Bryan Barash Announces Candidacy For Newton City Council 2019

NEWTON, MA — It may be more than a year away, but Newton resident Bryan Barash wants you to know he will be running for the Ward 2 City Councilor seat in the November 2019 election.

City councilors Emily Norton (elected in 2013), Jacob Auchincloss (2016) and Susan Albright (2004) currently fill the Ward 2 seats. Norton is the Ward 2 councilor; the other two are "at-large" councilors for Ward 2. Norton told Patch she also plans to run in 2019.

"This is my first time running for city council," he told Patch in an email. "What prompted me to run is a commitment to a life in public service and the belief that this is the best way I can continue to serve my community."

If the name Barash sounds familiar it could be because he sits on the Newton Human Rights Commission, on the Ward 2 Democratic Committee, as chapter lead for Progressive Newton, as a board member of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, as a board member of the Bay State Stonewall Democrats - an LGBT advocacy organization, as a member of Green Newton, and as a member of the League of Women Voters of Newton. He also was as a member of Newton’s Charter Commission at one point.

Barash said he got his political start back with Barack Obama's campaign for president, moving to Chicago to help Obama develop a social media strategy. Later he moved to Newton with his wife Claudia Bowman while attending Boston College Law School. He graduated in 2013. For the past five years he's been general counsel to Senate President Emerita Harriette Chandler in the state legislature, according to his LinkedIn profile.

At a time when so much of our politics is divisive, we need to come together as a community to meet the needs of our neighborhood and our city. As your city councilor I will utilize my decade of public policy expertise, combined with my intimate knowledge of both state and local government, to ensure your concerns are heard and your needs are met at City Hall. I believe strongly in the power of kindness, the impact of compromise, and the decency of the people who live here. I am guided by my progressive values and driven by a desire to give back to this community which has given me so much.

Barash said he plans to lay out an "ambitious platform" to move Newton forward. He also said he wants to take the next year to talk with "every single person in our community," in an effort to find out what he can do to improve life in Newton.

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Newton Patch Staff Reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).

Photo credit: Ashia Ray Photography.