With less than a month to go before he takes the oath to join the Boston City Council, newly elected John FitzGerald is busy interviewing potential staff members who will help him in the work of representing District 3 while he continues to work in his role at Boston Planning and Development Agency until the end of the year.

“There has been one official hire so far, and that has been my field coordinator, Liam Rimas,” said FitzGerald. “He’s a kid who knocked on almost 5,000 doors for me. Hard work should be rewarded.”

While he is getting plenty of transition help from outgoing Councillor Frank Baker and his team, FitzGerald is also spending time getting acquainted with other members of the 13-seat body, which will include three other newly elected councillors.

“I think that was the problem with the previous iteration of this council, that it was pretty divided amongst the sides,” FitzGerald said. “I don’t think, at least with the five new people coming in, that we want to necessarily continue that culture.”

He is already closely aligned with at-Large Councillor Erin Murphy of Dorchester, who was one of FitzGerald’s biggest boosters during the recent campaign.

When he chatted with the Reporter on Nov. 16, FitzGerald specifically mentioned his rapport with councillors-elect Enrique Pepén and Ben Weber, who will represent districts 5 and 6, respectively. Sharon Durkan, who was re-elected in November after winning a special election to fill Kenzie Bok’s seat last spring, is another newer face to the council that FitzGerald is getting to know better, along with second term incumbent Liz Breadon.

“We might not be a voting bloc, but we’re a culture bloc,” said FitzGerald of the future colleagues he has met with so far. “Even with the way we get along, we’re going to set a good example amongst the others and for our districts and our communities.”

The council will have a new president next month. Ruthzee Louijeune, who won more votes citywide than any other candidate in the Nov. 7 election, announced days later that she had the seven committed votes it will take to put her in the president’s chair. FitzGerald has not yet revealed whom he’ll support for the presidency, but said he intends to follow through on priorities that he laid out while campaigning throughout the last year.

“What I was out there touting is the real deal. I still think the structuring around keeping families in the city is the best infrastructure that we can build because everybody benefits from that,” he said. “We’ve got to work on the price of housing, the school system, public safety, those are the things that are going to make families stay.”

He has not yet been assigned to a committee but he has an interest in city services, planning and development, and public health, with a focus on Mass. and Cass.

“You try to think of the committees that either you can bring a lot of experience and knowledge to or that can have a direct correlation to the things going on in your district,” said FitzGerald.

Reflecting back on the winning campaign, he said, “It felt like the Boston Marathon, where early on you’ve got all the energy and you’re running and you don’t know what town you are in, you just know you’re going. And then at a certain point, you realize where you are.

“When I ran the marathon [in 2016], I hit Cleveland Circle and I’m like, okay, I know where I am, I know how far I have to go. Those last miles felt like they were never going to end. But I knew that Election Day would be here before I knew it.” 

After a ticket-topping performance in the September preliminary, FitzGerald was the clear favorite in the November run-off against Joel Richards. “Given the prelims, we felt good, but you can never rest on your laurels,” he said. “We knew we had to continue to work twice as hard from primary to Election Day and I believe we did that, so it was nice to see it reflected in the numbers when they came out.”

FitzGerald celebrated the victory that night with family, friends, and supporters at the Landmark Public House Restaurant and Bar in Adams Village. “Just to have my hand on my oldest boy’s head and my wife just holding my other boy, I took a moment to really just kind of look around the room and all the people that supported me and soak it all in,” he said. This father of three says his children and wife have kept him grounded throughout this process and he admires their constant humility. 

By this time next year, FitzGerald hopes that he will have helped restore faith in the City Council. “I think the only way to do that is to lead by example and deliver for your constituents,” he said. “It’s about getting to work right away. We’ve already hit the ground running listening to folk’s concerns, getting caught up on what issues are important, and knowing what homework I have to do.”