Ricardo Arroyo for Boston City Council

Ricardo Arroyo for Boston City Council on The Young Jurks, 1/5/2019. 

https://midnightmass.substack.com/p/ricardo-arroyo-for-boston-city-council

Ricardo Arroyo, candidate for Boston City Council in District 5 (Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Roslindale), is the son of the first Latino elected to the Council, Felix D. Arroyo and brother of Felix G. Arroyo, who has also served on the very same Council.

Interviewing Arroyo on my Disrupt Boston show, The Young Jurks, the 31 year old noted, “I come from a pretty great family.” and it goes beyond just the elected positions, his mother is a school teacher and his sister is employed as a Boston Public Schools educator. Another Arroyo brother, also came up in our discussion, Ernesto AKA Eroc, who I’ve known for decades, being a huge fan of his revolutionary hip hop, The Foundation Movement. 

Arroyo until his recent campaign announcement, had been serving as a public defender attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services. 

Unlike the incumbent District 5 Councilor Tim McCarthy, Arroyo supported the 2016 cannabis legalization initiative. 

What follows are quotes from the broadcast.

Why are you running for City Council?

“The job I had as a public defender for me it was a calling…Being a public defender is so much of why I’m running. In the work that I did, we were dealing with the vast majority of clients having mental illness, dealing with addiction, with housing instability, and sometimes all three. And people who are generally not receiving the services they need. One of the things I loved about the job is we didn’t have to try to figure out where our next check was coming from, we were salaried, so I could help beyond the criminal cases, to help them with housing and getting treatment. Doing that work I would find the system could make a difference in their lives. I would make this impact on an individual basis... but every day at court there were new people showing up, everyday there is somebody else there so I could help one person but I couldn’t resolve the greater issues that are bringing people there, not without stepping outside of that role.”

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