WESTFIELD – City Council President Brian Sullivan said this morning that he will formally announce “my intentions to seek election as Mayor of Westfield” at the campaign organizational meeting to be held, weather permitting, tomorrow night at the Tavern on the Green restaurant.
“This started out originally as a event to announce my intention to run for mayor,” Sullivan said, “but it’s morphed into a fund raiser.”
Sullivan said that Lisa McMahon, the former Westfield Business Improvement District(BID) executive director, will serve as his campaign manager and that he has been working with a group of people over the past several weeks to organize his campaign.
“I have a committee of 20 people who have been meeting over the past three weeks to set up a campaign structure with six ward committees, a platform committee, a media committee and a fundraising group,” Sullivan said. “A lot of people are jumping on board.”
Sullivan is currently serving his ninth term on the City Council and is in his eighth year as council president.
“I’ve been City Council president one year of the last eight terms I’ve been on the council,” Sullivan said. “This year as president ties me with Charlie (the late City Councilor Charles Medeiros who served 32 years on the council).”
Sullivan has recruited several people who are either currently serving in an elected capacity or have held elected office in the past to organize his campaign.
“I have Tom Flaherty who is the chairman of the Municipal Light Board and Tim O’Connor, a former School Committee member helping set up the six ward committees,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also has the opportunity to call upon his own family for advices, including Richard K. Sullivan Jr., who won six mayoral elections, and Kevin Sullivan, a long-serving member of the School Committee.
“We’re ready to take this on,” Sullivan said.
Only one other candidate has announced intention to seek the mayoral post election. Michael L. Roeder has also thrown his hat into the ring following the announcement in early January by three-term incumbent Mayor Daniel M. Knapik that he will not seek another term.
Knapik narrowly beat Roeder, by 333 votes, in the last mayoral election when 9,000 residents cast ballots. That campaign was between two candidates with very different platforms.
Sullivan said that he plans to take a consensus-building approach to campaigning for election, a position that he had taken on the City Council and which has resulted in his frequent election as president of the legislative body.
