Someone Is Running for Tito Jackson’s Seat
Photo via Rufus Faulk on Facebook
Roxbury’s Rufus Faulk says he plans to run for Tito Jackson’s seat at the City Council in 2017.
The 34-year-old director of the Gang Mediation Initiative at the Boston TenPoint Coalition, the anti-violence advocacy group, says in a Facebook post that he intends to run for District 7, which Jackson has represented since 2011.
“I really feel like the time couldn’t be better than right now,’’ Faulk tells the Globe. “Now is the time especially in our community to awaken to civic engagement.”
The TenPoint Coalition, of which Faulk has been a part for 11 years, meanwhile, isn’t holding back in its critique of Jackson.
“The candidacy may be understood as evidence that beyond the charismatic personality, there’s some sense of substance and policy focus lacking from Councilor Jackson,” co-founder Rev. Eugene Rivers tells the Herald.
Faulk ran unsuccessfully twice for state representative against Gloria Fox, in 2012 and 2014. He has a graduate degree from Boston University and is a doctoral candidate at Northeastern.
His announcement comes as Jackson has made moves preparing for a possible bid to challenge Mayor Marty Walsh this year. He has recruited a campaign manager with a track record of helping get New York Mayor Bill de Blasio elected, for example, and his team created a still-under-construction website with the URL titojacksonformayor.com. He says he may wait until the spring, the deadline to pull papers, to decide whether to go for it.
Faulk says his candidacy isn’t contingent on Jackson seeking higher office. He’s running no matter what, he says.
As for finally seeing competition for his City Council seat, Jackson has said in interviews that making incumbents earn their posts is an “important part of the process and essential to civic life.” In 2013, he won reelection with 76 percent of the vote, and won with about two-thirds of the vote in 2015.
