Leroy was raised in the heart of our district in Dorchester’s Bowdoin/Geneva neighborhood – Boston’s ground zero of violence. Like many growing up, Leroy was raised by loving parents. But in tough neighborhoods like Bowdoin/Geneva, where drugs and gun violence are a daily occurrence, love is not enough.

At only 16, Leroy lost two of his older brothers to gun violence because of drugs and gangs. With the lack of jobs, under-performing schools, drugs and gang violence around every corner, Leroy was destined to follow in their footsteps.Norman B. Rice, Seattle’s first African-American mayor, once said, “Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light.” I reached out my hand into the darkness to pull Leroy’s hand into the light by finding him a job and being a mentor to him. Without it, he may have ended up like his brothers.

But what keeps me up at night is the knowledge that there are hundreds of kids out there just like Leroy. They need a lifeline, deserve a future, and that is why I am running.

We as a community can no longer afford to respond to situations after they happen, we must be preventive, as I was with Leroy, and strike at the root of the hopelessness and violence that has engulfed our neighborhood:

• More Jobs With unemployment still hovering around nine percent in the state of Massachusetts, and in the 5th Suffolk District even higher, too many of our families have been unemployed for far too long. When people lack job opportunities, they often turn to a life of crime to support themselves and their families. As state representative, I will work to retain existing jobs while creating new ones, extend unemployment benefits to those who have lost their job through no fault of their own, and invest in training programs for the jobs of tomorrow.

• Quality Schools In 2009, Sheriff Andrea Cabral testified to Congress that “…approximately 50 percent of Suffolk County House of Corrections inmates are high school dropouts.” Too many of our young people continue to drop out of school. Without an education they find themselves locked out from the American dream. As your state representative, I will work to ensure every child has access to a quality education by demanding more accountability, expanding vocational training, and increasing the number of mentors available to youth – before, during and after school.

• Safe Streets According to a recent program on WBUR, “drug cases take up much of the docket” at Dorchester Court. Whether smashing a window to grab a GPS unit or shooting someone for selling drugs on their turf, substance abuse is behind much of the violence we see on our streets. As your state representative, I will work to preserve funding for substance abuse prevention and recovery street workers and summer and year round jobs for youth.

As a community organizer and activist, youth worker and as a former City Hall aide, I have witnessed too many kids like Leroy who stand at a crossroads. I have been a teen in these neighborhoods faced with these same issues and I know what works. We cannot turn our backs on them or turn back the clock when it comes to the violence that has occurred. We must move forward with a renewed vision and a pledge to address these problems as a community and for the community.

- Carlos Henriquez is a candidate for State Representative in the Fifth Suffolk District.

Copyright 2010, Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.

As a kid growing up near Dudley Square in Roxbury, Carlos Henriquez was a bit unusual.

Hanging around the offices of the Dudley Square Neighborhood Initiative, a nonprofit his father helped found, his pet project, at age 14, was to try to design a community center for the neighborhood.

Nearly two decades later, thanks to the largesse of a San Diego billionaire, something like what he envisioned is close to opening.

“They’re building my dream,’’ said Henriquez. “Actually, they’re exceeding my dream.’’

The Kroc Center is closing in on completion, and there’s nothing in Boston like it. It will contain classrooms for after-school tutoring, meeting places for seniors, a kitchen for culinary classes, a gym, and a pool, complete with a waterslide that would look at home in an amusement park. Planners expect it to serve about 1,000 residents a day.

The person who made it possible, posthumously, was Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonald’s magnate Ray Kroc.

When Kroc died in 2003, she gave a lot of money to people who weren’t necessarily expecting it. For instance, she left $225 million to the good people at National Public Radio, $50 million each to two colleges, and $10 million to the San Diego Zoo.

But her biggest bequest, a whopping $1.6 billion, went to the Salvation Army. Part of that money was to set up a string of community centers across the country. To qualify, communities had to pledge to raise $30 million in order to get $85 million from Kroc’s bequest, according to Drew Forster, who will manage the center.

There are now nine Kroc Centers open around the country, with 15 or so in various stages of development. In the midst of a deep recession, about $28 million was raked in from a combination of corporations, foundations, and small donors.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino has been a booster from the start. He got a look at the place a couple of weeks ago and came away impressed.

“I think what it does is bring newness and vitality to an area in desperate need of it,’’ Menino said. “It’s a neighborhood that for so many years has had some issues. This will give people in Dudley a chance to say they’re proud of living there.’’

As Menino pointed out, Dudley is already home to a couple of community centers. But it doesn’t take much to see that this will operate on a completely different scale.

“Right now, kids are playing basketball in the Uphams Corner gym,’’ he said. “It’s an old and rickety building. This will give them new life.’’

While the building won’t be ready for occupants until November, it is easy at this point to visualize the finished product.

On a recent tour, the classrooms were taking shape, as well as the culinary area and the recreational facility. An architect probably told a tour group more than they wanted to know about the decisions that had gone into the planning of every room.

And without disparaging one of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods, Dudley can use some good news. The crime and gang situation is far from calm, and places for neighborhood residents to come together are far too few. Between Uphams Corner and Dudley Square, there really isn’t anything that could be called an anchor. Changing that will make a difference. Sometimes an infusion of cash can be an infusion of hope.

Henriquez, 33, is still deeply involved in Dudley: chairing the board of the Neighborhood Initiative and running for state representative.

“It will have a huge effect on the neighborhood for generations to come,’’ he said. “We could probably use one more.’’

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Former state Rep. Nelson Merced is endorsing Carlos Henriquez in the Fifth Suffolk District race, Henriquez told Lit Drop on Thursday night.

Henriquez is a community activist and former City Hall aide who has run twice against City Councillor Chuck Turner.

Merced was the first Latino elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, serving for two terms. Althea Garrison, a frequent candidate for public office, knocked Merced off the Democratic ballot in 1992 by successfully challenging him on an electoral technicality. She would go on to serve one term in the House.

Henriquez also received the endorsement of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women and Oiste, a top Latino political group.

The other candidates include Garrison, Barry Lawton, an East Boston high school teacher, and perennial candidate Roy Owens.

Copyright 2010, Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.

Fifth Suffolk candidate adds former City Council candidates to campaign Carlos Henriquez, one of the four candidates running to replace former state Rep. Marie St. Fleur, is bringing on a pair of veterans from last year’s City Council At-Large race.

Tomas Gonzalez and Andrew Kenneally, who both unsuccessfully ran for City Council last year, have joined the campaign to handle field operations and messaging, respectively.

All three are former City Hall aides: Kenneally and Henriquez both worked for former City Councillor At-Large Michael Flaherty. Gonzalez is the former chief of staff of the Commission on the Affairs of the Elderly and the former Latino liaison to Mayor Thomas Menino’s Office of Neighborhood Services.

Henriquez has also been receiving help from others who have worked for St. Fleur and former state Rep. Charlotte Golar Richie’s campaigns for the Fifth Suffolk District seat.

The other candidates in the race are high school teacher Barry Lawton, former state Rep. Althea Garrison, and perennial candidate Roy Owens.

Since all of them are running as Democrats, the winner of the Sept. 14 primary will likely cruise past the general election on Nov. 2 and take the seat in January.

St. Fleur announced in February she was not running for re-election after serving over a decade in the House. She took a top job with the Menino administration in June.

Copyright 2010, Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.

The Fifth Suffolk District is set for a race for its first open state House seat in over a decade, with a four-way Democratic primary that will decide who will replace retiring Rep. Marie St. Fleur. The campaign isn’t expected to heat up until this summer but the candidates are already trading barbs over personal finances and charges of opportunism.

The roster includes a Boston schoolteacher who’s campaigned for the seat twice before, a youth worker who has in the past run against City Councillor Chuck Turner and a pair of candidates who frequently run for elected offices within the area.

Political observers say the fight for support in the traditionally low-voting district will likely come down to Barry Lawton, a high school teacher from Meetinghouse Hill who has also worked for a variety of former lawmakers on Beacon Hill, and Carlos Henriquez, a youth worker from Uphams Corner. Roughly 2,500 voters are expected to go to the polls on Sept. 14.

With no Republican challenger – Ward 17 Republican Committee chair Sean Malloy pulled papers but was not able to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot – the winner of the Democratic primary will have a free path to the seat in November’s general election.

Both Lawton and Henriquez will face two perennial candidates: Althea Garrison and Roy Owens, running as Democrats. Garrison came out swinging this week against both and took a shot at Lawton’s finances in particular.

Lawton, who currently teaches at East Boston High and has previously worked at Jeremiah Burke High, and Madison Park High, says he plans to to highlight his experience and attempt to tap “new voters, disinterested voters and unidentified voters,” including in the Vietnamese and Cape Verdean communities.

Lawton’s campaign slogan is “Community First,” he said. He said he’ll have a stronger organization than he had in previous runs, and will tap 23 years worth of students that he has taught to help. He is also being helped by the Victory Group, a Beacon Hill consulting firm.

He also pointed to support from state Sen. Richard Moore, an Uxbridge Democrat who was a state representative when Lawton was an aide in the State House.

Lawton said he has “sufficient” funds for the race, but declined to go into details. According to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, House candidates in 2008 on average spent $32,439.

“I guess I’m supporting Barry,” said longtime Ward 15 activist Judy Meredith. “I know he’s a hard worker and he will do a good job of representing our district.”

Lawton, 53, said he was thwarted several times from winning the seat, including when neighborhood activists backed Charlotte Golar Richie in 1994 and then St. Fleur, who is leaving for a job in City Hall in June, in a special election in 1999.

“It just seems that paradigm might be in play now again,” Lawton said, pointing to a number of people who worked on the campaigns of both Richie and St. Fleur who are backing Henriquez.

While calling Henriquez a “smart young man,” Lawton pointed to Henriquez first speaking with local activists as “opportunism.” “You don’t just do it after strangers convince you that you can win,” Lawton said over a dinner interview at the Blarney Stone in Fields Corner.

“This is the only office I’ve run for,” he added. “This is the only office I’ve trained for.”

Lawton also dismissed Henriquez’s name recognition in the district, garnered through his two runs against Turner. Lawton said Henriquez’s name recognition is highest in the Roxbury and Dudley Street area.

But Henriquez, in a separate sit-down, said there was more overlap between District 7 and the Fifth Suffolk District and noted that his parents had worked on Golar Richie’s campaign.

“It definitely wasn’t a group of strangers,” who spoke to him about running, Henriquez said. Several people he knows from his work with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a community planning and organizing nonprofit that covers the Roxbury and Dorchester area, he said.

“For me it’s about leadership. It’s not about the glitz and glamour of the seat,” he said, adding that he views the run for the seat as a “great opportunity to lead the community.”

The slogan for his campaign that Henriquez, who worked in City Hall for City Councillor At-Large Michael Flaherty, is leaning towards also includes the word “community”: “Committed to Community.”

He said that community members in both District 7 and the Fifth Suffolk District care about the same issues, such as education and crime. “I’ve been in the neighborhood when houses were being burnt to the ground, when the crack epidemic had just hit,” he said. “I didn’t leave the community.”

Henriquez, 33, is also making his third run for elected office. “We’re a lot more strategic,” he said when asked about the difference between his campaign for state representative and his two runs for City Council. “We’ll knock on every door, we’ll call every registered voter.”

Henriquez said he plans to kick off his campaign in mid-June. Lawton formally launched his campaign in March.

Henriquez, whose mother Sandra ran the Boston Housing Authority before joining the Obama administration, said he will be fundraising through the “grassroots,” similar to how President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick raised money for their respective campaigns. “We’re talking about getting a little bit from a lot of people,” he said.

John Barros, a Boston School Committee member who has worked with Henriquez at DSNI, is among those backing his candidacy. Barros was briefly and unsuccessfully courted to run for the seat himself.

For both Henriquez and Lawton, there will also the Garrison factor. “She waits for the top candidates to stumble and she is the one who stands to benefit,” noted one Fifth Suffolk observer.

Garrison held the Fifth Suffolk seat for one term as a Republican, after challenging the nomination signatures of former state Rep. Nelson Merced and pulling him off the Democratic ballot in 1992. (She also unsuccessfully challenged Henriquez’s signatures when both ran against Turner last year.)

Garrison refused to answer questions from the Reporter about her candidacy over the phone, citing a distrust of the media and demanding that questions be faxed to her. She faxed back her responses, riddled with spelling and syntax errors, and questioned whether Lawton still lived in the district, since his Mount Ida Road home had been foreclosed on and auctioned off several weeks ago.

Lawton confirmed that occurred, but said it is part of an ongoing divorce he is going through and he is in negotiations to repurchase the home. “I still live there and will remain there,” he said, adding that Garrison had been in a similar situation.

The district is familiar with candidates who struggle with personal financial issues: When St. Fleur was picked as Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s gubernatorial running mate in 2006, the Globe reported she was behind on taxes and student loans. She immediately dropped out of that race, but went on to handily win re-election later that year and in 2008.

Garrison wrote that Lawton and Henriquez were “ego tripping” in running for the seat. “I am a study-hand (sic) and fights to improve the conditions of the 5th Suffolk, constantly such as improving the frequency of Bus Route 15, 16, 17 which service mainly 5th Suffolk District residents,” she wrote.

She added: “I have earned the voters support and if I get re-elected to the 5th Suffolk seat I pledge to do great things for the 5th Suffolk District.”

“She’s having an identity crisis,” Lawton shot back, pointing to Garrison running in the past campaigns as a Republican, independent and a Democrat.

For his part, Henriquez welcomed Owens and Garrison to the race. “The more challengers you have, the more people are paying attention,” he said.

Then there is the potential impact of former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who is facing federal corruption charges, on the race. She has pleaded not guilty and her trial starts this summer.

Both Lawton and Henriquez also have ties to Wilkerson, whom Republicans have touted as a symbol of Beacon Hill problems.

Lawton worked for her as a press secretary several times, and she made an appearance at Lawton’s kick-off at the Philips Old Colony House. Lawton said he considers her a friend, but added that he has criticized her in the past. “Once you’re my friend, I stick with you,” he said.

He added he wasn’t sure what the outcome of the trial will be. He hopes “she will be able to come back,” he said.

Henriquez said he and Wilkerson attend the same church – Morningstar Baptist Church in Mattapan.

He largely shied away from criticizing Turner last year over similar federal corruption charges. Turner has also pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled to start in October.

“They’re due their day in court,” Henriquez said. “I look at her as a human being first. Everybody has some trials and tribulations.”

Copyright 2010, Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.