Framingham Mayor Yvonne Spicer: Pre-Primary Interview

FRAMINGHAM, MA — Framingham voters will head to the polls in September to pick from three people running for mayor, including incumbent Mayor Yvonne Spicer, former councilor and selectman Charlie Sisitsky and nonprofit founder Carlos Valadares.

Ahead of the Sept. 14 primary, Patch interviewed each candidate to find out why they are running in 2021. After the primary, two candidates will advance to compete in the November general election.

Spicer, 59, made history in 2017 when she was elected as Framingham's first mayor. Spicer was a town meeting member and member of the local Democratic Party, but her first big electoral victory came partly because she's on the outside of the city's political establishment, she says.

As the first mayor, Spicer has also been the figurehead of Framingham's transition from a town to a city. Many residents fought the change: the spring 2017 referendum passed by about 100 votes and was subject to a recount.

As with many elected officials, the mayor's first term has been a mixture of accomplishments and low points, the coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding.

In the pre-primary interview, she highlighted the redevelopment of the blighted Nobscot Plaza — one of Spicer's first political battles — diversifying city government and downtown-area development as among the accomplishments. She and her staff have also had a rocky relationship with the City Council, including councilors who typically vote with Spicer, both on a personal level and on issues such as the apartment moratorium. The mayor has also clashed with the School Committee over budget cuts.

Spicer has also remade city government likely for years to come, hiring a new police chief, fire chief, public works director and health director, and the city's first diversity and inclusion officer.

If Spicer prevails in the primary, she may find herself in a race similar to 2017, when she ran against a big name in the local political scene: former state representative (and now District 8 councilor) John Stefanini. Sisitsky, whose time in local politics spans decades, has the backing of key city councilors and state officials such as Reps. Jack Lewis and Maria Robinson.

Whoever wins in November, the 2021 Framingham mayoral victor will make history, too: The city will have either its first two-term mayor or its first one-term mayor.

Why should Framingham voters pick you in the primary election?

I have had the honor and the privilege of being the mayor of Framingham for the last 3-1/2 years and never in my wildest dreams when I was sworn in, in January 2018, did I think that I would not only lead my new city, but also lead it through a pandemic. And I think we've done quite well here in Framingham.

We've gotten things accomplished that I focused on, whether it's the transition, economic development, education, and also looking at investing in our people as well. And I've chiseled away at a few items on each one of those categories every single year.

How did your decision to run for mayor in 2021 change from when you first decided to run in 2017? How did you choose to run then, and why are you choosing to run now?

When I ran for the first time, I ran a campaign of honesty, integrity, and not as a politician. As an educator, as a former vice-president of the [Museum of Science-Boston], my experience working in all different realms comes to this work, such as working with political leaders, working with business leaders, the nonprofit world, and I get to merge all of that into this job.

And I'm pretty proud of some of that work and also representing all of the people in Framingham, you know, the north side, south side, the Brazilian community, our elders — making sure that I am tapping into every single person in this community and making sure they feel that they're part of this government.

I've lived here for 36 years and never in my history have we diversified our boards and commissions as much as I've done in the last 3-1/2 years. Looking at our city employees when I started as mayor, 91 percent of the people that worked in Framingham's government were white. That number is balancing with more people of color.

I've tried to make myself accessible, and also listening to our community. And just take a look at the work in our city: new housing, blighted plazas are no more now with Nobscot Plaza, Mount Wayte Plaza; downtown Framingham with new housing that is fully occupied. So we've done quite a bit in 3-1/2 years.

How have you been campaigning and reaching voters this the summer with the pandemic still going on?

It's making phone calls, I've done some meet-and-greets at people's homes and outside. But once again, communicating with people what's happening, having our community hours on Tuesdays.

But I've also been knocking on doors and greeting people and people are thrilled and, it was like, wait a minute, "Mayor Spicer's here, let me, let me get my camera and get a selfie." And that's been wonderful.

Can you name one accomplishment you're most proud of, and name one that you would consider a failure?

I would say there are so many things that I'm proud of. It has to go back to the engagement of people. With the creation of the government academy, we hosted people to come in and learn about different departments and divisions, and we would go to the fire department, they'd go to DPW. Well COVID of course flipped it on the dime. So we went to a virtual government academy. You started to see from that academy people are saying, "Wait a minute, I get this, I think I'm going to try to join a board or commission." So it's the engagement of the community in a way that they'd never been engaged before.

I often used to say to my students "fail quickly and fail often," so you can get to the success. When I think about things that I've tackled, everything is from the lens of, OK, how does this improve the city of Framingham?

Let's take one that was very controversial, Nobscot Plaza, and the angst around that and frustration around what essentially was a challenge for us to get resources from the state. I sold the chapel to the developer, which had to be moved off the corner. And there was a lot of controversy, and it's really about coming to an understanding that what we see today on that corner couldn't have happened if I didn't sell that chapel. And so if I had to do that all over again, probably we would have had more conversation because people had forgotten the charter had said, yes, the mayor has the authority to do this.

When Charlie Sisitsky launched his campaign this year, he had pretty strong support behind him. When you saw that, how did that make you feel? What do you think is the political climate in Framingham this year compared to 2017?

I think it hasn't changed much at all since 2017. It's very entrenched, it's very ingrained. I was always considered the outlier in 2017. From that lens, I represented something new and different for the city of Framingham, a person that is coming to this without the baggage of the good old boys network and good old girls network.

If you look at local politics and Framingham, there were only a certain group of people that ran for offices and it wasn't engaging the 70,000 people that live here. What I bring to the table is a multitude of skillsets. I've been in leadership over 25 years and led things from the ground up and also manage resources. So what I saw that I brought to this new city is a new vision, a new perspective. That's what the people of this community voted for — 59 percent of the people voted for that new vision and perspective.

I'd like to ask a few quick, more fun questions. What's your favorite restaurant in Framingham?

There are just so many great restaurants. I love seafood, so Legal Seafood. I tend to frequent that quite a bit.

What's your favorite park?

I truly love Farm Pond, and I love it for many reasons. I used to live near Farm Pond and I used to walk there and I used to sit and meditate and breathe ... and the historical value of it too. There's a lot of rich history there.

What's the worst intersection in Framingham?

I have to say it depends on the weather. There are days where it's going to be Route 126 and Route 9. But I would have to say it's Edgell Road and Central Street.

When was the last time you either road a bike, a bus or commuter rail in Framingham?

Pre-pandemic I did ride the commuter rail. Riding a bicycle and I really do enjoy it when I get a chance to do it. I did have a test run on one of the Callahan Center buses.

What's your favorite cup of coffee in Framingham?

This is the way you get into trouble because there are so many great coffee shops in Framingham, and I try to frequent a few of them. Saxonville Mills Café, I've been there a couple of times.

Read more about Yvonne Spicer's platform

This interview was recorded and edited for length and clarity