In running for City Council, Christopher Ryan Spicer becomes the second member of Somerville’s Human Rights Commission to declare alongside Ward 5 candidate Jason Mackey.
Spicer has been on the commission, which includes seven members appointed by the city, since 2021.
“I want to continue to bring that perspective of human rights to the City Council and its subcommittee for vulnerable persons,” Spicer told Cambridge Day, naming education and housing as key issues.
A second perspective on policy comes from experience as a stay-at-home dad, Spicer said.
Spicer is the parent of children attending the East Somerville Community School and Edgerly Education Center. The Edgerly Education Center absorbed grades 1-8 of the Winter Hill Community Innovation School in 2023 after the Winter Hill site closed due to disrepair. In 2024, Edgerly absorbed prekindergaten and kindergarten classes as well.
Spicer says he appreciates some of the city’s existing efforts to support education. The Somerville Family Learning Center, for instance, seeks to support families with children in Somerville’s public schools. Spicer also applauds Somerville Public Schools’s use of focus groups to inform policy: 42 focus groups were held last school year, one of which Spicer says he participated in.
Spicer says he wants to advocate for universal childhood education. Somerville offers tuition-free prekindergarten in seven public schools to 4-year-olds and runs a multisensory Early Childhood Intervention Program for children aged 3-5, as well as a program for children on the autism spectrum called “Adapt, Include, Motivate.”
Families can be supported by economic programming, including the universal basic income program being piloted in Somerville. The program, announced by the city last Spring, provided for unrestricted monthly payments of $750 to 200 families from July 2024 to the coming month. Spicer would like the program to be extended past June, he said.
Spicer’s approach to human rights is also informed by faith. Spicer, a Catholic practicing at Boston’s Paulist Center, considers himself a “human rights theologian.”
“As a human rights theologian, thinking about the question of how our faith is informing our work is part of this,” Spicer said. “I ask big questions about the meaning of the church.”
Spicer is one of several newcomers seeking the council’s four councilor at-large seats, alongside Scott Istvan, Jon Link, Jack Perenick, Justin Klekota, Holly Simione, Tuesday N. Thomas and Marianne Walles. Incumbents Will Mbah and Kristen Strezo seek reelection, while Willie Burnley Jr. and Jake Wilson will run for mayor. Spicer aims to launch a dedicated campaign website shortly.
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