Election

Conley ran against incumbent at-large City Councilor Joseph Larisa Jr. whom he had worked with for over a decade when Conley served as City Solicitor. Conley beat incumbent Larisa with 62.7% of the vote.^[8]

Term

Conley's term on the city council was marred by in-fighting within the council and great financial difficulties facing the city in the wake of the great recession.^[7] On the night of his inauguration, Conley heavily objected to the election of Bruce Rogers as mayor and council president due to his past criminal issues and due to open government issues in Rogers previous term of office in the 1980s. Conley and fellow Counselor DiGoia walked out of the meeting after objecting to making appointments not named specifically on the council agenda.^[7] Conley would also call out fellow counselors for focusing too much on time clocks, employee badges and the city tow list which Conley considered relatively trivial given the city's financial condition.^[9]

In 2011, Conley proposed and championed a Deficit Elimination Committee with city and school officials to create a plan to curtail the city's growing deficit, which had started in 2003.^[10] However, after several months of work, the acting city manager at the time, Orlando Andreoni stopped working with the committee and ordered other administration officials not to attend.^[11] Only a few months later, city finances were taken over by a fiscal overseer, followed by a Budget Commission.^[12][13]

Conley also advocated strict enforcement actions against recycler TLA/Pond View which surrounding residents considered a noise, smell, safety and environmental issue.^[14] The recycling facility had a history of alleged violations of its zoning restrictions regarding the time of operation, type of material it recycled and quantity of material.^[15][16] Conley advocated getting the state Department of Environmental Management involved based on recently past state legislation limiting recycling quantities in residential neighborhoods.^[17]

Elections

In 2012 When District 18 Democratic senator Frank Devall left the legislature and left the seat open, Conley was unopposed for both the September 11, 2012 Democratic primary, winning with 2,416 votes,^[18] and the November 6, 2012 General election, winning with 9,147 votes.^[19]