Barros kicks off bid for mayor
Touts experience in public, private sectors
Former city economic development chief John Barros kicked off his mayoral campaign with a pitch combining his City Hall experience and local business ties.
“The experience both at City Hall in governance, experience as a small business owner and experience in the neighborhood uniquely position me to help meet the challenges of this city’s mayor,” Barros declared Thursday in his family’s restaurant in Dorchester. “I’ve been doing the work.”
Barros served for seven years as Mayor Martin Walsh’s economic development chief before resigning last week. Before that, he served on the school committee and executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.
“As mayor, I would work to make sure that we continue to engage our communities, and to continue to particularly engage our young people and continue to engage those who feel left out in our economy, continue to engage those who feel most vulnerable, protect those who feel most vulnerable,” Barros said.
This is Barros’s second crack at running for mayor; he finished in the middle of the pack in 2013.
Barros praised his old boss Walsh and presented himself as a way of finishing ongoing initiatives.
He said he was “proud to be part of an administration with seven years of AAA bond rating, proud to say that I’m ready to continue that, proud to be part of the city government that took Boston through the pandemic in a very responsible way that makes sure that we helped to keep our small businesses alive.”
Barros was noncommittal about questions involving rent control and an elected school committee. Asked about “defunding the police,” he said he wants to work with the department to shift the system away from police officers being the ones responding to every 911 call.
Barros joins an expanding race that already includes City Councilors Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell and Annissa Essaibi-George and state Rep. Jon Santiago.
Asked about the fact that all the candidates so far are people of color, Barros said, “Boston is ready for a Black man like me.”
Barros held his kickoff indoors, unlike how the other four major candidates have done amid the pandemic. The event was in the restaurant his Cape Verdean parents, Restaurante Cesaria, in Dorchester, and he was joined by his wife and four kids.
Before Barros spoke, Marianne Hughes, former head of the Interaction Institute for Social Change, and then Conan Harris, a local political consultant, warmed up the small crowd.
“I’ve been able to see John Barros in the boardroom doing the great work, and in the street working with residents and businesses moving our community forward,” said Harris, a former city hall staffer and the husband of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley.