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Jonathan Spillane
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Jonathan Spillane ran for election for an at-large seat of the Boston City Council in Massachusetts. He lost in the primary on September 14, 2021.
Spillane completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Jonathan Spillane was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College in 2013 and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in 2020. Spillane’s career experience includes working as the budget director and constituent services director for Boston City Councillor Kenzie Bok. He also worked as a development officer at Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: City elections in Boston, Massachusetts (2021)
General election
General election for Boston City Council At-large (4 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Boston City Council At-large on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Michael Flaherty (Nonpartisan) | 17.4 | 62,602 |
| ✔ |  | Julia Mejia (Nonpartisan) | 17.3 | 62,058 |
| ✔ |  | Ruthzee Louijeune (Nonpartisan)  | 15.3 | 54,898 |
| ✔ |  | Erin Murphy (Nonpartisan) | 12.0 | 43,076 |
 | David Halbert (Nonpartisan) | 11.9 | 42,765 | |
| Carla Monteiro (Nonpartisan) | 11.1 | 39,876 | ||
| Bridget Nee-Walsh (Nonpartisan) | 7.7 | 27,591 | ||
 | Althea Garrison (Nonpartisan) | 7.0 | 25,078 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.4 | 1,350 | ||
| Total votes: 359,294 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Boston City Council At-large (4 seats)
The following candidates ran in the primary for Boston City Council At-large on September 14, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Michael Flaherty (Nonpartisan) | 15.0 | 41,509 |
| ✔ | | Julia Mejia (Nonpartisan) | 14.1 | 38,919 |
| ✔ | | Ruthzee Louijeune (Nonpartisan) | 12.1 | 33,546 |
| ✔ | | Erin Murphy (Nonpartisan) | 8.3 | 22,938 |
| ✔ | Carla Monteiro (Nonpartisan) | 6.8 | 18,911 | |
| ✔ | | David Halbert (Nonpartisan) | 6.1 | 17,012 |
| ✔ | | Althea Garrison (Nonpartisan) | 6.1 | 16,906 |
| ✔ | Bridget Nee-Walsh (Nonpartisan) | 5.5 | 15,191 | |
| Kelly Bates (Nonpartisan) | 4.6 | 12,787 | ||
| Alexander Gray (Nonpartisan) | 4.1 | 11,320 | ||
| Jonathan Spillane (Nonpartisan) | 4.1 | 11,217 | ||
 | Said Abdikarim (Nonpartisan) | 2.8 | 7,767 | |
 | Domingos DaRosa (Nonpartisan) | 2.5 | 7,011 | |
 | Donnie Palmer (Nonpartisan) | 2.5 | 6,861 | |
 | Roy Owens (Nonpartisan) | 1.9 | 5,265 | |
| James Colimon (Nonpartisan) | 1.7 | 4,693 | ||
| Nick Vance (Nonpartisan) | 1.4 | 3,968 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 873 | ||
| Total votes: 276,694 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jonathan Spillane completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Spillane's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Jon Spillane, a candidate for Boston City Council At-Large, is a lifelong Bostonian, experienced community organizer, dedicated civil servant, and attorney. A graduate of Boston Latin School, Boston College, and Suffolk Law School, Jon has worked to address Boston’s housing crisis as part of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development (DND), where he worked toward the creation of over 1,000 units of housing on affordable housing projects across the City. As the Director of Budget and Director of Neighborhood Services for Council Chair of Ways and Means Kenzie Bok, Jon helped manage one of the toughest city budgets in recent memory and advocated for residents affected by COVID-19, connecting housebound seniors to food access, tenants to rent relief and small businesses to Boston’s Office of Economic Development. Jon previously served on Mayor Walsh’s Spark Boston Council, which works with City Hall to represent and advocate for young adults in Boston aged 20 to 34. Currently, Jon is a member of the Boston Ward 5 Democratic Committee and is a founder and current Young Professional Board Member of the Genesis Foundation for Children, which helps children with rare diseases and rare genetic disorders.
- Experience building affordable housing
- Making constituent & city services more accessible
- Innovative ideas to overcome inter-connected crisis facing Boston
I’m running for Council because I’m a housing and policy expert who can step into office on day one, identify parallel issues across neighborhoods, and call the right people to fix them. When working with residents as COVID-19 spread, I was able to know who to connect them with because of my experience working at the Department of Neighborhood Development, and I worked really closely with the Office of Housing Stability. Housing is a big issue for me. I think housing stability, almost more than anything else, impacts the trajectory of someone’s life. My grandfather grew up in the Old Colony Housing Project in South Boston. He had that housing structure that he was able to move my family to Hyde Park where he purchased a house. So it’s important to me to have that stable structure because it lets you really have a stable environment that leads to growth. And having to constantly worry about moving or having insecurity, really impacts people’s ability to flourish in other spaces.
I have always wanted to be a Boston City Councilor because of their unique place in our City's politics. City Councilors have the greatest ability to impact the daily lives of residents, from ensuring that city services are delivered to making big changes to policy around development and our public schools.
Of course, I look up to the examples my parents have set for me growing up. They were both Boston civil servants and showed to me the importance of giving back to your community. In addition to them, however, I have to say, Mayor Tom Menino. I grew up 2 streets over from him in Hyde Park, and he set the real standard for focusing on community-based services, there is a reason why they call him the Urban Mechanic. I feel to be a good Boston City Official you have a duty to focus on small neighborhood issues which neighbors see in their everyday lives day in and day out as well as create City-wide policy that can look to effectuate change on a City-wide level.
Curiosity, honesty, and responsiveness are the most important characteristics and principles for an elected official. Government and the challenges it is trying to solve are complicated, and ensuring that we find the best solutions means doing a lot of talking, reading, and engagement. Being honest about where you as an elected official are coming from, and how you view the issues of the day and the specific issues you're discussing is one of my core principles. I'm proud that I've run a campaign that is not saying different things to different people. Finally, responsiveness is essential in a City Councilor. Many of the constituent issues that City Councilors deal with are time sensitive, often while someone is having some of the worst days of their lives. Ensuring that those issues are dealt with in a timely and complete manner is essential.
I want people to believe that their government is working for them, and is able to deliver on big changes. A key part of doing that is delivering effective constituent services. When I leave office, I hope to have played a role in helping Boston residents feel like their government is accessible, advocating for them, and tackling the big issues to improve the lives of everyone in our City.
When I was 5 years old, my mother who was working for the City of Boston took me to a send-off Mayor Menino was hosting for the 1996 Super Bowl Contending, New England Patriots. While there I meet Drew Bledsoe which meant the world to me at 5 years old.
My very first job was working as a busboy and a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant while I was in High School. I kept that job for 4 years and it really impacted my view of what service sector employees experience and working in a front-facing service environment.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The book is centered around a person's resistance towards defeat. I think oftentimes in life we encounter circumstances that catch us off guard that we have to persevere through. I think this is a powerful lesson that one can use continually throughout almost any phase of life.
September by Earth, Wind and Fire
City Councilors choose to pass or reject Boston's $3 billion + budget. While people might know this, what isn't seen is the ability of Councilors to have a big impact on what goes into that budget.
I do believe that having experience in government & politics helps incoming City Councilors. This year 5 of the 13 current city councilors are not running for re-election, and that is going to leave a big gap in terms of experience handling council business. As a past staffer in the City's Department of Neighborhood Development and a former City Council staffer I will be ready to step in on Day One to deal with the issues facing Boston.
Understanding the budget is the top skill/expertise that City Councilors should possess, as well as how to craft policy. Having worked on the City's budget and crafting policy for the City, I feel I have these skill-sets.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2021 Elections
External links
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Candidate Boston City Council At-large |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on August 26, 2021
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