There’s nothing like a vacant seat to attract candidates for election.
The only regional campaign that is beginning to heat up is for the state Senate seat being vacated by Benjamin B. Downing of Pittsfield. The 52-community Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden district includes Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg and Worthington.
In addition to a three-way Democratic race for the Berkshire Senate seat, a Republican candidate is circulating nomination papers, pointing to the likelihood of a general election contest in November.
Pittsfield attorney Rinaldo Del Gallo III has joined Shelburne Falls native Adam Hinds of Pittsfield and Richmond attorney Andrea Harrington in gathering signatures for the Democratic nomination.
Christine Canning of Lanesborough, who owns two educational consulting businesses, Boston Manhattan Group Inc. and New England Global Network LLC, is circulating nomination papers as a Republican.
Hinds and Harrington have both announced their candidacies. Hinds heads the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and was founding director of Pittsfield Community Connection, emphasizing youth and gang-violence prevention programs.
Harrington is a board member of BerkShares local business and entrepreneurship programs, and is also a Richmond Affordable Housing Committee member.
Del Gallo has not yet formally announced his candidacy. He has been in the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition as a spokesman for the fathers’ rights group and has worked on animal rights and environmental issues, including successfully getting adopted a plastic foam ban in Berkshire County and a Pittsfield farm-animal rights ordinance.
Canning, who has been an education specialist for the U.S. State Department and has worked for the Springfield, Holyoke and Pittsfield public schools, is a doctoral candidate in educational policy and research at the University of Massachusetts.
The only other legislative district for which there is a contest is for the seat being vacated by Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, with papers being circulated by former Massachusetts Broadband Institute Executive Director Eric T. Nakajima, Viraphanh Douangmany, Solomon Goldstein-Rose, Sarah la Cour, Bonnie MacCracken and Lawrence O’Brien, all of Amherst.