The race for mayor in Somerville, still many months away, is heating up.
Somerville City Councilor Willie Burnley Jr. on Sunday announced that he will run this year, aiming to unseat the city’s current mayor, Katjana Ballantyne, who is running for reelection.
Burnley’s bid is premised on the idea that “voters are looking for progressive leaders to act with urgency,” Burnley, 31, said in an interview, “rather than pontificate while fascists are at the door.”
If elected, he would be the city’s first Black mayor. He would also be among its youngest.
His decision to run came down to “a mixture of factors,” he said in the interview.
“I’ve frankly grown impatient over the tenure of this current mayor at the speed at which our city is facing our most difficult issues, whether it’s our school buildings, or reimagining public safety, or even something as simple as composting,” he said. “Frustration mixed with the political moment that we’re in where so many people are afraid and are seeing their rights being rolled back, makes me feel as though this is exactly the kind of moment where we need decisive, local leadership to take up the helm of these fights and move us forward.”
Burnley, born in California the son of a Marine and union pipefitter and raised mostly in San Diego, settled in Somerville in 2016 after attending Emerson College in Boston.
A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he was first elected in 2021, and has been a prominent voice in many of the notable debates that have played out in Somerville in recent years, including as a backer of expanding bike lanes, and a campaign to scrutinize the efficacy and impact of gunshot-detecting technology in Somerville and elsewhere.
He identifies as queer and polyamorous — a background he brought to bear in advocating for Somerville’s first-of-their-kind antidiscrimination protections for people with multiple romantic partners.
On LGBT issues, for one, he said he feared too many politicians aren’t responding forcefully enough to the Trump administration’s hostile approach to the transgender community.
“We’re seeing an attempt to separate and fracture the LGBT community,” he said. “I think it’s really important that you have queer leaders who are going to stick together with their community and not sell a part of it down the river just because it becomes politically difficult.”
A renter himself who has spoken publicly about the challenges of the city’s high cost of housing, he has also been a visible advocate for outlawing forced broker fees, the practice that is widespread — and deeply unpopular in renter-heavy Somerville — of landlords passing the cost of real estate brokers on to tenants.
His announcement comes after fellow Councilor Jake Wilson announced in December he would also run for the city’s top job.
The candidates announced their bids following a rocky few months for Ballantyne’s administration, including recent tumult at the Somerville Public Library that saw the resignations of several staff members, and the sudden closure of its central location during afterschool hours last year amid concerns from staff about rowdy teen behavior there. (The library later reopened with normal hours, and private security.)
Still, the ground has shifted in the city. Ballantyne’s administration earlier this month wrapped up the drawn-out negotiation with a key municipal employees union and inked a new contract, resolving a dispute that had been a source of consternation for city staff.
Another high-profile challenge Ballantyne faces, and any other possible successor would inherit, is overseeing the fate of a plot of land at 90 Washington St. in East Somerville, and with the city’s aging public safety buildings. The city seized the land under the leadership of former mayor Joe Curtatone and had hoped to use much of it for a new police headquarters and fire station, but just last month said it would need to scrap those plans and sell the parcel after legal trouble and a nearly $30 million payment owed to its prior owner.
Both Burnley and Wilson have criticized the city’s handling of the situation, and had been critical as well of the plans to set aside highly sought-after land near public transit for the police.
Burnley said Monday he believed public opinion was firmly against that plan from the beginning, money problems or not.
“The vast majority of residents said they did not like the plan, they didn’t want it to move forward as proposed,” he said. " I saw the administration just bulldoze past the concerns of community, time after time again."
Ballantyne has said the city will prioritize new housing and retail there, at a time when the housing crunch has made the debate over how to add new and more affordable places to live a priority for Somervillians.
It could, all in all, be a bruising year for Somerville politics for a number of reasons, not least of them the national spotlight it could attract, at a time when the Republican-controlled Congress and White House has sought to make an example out of politicians in progressive strongholds, and singled out so-called “sanctuary cities” for retribution.
For his part, Burnley can certainly take a punch. Outside politics, Burnley‘s pursuits include teaching self-defense, mostly to young people with learning disabilities, for the nonprofit IMPACT Boston. For this, he gets suited up in “full-on body armor ” and offers lessons on how to fend off an attacker.
“They get to try to eye strike me, knee me in the groin, elbow me to the face,” he said, adding with a laugh, " If you ever meet anybody who wants to punch a politician, you just gotta sign up for a class.”
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.