If you brought a preconception on the kind of person you want to lead the City of Lynn to Wednesday night’s mayoral debate, then your expectations were probably satisfied.
The debate was sponsored by The Daily Item, the Spanish-language newspaper La Voz (both published by Essex Media Group), and the Lynn Business Partnership.
City Council President Darren Cyr pointed to his 16 years on the council to make a strong case for why experience counts in the mayor’s office.
School Committeeman Jared Nicholson sounded like a candidate who can continue Mayor Thomas M. McGee’s tenure as a consensus- and policy-oriented mayor.
School Committeeman Michael Satterwhite showed himself during the nearly-two hour forum to be a passionate politician impatient to bring change to his city.
But take a closer look at the positions staked out by the three and plenty of questions surface about their ability to run this city of more than 100,000.
If you ask me, it’s hard to predict the outcome of Tuesday’s preliminary election.
Cyr, referring at the start of the debate to the financial mess McGee inherited, said, “I’m the only candidate to bring us out of receivership.” When Satterwhite spoke later about “long-term mismanagement we’ve had in our city,” Cyr replied: “We all have to assume responsibility for that.”
His attempt to spread the blame drew a sharp rebuke from Nicholson that won applause: “If you’re going to share blame when things go poorly, you should share credit for when things go well.”
It is Cyr’s rigid stance on municipal issues that defines his candidacy.
He called the Housing Lynn plan, passed 8-2 (Cyr and Ward 2 Councilor Rick Starbard were the ‘no’ votes and Ward 1 Councilor Wayne Lozzi was a no-show) by the council on Tuesday, “smoke and mirrors.” If there was such a thing as the Massachusetts Developers Association, then Cyr sounded like its spokesman when he insisted that the Plan is tantamount to a “do not enter” sign to developers thinking about spending money in Lynn.
Maybe he’s right, maybe not, but Cyr’s cast-in-stone position didn’t make him sound very mayoral. His viewpoint sounded even more entrenched when he said, “I don’t think we should have an unarmed response team” which would respond to mental-health and substance-abuse emergencies.
I share Cyr’s concern about a team member getting hurt, maybe killed, while responding to a rapidly-escalating incident involving a mentally-ill or addicted person. But his closed-minded outlook on unarmed crisis response suggested he will be a my-way-or-the-highway chief executive.
Unalterable positions aside, Cyr is the guy he says he is: He plows out streets during blizzards. He handed out food during the pandemic.
But in 2021, do we need a mayor who rolls up his sleeves? Nicholson on Wednesday said the next mayor “can’t be afraid of new ideas” and Satterwhite caught my attention when he repeatedly said Lynn must move from “short-term crisis” management to “long-term” planning.
Nicholson offered an interesting idea about helping beleaguered restaurants recover from the pandemic by providing a shared commercial kitchen. Satterwhite recycled a suggestion to set aside an office in City Hall where small businesses can get answers to permitting and city regulation questions.
Both men offered great ideas, but are they leaders? Are they capable of saying “no” to people? An answer to that question did not surface Wednesday night. But Darren Cyr — the candidate who touts his ability to talk to anyone and everyone — made it clear he will say “no” to anyone who doesn’t share his case-hardened viewpoint about Lynn’s future.
Don’t forget to vote Tuesday. The preliminary election will narrow the field of mayoral candidates down to two.