By Dan Murphy
Kennedy Avery, who will step down from her role as chief of staff for City Councilor Sharon Durkan at the end of the month, first arrived at the District 8 office in January 2021 as a temp, helping out with constituency services issues amid the pandemic. But even then, the native Iowan was no stranger to the Boston area.
Soon after earning her bachelor’s in political science and history from the University of San Diego in May 2018, Avery moved to Medford. She worked in retail before serving as a tour guide for the Freedom Trail Association.
Kennedy Avery, outgoing District 8 chief of staff (second from right), is seen holding her official City of Boston ‘Kennedy Avery Way’ street sign flanked by (left to right) past District 8 City Councilor Kenzie Bok; Rep. Jay Livingstone; and current District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan.
“My time playing Rachel Revere and ushering visitors around historic sites in Boston was short-lived but something I enjoyed,” she recalled of her stint as a tour guide.
Avery returned to Iowa and last worked there as a campaign nanager for Minority Leader Todd Prichard and Steve Hansen for the Iowa House Democrats from July to November 2020.
In December of 2020, she returned to Boston to live with her sister, who was then residing on Beacon Hill. Avery came to City Hall one month later when she come on board as a 24-year-old temp with then-District 8 City Councilor Kenzie Bok’s office.
From the start, Avery committed herself to constituent services, which made her a familiar face around District 8 at community meetings and public events. (On average, she said she handles about 100-plus constituent service each month.)
Patricia Tully, executive director of the Beacon Hill Civic Association, has known Avery since she started working at City Hall and describes her as “always…kind, professional and dependable, and a great resource to us at the Civic Association. “
“[Avery] has been very successful in resolving constituent concerns and…always helped us maintain strong relations with the District 8 Councilor’s Office,” Tully added in an email.
Only a few months after Avery came on board as a temp, Bok hired her on as the full-time director of constituent services for District 8. She was named the office’s chief of staff in January 2023. When Sharon Durkan succeeded Kenzie Bok as District 8 city councilor last summer, Avery stayed on at the office in her current role.
Despite now serving directly under two District 8 city councilors (along with three mayors), Avery said her role within the city has remained “remarkably stable.”
“You might expect one to have experienced a lot of volatility working for the City under three mayors and two Councilors over the period of just a few years, but I found it to be remarkably stable.,” Avery wrote in an email to this reporter. “That may be partly a function of the type of work I was doing for the City. I was dedicated to constituent services, and that work, thanks to the commitment of on-the-ground departmental City employees who pave the roads, repair broken streetlights, carry out health and housing inspections and the like no matter who is in elected office, can be sustained even while political headwinds change.”
In her goodbye email to constituents and friends, Avery lauded the respective leadership styles of former Councilor Bok and Councilor Durkan.
“They’re both intelligent, bold, and compassionate, and yet their application of these qualities yields two entirely different leadership styles — both with success,” Avery wrote. “Witnessing their leadership was so helpful for me to understand that even in Boston City politics, there is not just one way of getting things done.”
At Avery’s going-away party, on Aug. 13 at the City Hall beer garden, Councilor Durkan presented Avery with an official City of Boston street sign emblazoned, ‘Kennedy Avery Way,’ in an honor that Durkan noted is reserved for only a select few.
Councilor Durkan called Avery not only “an incredible member of [her] team” but also an “incredible person” both inside and outside the workplace.
“She worked so hard, she really worked herself to the bone to deliver for [constituents],” Councilor Durkan said in describing her unwavering commitment to her position at City Hall.
Additionally, Councilor Durkan pointed to Avery as “what it’s like to live with grace and class.”
Bok, who now leads the Boston Housing Authority, was also on hand for the going-away party. She commended both Avery’s tenacity and optimism in her role.
“She just believes things can happen if we just get together and figure it out,” Bok said of Avery.
Josh Zakim, who preceded Bok at District 8 city councilor and was also on hand for Avery’s going-away party, told this reporter that the great job she has done for two consecutive councilors is “a testament to both her hard work and her understanding of the district.”
Also at Avery’s going-away party, Suffolk 8th District Rep. Jay Livingstone presented her with a citation from the House of Representatives signed by himself and Speaker Ron Mariano in recognition of Avery’s commitment to constituent services.
“It’s been great to work with Kennedy Avery under Councilor Bok and now under Councilor Durkan,” Rep. Livingstone told this reporter. “She’s one of the people our office has coordinated the most closely with. She has tremendous energy and works to improve the lives of the people she represents. It’s been a pleasure working with her.”
Avery in turn applauded Sen. Will Brownsberger and his team. “They’ve always been such great partners,” she wrote.
Avery said she also found stability at a changing City Hall via the good friendships she forged not only at the District 8 office but also with employees from other council offices and at various city agencies. She also credits District 8 constituents and the community for remaining continually engaged throughout the transitional period.
In addition to serving from September 2022 onwards as a council member on SPARK Boston – a 40-member, volunteer civic-engagement council of 20- to 35-year-olds that advises Mayor Michelle Wu on policies and programs aimed towards young people – Avery’s other community engagement work includes volunteering since March 2021 with Fenway Cares.
An alliance of neighborhood organizations including the Audubon Circle Neighborhood Organization, Fenway Alliance,
Fenway Civic Association, Fenway Community Center, Fenway Community Development Corporation, and Operation P.E.A.C.E./Peterborough Senior Center, Fenway Cares assists with bi-weekly food distributions to Fenway residents in need.
“Fenway Cares was one of many food assistance programs that sprung up at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Avery wrote in an email. “The pandemic exacerbated food insecurity in many areas. In the Fenway, the pandemic uncovered a widespread food insecurity affecting many elderly and immigrant populations in the West and East Fenway neighborhoods. Therefore, the bi-weekly food distributions offered by Fenway Cares were not just a lifeline during the peak days of the pandemic, but have remained a critical resources for close to 1,000 residents on a regular basis over the past four years.”
Added Avery: “I got involved with Fenway Cares because it serves residents of District 8. And the operation has such a loyal and consistent group of volunteers and residents that’s it was kind of impossible to not make friends. And who doesn’t want to hang out with friends, so I just kept coming back every other week for a couple of years.”
And Avery’s work in the Fenway, where she served as the neighborhood liaison for Councilor Durkan’s office, hasn’t gone unnoticed either.
Marie Fukuda, a longtime Fenway resident and member of the Fenway Cares food collaborative, wrote in an email: “Kennedy has been a dedicated supporter of the Fenway and its residents, always ready to dive into a challenge or respond to constituent concerns, from transit concerns with the #55 bus to tracking down the source of and solutions to reported complaints (!). She not only supported community through her words, but in her actions, a prime example being her long-term commitment to helping residents at Fenway Cares, or her work to realize traffic calming requests for the East Fenway.”
As she prepares to leave Boston at the end of the month to return to her family in Iowa, Avery, now 28, looked ahead to what she hopes to see happen in District 8 in the not so distant future.
Avery said she would like to see the district become a more welcoming place, with the barriers broken down between its private and institutional community and its public domain to really open up the area.
“I just think there is a real opportunity for a sharing of resources, empowerment, and connections,” Avery wrote in an email. “In a lot of cases these private and public spheres are even working towards the same goals — expanded tree canopy, sustainable transportation, stronger community connections — working on those things together seems like a no-brainer.”