At 4:00 p.m. on March 28, Thomas Menino, a UMass Boston alumnus and the mayor of Boston for the past 20 years, announced to press gathered in Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall that he would not run for another term.

Menino received a degree in Community Planning from the College of Public and Community Service in 1988, when he was already a Boston City Councilor. He became Boston’s first Italian-American mayor in 1993. 

In the Boston Globe, Chancellor J. Keith Motley of UMass Boston called Menino “a tireless advocate for education in Boston.” Motley also wrote that he is “most proud to claim him as a University of Massachusetts Boston alumnus.”

The mayoral election will be held on Nov. 5, 2013. Candidates include Boston City Council member John R. Connolly, former police officer and radio station founder Charles Clemons, Will Dorcena, who ran for a Boston City Council seat in 2011, Daniel Conley, the Suffolk County District Attorney, Robert Consalvo, who sits on the Boston City Council, and Bill Walczak, the co-founder of the Codman Square Health Center.

Marty Walsh, a state representative who was present at the groundbreaking for UMass Boston’s General Academic Building #1, has told reporters he intends to run, but has not made a formal declaration. Walsh is working with UMass Boston Student Trustee Alexis Marvel to introduce a bill to increase student trustee voting rights at UMass Board of Trustees meetings.

Linda Dorcena Forry, a Massachusetts state representative, and Felix G. Arroyo, a member of the Boston City Council, are both expected to enter the race. Neither has made a formal announcement declaring candidacy.