In Boston’s District 3, candidates have similar priorities
But disagree on ways to approach rent control, police budget
Despite their diverging political philosophies, candidates John FitzGerald and Joel Richards largely both agree on the main issues facing Dorchester-based District 3. The onetime acolyte of former Boston mayor Marty Walsh and the teacher endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, however, in some cases split markedly on how to tackle them.
The two Dorchester men are running to replace the retiring City Councilor Frank Baker, who is among the body’s most conservative councilors and a frequent critic of Mayor Michelle Wu. District 3 includes the bulk of Dorchester, including areas along the coast such as Columbia Point that are targeted for heavy development in the coming years, as well as a portion of the South End that includes the troubled area known as Mass. and Cass, where the council this week passed a proposal from the mayor to make it easier to clear tent encampments from streets and sidewalks.
Richards, who is Black, is a former Boston Public Schools elementary school teacher from Maryland who moved to Dorchester in 2010, and FitzGerald, a Boston Planning & Development Agency deputy director who is white, is from Mission Hill. They share certain attributes: Both are young fathers of three who have spent years as city employees, both are cheerful and natural campaigners, and both are basing their pitches around affordability, Boston Public Schools, and constituent services as they talk about the stream of families moving out of the city.
“We’re losing families every day,” Richards, 39, said as he knocked doors around Jones Hill and Uphams Corner in mid-October.
And FitzGerald, 42, said, “All I want to do is make sure there are pockets of
the city here for people who want to raise a family and build a community.”
But the two offer a choice between a veteran of city government and a political outsider ahead of the Nov. 7 general election. FitzGerald stresses his 17 years of experience in Boston City Hall, a building that’s “not easy to navigate, literally or figuratively.” He said the knowledge and relationships he has built there would allow him to be more effective in delivering on the district’s priorities.
Richards, by contrast, presents his outsider status and political differences as a boon. “We already know that the other side is going to bring — it hasn’t worked,” he told one prospective voter as he went door to door.
FitzGerald led the way in the September preliminary election, drawing 43 percent of the vote to 19 percent for Richards, who finished second of the seven candidates and therefore advanced to the November general contest. FitzGerald also has outraised Richards, pulling in more than $223,000 this year, while Richards has raised about $68,000.
Richards resigned from his teaching position this summer to campaign. FitzGerald has continued to work as a deputy director at the BPDA, but state ethics laws mean he is not allowed to personally raise money.
“We have gone through a painstaking process to make sure everything is good and up to snuff,” said FitzGerald, who instead has a fund-raising committee to do it on his behalf. “I have not asked for a dollar the entire time.”
Knocking on doors one recent rainy afternoon wearing a button down, jeans, and sneakers, Richards greeted each prospective voter the same way: “I’m a teacher, pastor, and father.”
The Fields Corner resident, who unsuccessfully ran for an atlarge council seat in 2021, then laid out his three main priorities, saying he would push to have new schools built in Dorchester, hire 100 to 200 new social workers to assist with mental health and drug issues in the city, and direct more city money toward the purchase of vacant lots and blighted properties, then build affordable housing in their place. He said he is in favor of a proposal such as the one Wu has championed for rent control, but would want it to contain protections for small landlords.
That’s an area where the pair split, as FitzGerald said he opposes Wu’s rent-control proposal, which the City Council approved earlier this year (to take effect, however, the state Legislature must separately approve the measure). The BPDA official also pushed back on Richards’s pitch about buying lots, saying, “We already do that.”
They also disagree on the police budget. FitzGerald wants more funding for the police department, rather than the $31 million cut to BPD that more progressive councilors unsuccessfully tried to make to Wu’s budget this year.
Richards said he would have voted in favor of moving the money, but said he would want social programs in place first to fill the gaps in order to make people continue to feel safe.
FitzGerald said that he wants more focus on community policing, and also for the city to consider models where mentalhealth professionals can respond to some calls in lieu of police.
FitzGerald, who lives in the Neponset area, is considered the more centrist choice. He’s been endorsed by Baker and Walsh, who both live in the district. As he walked around Savin Hill, knocking doors on a recent afternoon in a blue suit with a round “FITZ” sticker, he framed himself as a candidate who would take a back-to-basics approach if elected, focused on getting more funding for schools, public works, and assistance programs for the elderly and prospective homeowners.
“Who are we building the city for? We need to have an answer to that question,” said FitzGerald, a first-time candidate who led the Walsh administration’s erstwhile efforts to bring the Olympics to Boston.
In interviews, both men sought to downplay the importance of their broader ideological worldviews; they say they want to work with people across the political spectrum on local issues rather than national ones, as the council sometimes discusses.
“A lot of people are trying to bring that into their politics,” said Richards after spending several minutes talking about public-works issues such as installing speed bumps and putting power lines underground to cut down on outages. “I’m not.”
FitzGerald said he’s still a “proud Democrat” and it bothers him when people think he’s a “Trumpy guy.” But, he said, “the paradigm has shifted so much” to the left that some in Boston brand him as a conservative.
He’s focusing on the “notsexy stuff ” such as filling potholes and, like Richards said, cutting down on speeding in neighborhoods.
In the northern edge of the district lies Mass. and Cass, where an open-air drug market continues to plague the streets near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. More than 100 people are on the streets there each day, according to city data, and that number climbed above 200 at times throughout the summer.
Both candidates said the mayor is right to try to clear tent encampments there.
FitzGerald said he wants to “decentralize” services there, splitting the people on the streets into smaller groups of around a dozen who had “similar traumas.” These individuals would be given care in places around the region.
Richards stressed his push to hire more social workers should be a key part of the response.
“We have to look at how we got here to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Baker, the outgoing councilor, said Mass. and Cass will remain a high priority for the district.
“It’s schools, it’s crime, it’s quality of life,” Baker said. “It’s a great job, and I hope the next person works hard in it.”