Springfield would be the perfect location for one such complex … you'd have millions of dollars in terms of not just the players coming here, but their families to watch the tournaments, and they'd go out to restaurants, they'd be staying in the hotels and you could really make this a destination.”
Hurst emphasizes lingering concerns over vote total result confusion
Ultimately, Curran’s November race was far closer than Allen’s: he was about 40 votes behind Brian Santaniello, who secured the fifth and last councilor at large seat.
Meanwhile, vote totals in general remain a concern for Hurst.
He tells WAMC that he’s still looking for answers over election result confusion from last year. While receiving results in November, the then-councilor at large-elect took to social media to call out what he considered a discrepancy – a nearly 470 vote-difference between unofficial total vote results in his possession (12,623) and the certified results (13,100).
The city clerk would later tell The Springfield Republican that, due to an “administrative error” on their office’s part, Hurst received outdated, unofficial results that had missing precinct totals.
But, Hurst remains concerned – and just what happened in November might very well be the subject of scrutiny by council committees.
“If my committee is either general government, if my committee is the audit committee, you can fully expect that we do a thorough investigation as to what occurred,” he told WAMC on Jan. 5, before he was officially charged with chairing both bodies.
—
This piece originally aired on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. Audio provided by Focus Springfield was used for this piece.
