Surprisingly, he didn't show the most passion about his legislative successes but about the simple accomplishment of securing funds and support to renovate the decrepit Magazine Beach park.

Barrios cites this challenge as one in which he had to get people to think in different ways, which he says is one of his most important goals of his term.

"It's a place for low-income folks who can't afford to go to Martha's Vineyard to go," he said. "It meant a lot for me to see if we could make a difference in the environment [where they live]."

Thus Barrios began an eight-month long talk to get the Metropolitain District Commission (MDC), which owns and operates the park, to allow the City of Cambridge to help physically and fiscally improve the park.

His persistency paid off in November when the city council voted on the agreement between the city and the MDC.

Now the two bodies will jointly run the park, with Cambridge using its resources to help improve the riverfront space.

New approaches to problems, he says, have been a key to his political ideology.