By Jim O'Sullivan

On September 23, Boston voters will cast votes, using the city's new optical scanner ballot machines, in the city's preliminary election. In Dorchester, District Three incumbent Maureen Feeney is running unopposed, while District Four is a three-way race between incumbent Charles Yancey, challenger Ego Ezedi, and dark horse Arthur Sutton.

Also at stake are the council's four at-large seats, with Felix Arroyo, Michael Flaherty, Maura Hennigan, and Steve Murphy seeking to stay in office, and a crowd of nine challengers facing them. The Reporter talked recently with Dorchester candidates Althea Garrison and Joseph Ureneck, and with Patricia White and Matt O'Malley, two of the field's front-running hopefuls.

Next week, candidates will attend a forum at the Epiphany School on Tuesday night. The event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., and is hosted by the St. Mark's Area Civic Association.

Joseph Ureneck

Billing himself as a "reformed liberal," Joseph Anthony Ureneck is one of two Dorchester candidates in the 14-person field gunning for the four at-large seats at stake in the Boston City Council election. Like Althea Garrison, the other Dorchester hopeful, Ureneck is positioned to the right of center, and credits his transformation to a decade spent in China.

"I noticed there a strong sense of nationality and patriotism that's missing in the United States," said the 51-year-old professional translator of Mandarin. To illustrate his point, he said the flag arrangement at the Vietnamese-American community center on Charles St. should be scuttled. Ureneck thinks the stars and stripes should be flown above, and not next to, any other flag.

"I think protocol would call for one flag to be higher," Ureneck said Monday during an interview in his Marlowe St. house. "I wouldn't make a civil case out of it, but I think it would be nice for everyone to recognize that we do live in the United States under one flag, and not balkanize the American flag."

Such substantive policy talk is what Ureneck claims is lacking in the City Council race; while he said he admires the present councillors, he called the council "a talk shop," and criticized his competitors for playing up personality, rather than policy.

"The meat of the issues is missing in all the races," he said. "I just think that just the fact that I can talk to people and bring out certain issues is a success in itself."

Ureneck lives with his daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, while their father lives and works in New York. He said his translation business helps native Chinese handle legal and real estate issues printed in English.

In a contest where communication and name recognition are key, Ureneck said he isn't beating the street like some of his competitors, instead taking to the Internet to press his cause.

Corralling enough signatures to get on the ballot was a victory, he said, happily compounded by a lottery that decided his name will top the list.

"All the council races, there's a dearth of talking about specific issues. Even if I don't continue after the preliminary, I hope the candidates for at-large will talk about those issues," Ureneck said, singling out schools and empowering the council with greater budgetary powers as high priorities.

"I think it's important that everyone participate in the process as much as possible," Ureneck said. "Do I have a shot? I don't know."

Althea Garrison

Althea Garrison, the former one-term state representative and perennial candidate for public office, refused to be interviewed over the phone or in person for this article, citing past experiences with reporters who she said have manipulated her words and views.

As an alternative, Garrison agreed to respond to written questions sent to her via fax machine.

Citing extensive experience in public service, Garrison wrote, "…as one can see I was born to serve the public, getting elected as an at-large city councilor [sic] would be complementary to my desire to serve in an elected position."

She called fighting for "better programs and more programs for veterans" a key policy point, and added senior citizens' issues and job creation.

Garrison estimated she has "run for public office around 12 times," including a successful bid for state representative, and failed attempts for at-large and District Seven council seats, for mayor, and for state senator.

Garrison wrote that that a "most compelling reason why someone should vote for me is that I am different and unique from the other candidates, when candidates run and loose elections most of them goes back to their obscurity not me I continue to fight and bring issues to the limelight, for instant when the MBTA eliminated bus route 17 on Sundays to the Fields Corner/Andrew Station I fought relentless to have route 17 on Sundays restored. When Bayside Shopping Mall open there were no Sunday service on route 16 bus that runs through the mall I fought to have bus route 16 from Forest Hill to service Bayside Mall on Sunday these are just two examples where I fought and made a difference [sic]."

Garrison wrote that her "desire to serve in an elected capacity helped" her decide to run for office, "as everyone knows that unless you are an elected official you have to fight twice as hard to get things done because of the bureaucracy," and that being "a free thinker" distinguished her from other candidates.

Asked about her chances in the race, Garrison replied, "I see my chances for winning as excellent because there are 14 candidates running and I believe this enhances my chances in name recognition. Not like one candidate who is running on her father and grand father's accomplishment, which happen decades ago. I am running on my own merits that is to say what are my achievements in which I earned through hard work myself not through my family ties because this is nepotism at its worst [sic]."

Garrison wrote that she has an A.S. degree from Newbury Junior College, a B.S.B.A. degree from Suffolk University, an M.S. degree from Leslie Graduate University, and a C.S.S. degree from Harvard University.

Matt O'Malley

It had proved a disheartening morning, media-wise, for Matt O'Malley, candidate at-large. The Globe had front-paged a photo of his chief rival with her ailing and celebrated father, while the Herald's Howie Carr had lobbed one from the cheap seats at O'Malley's residency: with his parents in Roslindale.

By mid-morning at Greenhills Bakery, the 23-year-old O'Malley was picking through the Dorchester papers, smiling gamely and taking a breather from his campaign schedule: seven days a week, up at 5:30 in the morning, hitting the hay at 11 p.m.

He and White are garnering the most attention and press because they're working the hardest, he said, but added that he thinks he would outshine her in the council, in part because of a reformer's glint.

"At time, it seems that whenever we read about them in the paper, it's a resolution about the Dixie Chicks or about dogs going to the bathroom on Deer Island, and it just leads to this perception that the City Council is a joke," he said.

He's wary of another perception, too: that, if elected, he'd be just another "Young Turk," joining the coalition of young, white men comprising roughly half of the City Council.

"I'm not nearly good-looking enough, and I don't dress well enough to be a Young Turk," he said, adding that he thinks the group has "restored focus to the body."

"I'll be my own caucus: the one-person, red-headed caucus."

He listed his priorities: education (he's for neighborhood schools), affordable housing, and public safety.

"I'm not naïve enough to say that the Boston City Council can solve these problems," he said, proposing a "two-fold" purpose for the council.

"The focus should be both bread-and-butter issues, and finding a way to work with the mayor and the state Legislature to make Boston a little bit better," O'Malley said.

After Greenills, it's off to Frontage Road for a union meeting, just another stop on the trail. The night before, he had stopped by a community meeting in Neponset, and another for the Ashmont-Adams group (his favorite in Boston, he said).

His candidacy is running strong in hometown Roslindale, West Roxbury, Charlestown, South Boston, East Boston, among young professionals, and organized labor, he said. It's a formidable coalition, one he's hoping can earn him a seat.

Or, if nothing else, maybe a few kind words in a newspaper.

Patricia White

Gerard Adomunes hung the picture on the wall, a photo 26 years old this month of a former mayor smiling at a ribbon-cutting, this one the opening of Gerard's restaurant in Adams Village. Across the room, the mayor's daughter smiled.

"I love it, keep it there," Patricia White said.

"One of the great joys about this campaign has been to learn about my family," which includes former mayor Kevin White, a former City Council president, and a political lineage that extends back four generations, according to the 33-year-old former political director of the state Democratic party.

But White is adamant that she is not coasting on name recognition. Calling the council a "much more innovative, productive, and constructive place" than in years past, she said she could bring a political experience that includes advocacy for child care and elder care, as well as for women's issues.

She names the city's high cost of living as a chief motive behind her decision to run. "I think the city is at risk of losing its middle class once again, and I think the income gap is widening," she said. If elected, her biggest immediate impact, she suggested, would be in hacking at the red tape that blocks the production of new housing units, a jab at City Hall bureaucracy.

White emerged as a front-runner largely on the merit of her father's legacy, raising funds at a brisker pace than Arroyo and Hennigan. She acknowledged, though, that voters ultimately will opt for substance over scion. And she said that her stance on development separates her from other candidates, naming Hennigan as one rival less "development-friendly."

"I do have more of a can-do spirit in terms of some of these developments that are in the pipeline," White said.

What else she has is the backing of her father's constituents, many of whom now number in the electorally-fertile ranks of the senior citizens. And she's got assistance from some of her dad's old loyals, including George Regan, head of PR firm Regan Communications. Asked about the decision to use Regan's help, White called it "unusual, but smart," and said the many demands of a campaign make an outsourced press agent an advantage.

Having scrambled from a Ward 19 meeting to a powwow in West Roxbury, White headed for home, but not before she and aide Michael Lake took a look around the restaurant at the pictures on the walls.

"There's a lot of history here," said Lake.

"Yeah," White said, "a lot of history."