Race for City Council

The 15 hopefuls bring resumes bearing more than a century of combined service in government, politics, education, and community organizing and leadership positions with a host of nonprofit agencies. The Sept. 22 preliminary election will narrow the field to eight finalists, who will compete on the Nov. 3 general-election ballot to win the four at-large seats that represent all of Boston.

Compare that to 2007, when just nine candidates ran, prompting the city to cancel the preliminary election.

The promise of two open seats - two councilors at large, Michael F. Flaherty and Sam Yoon, are running for mayor - contributed to the flood of newcomers joining the two incumbents in the race, Stephen J. Murphy and John R. Connolly.

Among their 13 challengers, six are black, two are Latino, and one is Vietnamese-American. They are vying to join a council that has had two black, one Latino, and one Asian-American councilor at large in its history.

“I am energized and happy that Boston has this many quality candidates,’’ Connolly said. “It makes my job harder for reelection, but it’s a great thing.’’

Neighborhood: West Roxbury

Occupation: City councilor

Coming off of his first term, the former teacher and lawyer says he will work to make Boston a “more livable city, and that means safe streets, great schools, and sustainable neighborhoods.’’

As chairman of the council’s committees on education and on the environment, Connolly wants to create an environmental-sciences academy, a high school that would train students for “green-collar jobs’’ and prepare them to study environmental science and engineering in college.

The Harvard-educated Connolly has been in “full-blown campaign mode’’ on the trail, but he may not be standing out at the polls on Sept. 22: His wife is due to deliver their second child that day. “Win or lose, knock on wood, it will be a great night for me because I’ll have a healthy, happy Number 2, hopefully,’’ said Connolly, whose father, Michael J. Connolly, was secretary of state for 16 years.

Neighborhood: North End/Waterfront

Occupation: Bail administrator and case specialist, Suffolk Superior Court

A former carpenter, Army reservist, and Nantucket selectman who has lived in Boston since 2007, Bennett is trying to introduce himself by knocking on 100,000 doors. He says he has already reached 68,000. “People are in pain,’’ said Bennett, referring to foreclosures and layoffs. He vows to bring “fresh, bold leadership to Boston.’’

On Nantucket, Bennett said, he learned to balance a municipal budget and gained experience in town government, experience he says translates to a community of any size.

Bennett also ran for state Senate from Cape Cod in 2006. A self-described former “hellion’’ who became an honor student at Valley Forge Military College and Penn State, Bennett said he wants to “shake up City Hall.’’

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: Assistant general manager for strategic planning and performance, MBTA

Before joining the T, Fortes was executive director of the state Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance, which helps gives such businesses an edge in winning government contracts. When he took over in 2004, he said, new business owners had to wait months to be processed. When he left in 2007, he said, that backlog had been eliminated.

“I’m a firm believer in metrics; what gets measured gets done,’’ said Fortes, who runs the office that crunches performance data for the T. “I am the candidate in this field who has senior government management experience, and I have proven that I can get results for people.’’

A product of Boston schools who earned a master’s in public administration, Fortes was raised in Mattapan and the South End. He learned community service from his mother, a social worker, and his father, who was a community organizer and state representative. This is Fortes’s second campaign for public office; a decade ago, he ran for state representative as a Republican.

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: On leave as executive director of the Roxbury YMCA

After running the Boston office for US Representative Michael E. Capuano, where he specialized in housing and economic development, Ezedi returned to the Roxbury Y, where he had been a peer leader as a teenager and worked as a youth director and community organizer out of college.

As executive director the past three years, Ezedi led the agency from red to black financially while developing new programs and increasing membership, focusing on teenagers. He wants to bring his community organizer’s approach to City Council, with plans to expand youth programs, support neighborhood businesses, and build a new generation of civic leaders. “I want to work myself out of a job,’’ Ezedi said.

He lives in a house that his father purchased from Lawrence S. DiCara, former City Council president, in the 1980s. “There’s a spirit of politics in the house,’’ said Ezedi, who ran for district councilor against incumbent Charles C. Yancey in 2003.

Neighborhood: Hyde Park

Occupation: Former community outreach director for Boston University medical campus

Laid off from a food-service job at 21, Gonzalez enrolled at Roxbury Community College; he quickly excelled, becoming the first Latino to serve as student-body president and earning a scholarship to Boston College.

After working as a community organizer, Gonzalez was recruited by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to be his Latino liaison, a role that made him the eyes, ears, and voice of City Hall for the Latino community. In that role, Gonzalez fielded questions and concerns from scores of constituents and even responded to fires at Spanish-speaking homes.

“It was the best training ground I could have ever found,’’ said Gonzalez, who was promoted in 2004 to be chief of staff for Boston’s Elderly Commission, a position he held nearly three years.

Gonzalez said he wants to bring “new energy and new ideas’’ to the City Council for improving education, addressing youth violence, and helping Boston go green.

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: Information technology industry director, Massachusetts Office of Business Development

In his state role, Jackson says, he has attracted communications and information technology firms to Massachusetts that have brought 2,000 new jobs to the state. “I’m the only candidate in the race who actually has experience in job creation,’’ Jackson said. “I know how to make it easier for employers to locate in Boston.’’

A lifelong Grove Hall resident, Jackson went on to the University of New Hampshire, where he was elected president of a student body that, at the time, counted 73 African-American students on a campus of 10,000 undergraduates.

“I’m a bridge-builder; I believe in tearing down walls,’’ he said. In a nod to his name, Jackson has drafted what he calls “Jackson’s 5 Point Plan for the City of Boston,’’ to create jobs, make housing affordable, improve education, secure neighborhoods, and build civic partnerships.

And, yes, as he says daily, “My real name is Tito Jackson. . . . You can ask my mom.’’

Neighborhood: Jamaica Plain

Occupation: Classically trained conductor

Ryan considers federal, state, and local government to be bereft of ideas and negligent in its management of matters ranging from education to the economy. He favors limited government and new approaches to city operations, such as dismantling the Boston Redevelopment Authority, easing zoning restrictions to allow the market to develop more and cheaper housing, and encouraging more charter schools.

“I’m not one of those hardcore people who thinks we should abolish government,’’ Ryan said. “But when you can see that government is doing a poor job,’’ a new approach is needed.

Educated in the Boston Public Schools, Ryan graduated from Harvard and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He was active in the presidential campaign of US Representative Ron Paul. He ran for Congress in Ohio last year and conducted a solo motorcycle protest ride to each of the nation’s 12 Federal Reserve banks.

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: Political director for US Senator John F. Kerry

Pressley is the link between Kerry and city, state, and federal officeholders, leaders, and activists across Massachusetts and in Washington, a position in which she has “cultivated a unique set of resources’’ that she can draw on to serve Boston, she says.

Pressley grew up in Chicago, raised by a single mother while her father struggled with addiction and frequent incarceration. “I know what it is to live on the margins . . . and feel that your government does not mirror you or represent you,’’ said Pressley, who has been engaged in politics and the local community since moving here to attend Boston University, where she was president of her undergraduate college.

Pressley left school early to support her family after her mother lost her job, working first in constituent services for Joseph P. Kennedy II, then a US representative, and later joining Kerry’s staff. She has pledged to bring “three A’s’’ to office: accountability, accessibility, and advocacy.

Neighborhood: East Boston

Occupation: Research consultant for Sheet Metal Workers Local 17

Kenneally had worked in government for 10 years when he had life-shaking scare last year: a tumor at the base of his brain. It turned out to be benign, and after surgery last October, doctors pronounced him cancer-free. That “new lease on life,’’ coupled with the time reflecting in the hospital, made Kenneally decide to run for office himself, after years as an aide and adviser in Congress and at City Hall.

“I love public service; I love helping people. That’s what drives me,’’ said Kenneally, who has worked in public relations and as a consultant since leaving City Hall in early 2008, where he was policy and communications director for Councilor at Large Michael F. Flaherty.

The youngest of five raised in West Roxbury, Kenneally has earned two master’s degrees, one in ethnic conflict from Queen’s University Belfast and one in urban affairs from BU. He cofounded and directed the West Roxbury Public Safety Coalition, to counter substance abuse and improve neighborhood safety. He said he has the “knowledge, experience, and vision [needed] to get Boston moving again.’’

Neighborhood: Mattapan

Occupation: Radio host and Haitian-American community organizer, educator, and legal assistant

Sanon, who came to Boston from Haiti at 16, has worked for three decades in professional and volunteer roles to help the region’s estimated 50,000-plus Haitians and Haitian-Americans navigate and acclimate to life in and around Boston. He helped found the local Haitian community’s public-access television station, Tele Kreyol, in 1985, the same year he began hosting a radio program called “Eye Opener.’’

After years of discussing politics and bringing candidates on the show, Sanon was prompted by listeners to run himself, he said. “I want to prove that I can make a difference,’’ said Sanon, adding that Boston candidates have a history of courting Haitian voters but forgetting them after Election Day.

Sanon is particularly interested in public safety, job creation, and education, such as reducing the dropout rate for minority and low-income students. Sanon said his greatest joy is helping older immigrants who have lived lives of hardship and despair to learn to read and write and speak English and become citizens. “It’s something that money can’t pay for,’’ he said.

Neighborhood: Roxbury

Occupation: Consultant on corporate sustainability and green practices

After years of working to help businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies learn what they can do to “go green,’’ Willis has become even greener as a candidate. He shed his car and motorcycle and now gets around the city strictly by bike, foot, public transit, and carpool.

A youthful 42 - “most people don’t believe me,’’ he said - Willis emphasizes the benefits of exercise and environmentally friendly practices, but he also talks about education and commerce. He wants to make permitting processes easier for businesses trying to expand and mandate financial literacy training for Boston students.

“We live in a capitalist society, yet students have no foundation for . . . what it means to be a consumer, the impacts, the consequences, the opportunities,’’ said Willis, a product of Boston public schools whose three sons attended school in the city. Willis tried living in the Southwest, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic before returning home to Roxbury.

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: EMT

“Simply put, I don’t suffer fools, and I don’t suffer the childish nonsense that sometimes permeates politics,’’ said Trabucco, pledging efficient delivery of services, constituent attention, and a crackdown on crime.

His platform includes implementing annual parking-ticket forgiveness (with the exception of those who blocked hydrants and handicapped ramps or parked in snow emergencies), adding police kiosks across the city, expanding youth programs, and starting a four-year college for all city students.

The youngest of four, he is the son of a homemaker and a truck driver. At mostly black Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury, Trabucco won the “humanitarian award,’’ though neither he nor the student next to him (New Edition singer Ralph Tresvant) knew the definition of the word at the time.

Neighborhood: Dorchester

Occupation: certified public accountant

Born in Vietnam, Nguyen was 8 when he immigrated with his parents and nine siblings to Atlanta as refugees, through a program to resettle the families of Vietnamese veterans who had fought alongside the United States in the South Vietnamese military. Soon afterward, they relocated to join cousins in Boston, living in Old Colony public housing in South Boston before moving to Dorchester. Nguyen’s parents emphasized education and hard work. He attended parochial school at St. William’s in Savin Hill and Latin Academy before going to Bentley College, where he studied accounting and earned a master’s in taxation. His desire to serve Dorchester’s large Vietnamese immigrant community prompted him to leave a downtown job with PricewaterhouseCoopers and open his own neighborhood practice. Last year he became president of the Vietnamese American Civic Association, after being brought in to aid the financially struggling community agency. “A lot was given to me and my family when we came into the United States,’’ Nguyen said. “I just feel like it is an obligation for me to do something, to step up and do as much as I can to help the city and its residents.’’

Neighborhood: Hyde Park

Occupation: city councilor

Murphy, first appointed in early 1997, is the elder statesman in the race. The vice president of the City Council, he is chairman of its public safety and federal stimulus oversight committees and has a particular interest in municipal finance and budgets. In an uncertain economy, and with two of the four at-large seats being vacated, Murphy casts himself as “a steady hand, a mentoring presence, [and] someone who can provide insight and financial leadership on day one.’’

Among other measures, Murphy has authored a financial-accountability ordinance that requires members of the City Council to report income and assets; an ordinance aimed at ending a loophole that enabled injury-leave abuse of the pension system; and an ordinance to require regular cleaning of restaurant grease ducts, after a 2007 West Roxbury fire that killed two firefighters. “It is nice to have young blood, but there is no substitute for experience,’’ Murphy said.

Neighborhood: Jamaica Plain

Occupation: community organizer

As political director of SEIU Local 615 for four years, Arroyo helped thousands of janitors organize to win health insurance and boost their pay. That is one of several occasions on which he says he has seen the real, transformational change’’ brought by organizing.

“Quite frankly, almost all change in this country’s history . . . has happened because of organizing, whether it’s women receiving the right to vote or the Civil Rights acts of the ’60s,’’ he said.

Arroyo is the son, brother, and husband of Boston public school teachers, giving him a close-up view of education in the city.

He has lobbied to prevent rent-paying tenants from being evicted when banks foreclose on their landlords, and he coaches a baseball team for 13-to-18-year-old boys, serving as a mentor to teens.

He also carries a well-known name: His father, former councilor at large Felix D. Arroyo, is the first and only Latino to serve on the City Council.