By Brian Denitzio
Reporter Staff

Above City Hall Plaza the Puerto Rican flag flaps in a warm breeze that just about makes the mid-afternoon heat bearable. It's nearing 12:30 when Felix Arroyo takes to the podium and addresses the crowd assembled for the flag raising, the kickoff for a series of events celebrating Puerto Rican heritage in the city. The city council's first Latino member, Puerto Rican-born Arroyo addresses the crowd in his native tongue to uproarious applause. Since ascending to a seat on the council in 2002, Arroyo has become a shining star to the city's burgeoning minority and progressive population &endash; a constituency that vaulted him to second place in the 2003 at-large race.

Despite examples of that base's growing clout in the two years since, Arroyo still believes that the wrong confluence of events could place him out of the money this time around. Is that kind of thinking the shrewd strategizing of a pol seeking to motivate his base? Or is it the kind of honesty that Arroyo prides himself on?

Arroyo is right to be wary of complacency among his base, says longtime political consultant Joyce Ferriabough.

"He knows what he's got to do and he's got to make sure he connects with all the folks and energizes his base so that he continues to occupy a seat," says Ferriabough. But she adds, "there's no doubt in my mind that he will get a citywide seat."

Four years ago, Arroyo says that he was a novelty.

"People thought here's a Latino running for office, but he has paid his dues," says Arroyo. That kind of thinking, he says, netted him enough votes for a fifth-place finish. After Mickey Roache vacated his council seat, Arroyo was next in line for a seat and served out the final year of the term.

A year later came "the reaffirmation," &endash; "a reaffirmation that what we are doing, while maybe controversial, is honest," says Arroyo.

That reaffirmation though, is what Arroyo says makes him vulnerable this year. Two years ago he argues, that after a fifth place finish in the primary, his base thought he was vulnerable and went the extra mile. He says those who did not want to see him in office wrote him off.

"People who didn't want me in office thought I was a meteor instead of a regular star," says Arroyo.

In 2005, his place in the galaxy affirmed, Arroyo admits that the forces that propelled him to a strong finish in '03 could prove fatal this year.

"This time, the people who didn't want me in office know I'm in office so there is the potential for them to do something," says Arroyo. "The people who want me in office might think I'm safe."

As the 2005 race, which Arroyo calls "the continuation" enters the dog days of summer, Arroyo believes he could place as high as second and as low as fifth come November. All he can do, he says is ask voters to consider his record.

Opposite his desk in his City Hall office, Arroyo has taped up a number of quotes, credited to a range of figures from Churchill to Gandhi. He says he looks to the quotes often to see that ideas can transcend labels. A quote from President Eisenhower, hardly a lefty, cautions against tinkering with the country's social programs, and a quote from Pope John Paul II expresses opposition to the war in Iraq. Both are examples of following values and not ideology, Arroyo says.

He legislates based on values, "universal values" he calls them, "that each one of us holds inside," that are rooted in fairness and equity. While some of those values have earned him the label of a progressive, he says he arrives at decisions not through adherence to a party line, but by following those values.

"Where do you put your emphasis," Arroyo asks rhetorically. "Not on the ones who already have, but on the ones who don't."

His hope is that voters will look at his record and measure him against those values.

"Apply those principles and tell me whether I have been true to them or not," says Arroyo.

The principles of fairness and equity, Arroyo says, motivate him to call for a new tack in how the city handles planning and development. In the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Arroyo sees a conflict of interest.

"We cannot leave the city planning process to the people who profit from it," says Arroyo.

A key part of his platform this year is advocating for the creation of the Boston Planning Department. The group would operate independent of developers with the interest of the city, not developers, as its top priority.

Another issue important to Arroyo is education. He is a former member of the Boston School Committee, and a teacher in Puerto Rico before coming to America nearly thirty years ago to study education at Harvard, and Arroyo believes that the city's children are owed the finest education in the world.

"That we still haven't found the formula to make the best schools should be our shame," says Arroyo.

More specifically, he believes that more planning is necessary before the city jumps into the implementation of neighborhood schools, and furthermore wishes to see an end to the utilization of MCAS as a graduation requirement.

Each month Arroyo publishes a newsletter outlining his stance and accomplishments on these and other issues important to his campaign. He says he and his staff strive to keep it short and understandable, so constituents can take an easy look at his record on the issues. He hopes that they give him the same consideration come Election Day.

"If people feel that I have done enough for them, they will bring me back to the council," says Arroyo.