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July 28, 2005

Virgil Wright

Sam Yoon opened a bid last week to become the Hub’s first Asian-American city councilor, citing support among progressives and people of color to bring greater diversity to Boston’s elected officials.

A Korean immigrant who has developed affordable housing for the last ten years, the 35-year-old candidate kicked off his citywide campaign in Chinatown with an introduction by former Boston mayoral candidate Mel King, who praised Yoon as a model of pragmatic and progressive leadership for the much-touted “New Boston.” Yoon pointed to the site of his announcement, the Metropolitan housing complex on Nassau Street, as an example of his work to bring affordable development and residential stability to the city.

“At the Asian Community Development Corporation and with our partners in the community, in city government, and in the private sector, we developed this building with our eye on Boston’s future, while honoring the neighborhood and meeting its needs,” said Yoon, barely breaking a sweat while addressing supporters in the Metropolitan’s sweltering community room.

A Princeton graduate who taught in tough inner-city schools in Trenton and Elizabeth, N.J., Yoon came to Boston in 1993 to attend the Kennedy School and develop affordable housing, the last three years as housing director for the Asian CDC.

The boyish-looking candidate, who arrived in the U.S. at age 10 months and grew up in the Amish country of Lebanon, Penn., pledged to follow the footsteps of other hard-working immigrants to make his educational and professional expertise work for the good of all Bostonians.

“All my life, I’ve felt the call to service. I taught in the public schools in some of the toughest cities in our nation,” said Yoon, flanked by his wife and two children. “I have devoted my career to helping communities come together to take control of their own future.

“That is what I will do on the Boston City Council. Call it a grateful payback to our city and country from this son of Korean immigrants.”

Yoon, a Fields Corner resident, is one of 15 candidates for four at-large seats on the Boston City Council. The Sept. 27 preliminary election will whittle the field to eight, who will face off in the Nov. 8 final election.

Yoon joins three incumbents in the race — Michael Flaherty, Stephen Murphy and Felix Arroyo — who are favored to win re-election and 11 challengers vying for the open seat left vacant by 22-year council veteran Maura Hennigan.

Hennigan stopped by Yoon’s campaign kickoff buffet in Chinatown the evening of his announcement en route to events promoting her challenge this year to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Shaking hands with the candidate, the at-large councilor laughed off suggestions of an endorsement of Yoon but pledged to vote for him.

“People may not remember the ‘Kevin Seven,’” said Hennigan. “They were the council candidates endorsed by Mayor White. Every one of them lost. So I’m staying away from endorsements. But I’ll be voting for Sam, which is the most important thing.”

In a brief interview between photo ops and shaking hands at the buffet, Yoon said he had been encouraged to run not only by Mel King but also by the city’s councilors of color — Charles Yancey, Chuck Turner and Felix Arroyo — and would welcome their support.

“They have been extremely encouraging. None has yet offered an endorsement. We’ll wait and see what happens after the preliminary election,” said Yoon.

Arroyo, the first citywide councilor of color since Bruce Bolling left the council to run a failed bid for mayor in 1993, won re-election in 2003 after a fifth-finish scare in the preliminary, using bullet-votes by supporters to ease comfortably to victory.

Bullet-voting means a voter uses just one of his multiple choices on a ballot in order to maximize the vote’s impact for the desired candidate.

With hard-charging candidacies this year by well-funded challengers, Arroyo’s camp is wary of diluting its vote by supporting any competitors, even those, like Yoon, with a claim on progressive credentials and the mantle of Mel King’s Rainbow Coalition.

Citywide council challengers this year include two children of former Boston mayors — Patricia White and Eddie Flynn — and John Connolly, the son of a former secretary of state. The line-up also includes two electoral veterans of color, Althea Garrison and Roy Owens, who appear with near-annual regularity on the ballot and with equal regularity in the losers’ column. Bruce Bolling, in fact the only 1981 “Kevin Seven” candidate to win election to the last term of the nine-member citywide council, said a strong preliminary finish by Arroyo — number two or three — would reduce pressure to bullet-vote for the incumbent in the final. If a weaker finish by Arroyo resulted in his supporters casting just one vote to help ensure victory for the only Latino ever to serve citywide in Boston, “that would potentially hurt Yoon,” said Bolling.

“If people go into the final election with the view that I’m only going to vote for one candidate — and that’s Felix — then that will reduce support for Sam. But ultimately it’s up to Sam to show he has strength citywide and can attract support from all quarters of the community,” added the former councilor.

Yoon is aggressively promoting his liberal credentials on the campaign trail, hoping to bolster support for his diversity bid by attracting voters who approve of his calls for a return to rent control, more school funding, and re-defining housing affordability standards to reflect the wages of Boston families rather than metropolitan-area incomes.

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