© 2023
1078x200-header-mic.png
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Former State Rep. Coakley-Rivera Withdraws From City Council Race

cheryl_coakley-rivera.jpg
wikipedia
/

A former Massachusetts legislator has withdrawn from the crowded field of Springfield City Council candidates citing a potential conflict of interest.

Former State Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera said she withdrew as a candidate after being advised by the State Ethics Commission that if she remained in the race she would have to give up her job as assistant clerk in the Hampden County Superior Court.

" As much as I love the city and I want to serve, I can't afford right now to leave my full time job," said Coakley-Rivera, who added " I am very disappointed."

Coakley-Rivera took out nomination papers for the city council less than an hour before the July 28th deadline after two longtime incumbent councilors chose not to seek reelection.

Her departure leaves 13 candidates running for 5 at-large council seats.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.