Category: Clamsplainer

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Schoolpocalypse Now! Part 1: The Damn Budget

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We’ve had a handful of folks ask for our take on the school strike and asking for us to explain what’s going on, how we got here, and how we can get out of it. And while we’re low on time (because of the kids we gotta watch all day now), we figured everyone has a point. We aren’t getting an easily digestible, truthful breakdown of our current situation. So here we are, in as factual language as possible. First we’ll start with our budget, then how our school committee functions, and finally an analysis on where both sides are. We are definitely having fun and not during this under duress, while screaming into the void. It’s fine, this is fine.  

I have insomnia. Explain how city budgets work so I can get back to sleep.

Like most businesses, the city’s budget runs on an annual basis, from July 1 to June 30. The budget process starts months in advance of that date – taking nearly a year overall from start to finish. The process kicks off with the mayor consulting with department heads on their needs to build the budget. The Mayor then submits this budget to the City Council. There are 9 City Council members, and 3 are on the Budget and Finance Committee. Budget and Finance are tasked with doing the Mayor’s proposed budget review before it is presented to the full Council for a vote, but other councilors should, and do, keep an eye on things at all times. From there, the full city council reviews the proposed budget in a series of public meetings. The city council can only amend the budget by keeping it balanced – they cannot add to a specific department’s budget without taking the same amount of cash from another department. State law requires municipalities run balanced budgets. 

 While the city council can request the mayor take a look at increasing revenue projections to bridge the gap, it’s not often prudent to overestimate as a shortfall can be extremely problematic, and the funds can’t materialize out of thin air.  The final budget is voted on and becomes effective on July 1st.

This year, the difference in what the Superintendent requested from the mayor and what was allocated in the budget was roughly $6M, due to spiraling special education costs (we will get into this later, if we can drink enough to make ourselves). The superintendent’s budget overview is here for reference.  After going back to the drawing board, using non-permanent ARPA funds, and creating a $750k special education stabilization fund, as well as cuts to other parts of the budget to bridge the shortfall, the remaining gap ended up at $2.2M out of the total $165M budget. Despite the efforts of the Budget and Finance committee, there was no way to fund the level services budget that the superintendent had requested.

The UGE is saying we have the free cash available, so why can’t we use it?

 

First off, let’s dig into the concept of “Free Cash.”  Much like a household budget, it’s the bits leftover at the end of the year, after the city has balanced their budget to account for their expected revenue. For example, if a municipality projects $1m in revenue, and has $1m in expenses, the budget is balanced like mentioned above, But, a few months in, Steve at the DPW decides to retire six months earlier than expected, and a few expected capital expenses came in at lower cost than budgeted for. You have an additional $100,000 at the beginning of the next fiscal year. Hooray, free cash! The state says, “Awesome job, you smart, good looking people of Gloucester! You can hang onto it in a special account and choose what to use it for.” A good city budget does not leave too much or too little in the free cash accounts. Some is used for stabilization funds, to cover for future budget instability.

It’s not free real estate.

 

Free cash sounds great, but there are expenses that it’s good for, like one-time purchases that avoid accumulating debt, and expenses that are a very bad idea to use free cash for. Recurring, annual, contracted salary expenses are that bad idea. It’s discretionary and not guaranteed, and each year expenses change. While we have had several years in a row of favorable beach receipts thanks to a post Covid boom and low expenses for winter storm plowing, that is not guaranteed to continue, and those are big variables in our city’s budget. The one exception to the “no deficit” rule we mentioned above is the snow budget. Communities can set a baseline prediction and then if they blow through that they can use free cash to patch it up after the fact. Next year, we could run very short and rely on that money to bridge that gap. In that case if the money’s gone to payroll, more layoffs occur. Relying solely on “free cash” to fund the shortfall as the UGE has called for isn’t sustainable when we’re talking about salaries for the most massive department in the city. However, as we mentioned above, $750k from the free cash was earmarked to stabilize the special education costs, which does alleviate some of the downward pressure on the school budget. 

Why does Free Cash impact anything if it’s leftover money? Doesn’t having extra money mean the mayor can’t budget?

First off, the city’s available free cash has a large impact on bond rating. All cities and towns in MA have interest bond rates. Ours is currently AA. We got there after 13 years of hard work on the part of several city administrations. We could do a whole other article on this topic, but one thing at a time here. 

If we have no free cash, our bond rating will fall. Having no free cash is a signal to those lending us money that we may not be able to make good on our debt obligations. In that event, it becomes more expensive to borrow for capital expenditures. We are fortunate to have a good rating because when the City Council votes to borrow money, we can do so at a lower interest rate. Think of Free Cash and a bond rating like equity and credit. If you don’t have a good credit score or a down payment to buy what you need, you’re going to end up paying much more over the course of a loan. While we’d love to pay everything in cash, it’s not feasible to do so. The city relies on borrowing funds to pay for long-range capital expenses. 

Can’t the city administration just figure out how to get the school budget paid for by finding the money? It’s their job, right?

Let’s talk about how budgets actually get made and how revenues work. The vast majority of the revenue in the city’s budget comes from property taxes, though there’s also state-supplied funding for schools, road repairs, and other areas. There’s services that are paid directly by user fees like water, sewer, and trash called “Enterprise Funds” and are reset each year. Our property taxes are set by a formula established in 1978 with the passing of Proposition 2 ½ – which basically says that the maximum tax revenue is limited to 2.5% of the total taxable property, plus any new growth revenue.

So that new 6-unit condo that went up down the street on an empty lot? That’s new growth, as is the old empty plant that was converted to a restaurant and function hall. 

The total amount of property tax you can assess is called the levy limit. And ideally, you want your community to be well under that limit if possible, in case of unforeseen needs down the road. Like a better teacher’s contract, for instance. Let’s compare to our neighbors up the line. Salem has a total levy capacity of $130,115,164. Beverly has a capacity of $130,560,261 (these are FY2025 numbers from the Mass. DOR). Gloucester’s is $105,847,014.

Now, to look at the actual amount of property tax raised, Salem’s budget projects $122,077,395 raised. Leaving approximately $8 million in excess levy capacity. Without Beverly’s FY2025 numbers, we turn to their 2024 numbers as certified by the state. In FY2024, Beverly had a maximum levy of $125,928,475. They taxed $124,470,712 – so last year they only had $1.45 million in excess capacity. Not nearly as much of a cushion.

Using FY2024 numbers, Gloucester had a total levy capacity $101,671,528. And the taxes that were assessed were $101,622,847.

That leaves us with an excess levy capacity of $48,681. That’s FORTY-EIGHT THOUSAND dollars.  We are a sensible midsized sedan away from disaster. 

When cities bump up against this limit, they have two options. They can either cut line items from department budgets to get down to that limit, or they can ask the voters for permission to raise the tax to a higher level (usually for a time), and that is called a “Prop. 2 ½ Override.” If the city government can persuade the voters that the money ask is for a good reason, a “yes” vote enables that reason to be funded. Usually overrides are asked for things like major capital expenses (new water plant, new high school building, and the like). It all depends on the community and the budget practices. Having excess capacity allows you to raise taxes more to handle these things without having to go to a vote. 

Salem can afford about $8m in increased costs before they’d have to ask for an override. Beverly can afford about $1.5m. Gloucester needs an override to pick up a few scratchies at the corner store.

We have a second, looming problem that is going to cause havoc in our budget: the 3A referendum. Tracy O’Neil garnered enough petition signatures to call the recent 3A MBTA housing initiative to a ballot referendum. Unfortunately, this move means that Gloucester is immediately out of compliance with state law, putting our access to state funds at risk. Right now, the state is not giving anyone a pass on this. Grants we banked on since the city council had approved the 3A zoning district may be pulled out from under us – take the library, for example. The City is on the hook for that project unless the library can raise the funds, which they’ve thankfully been steadily doing. (We can still help with that, and we need a library now more than ever.) 

We’re also on the hook for our secondary wastewater treatment plant. We’ve been kicking this can down the road since the early 80’s. For forty years, we’ve been on a compliance waiver because our sewage plant does not adequately treat outflow to the level requires. It’s important to note that this secondary treatment does not have anything to do with capacity, it’s entirely the type of sanitation our sewage gets. Therefore, adding new housing units is not the cause of this expenditure. 

So we’re in a real pickle on how to pay for the school budget as it is, let alone our educators’ new contract. 

 

We can’t just take funds from other departments, months ago B&F went through the budget to find anything that could be re-allocated. We still need other departments funded adequately as well. Other departments like the police and fire have union contracts too, so we can’t claw back salary we’ve already promised. And salary is the big spend – roughly 85% of the budget. We can’t save enough reams of paper to solve the problem. 

So where are we now?

The most likely outcome is that if we hammer out an agreement near what the teachers want, there will be cuts to staffing to balance the budget, unless we can find more budget.  A Prop 2 ½ override has been our only option and we have failed to do it for so long. In reality, most cities we are looking towards as the beacon of how we want our schools to be funded rely on overrides. Looking locally, Boxford has voted for six overrides in ten years, all to fund schools. Groveland, Ipswich, Manchester, Merrimac, Salisbury, Melrose, Georgetown and Rockport have all voted for one or more overrides to funds schools in the past few years.  

 

Gloucester has not put forth an override question since 1991, to fund firefighter salaries. It did not pass. 

 

 

2024 Election Clamsplainer – Antifa (the side we were on in WW2) Edition

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You know who we are (even though you haven’t seen much of us on this website for quite a while). You know how we vote. And you know how we feel about Cheeto Mussolini. The TL;DR is: vote for Democrats.

You may not believe us, but we are really getting tired of saying that. The editorial staff at the Clam ranges ideologically from “Kim Driscoll’s Get Stuff Done Wing of the Democratic Party” to “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism,” so while none of us are particularly conservative, we do manage to have some healthy debates over how exactly we think society should be run and who is best to do that. But at the end of the day, most of us will go for the option that isn’t frequently in bed with Nazis. So…

Our pick for President: Kamala Harris

Period.

Look, we would have voted for Joe over Donald Trump. We would have voted for a houseplant over Trump, even if it was that one from Little Shop of Horrors. Biden has clearly lost his fastball and the toughest job in the world has taken a lot out of him. Just driving through Tally’s Corner from Angle Street takes a lot out of us, so we get it. A diminished Biden was still a better choice than a shambling mound of fast food, grievance, and rage that already bungled the levers of power once and who wants to literally jail his enemies (of which he has quite a few). Trump has shown us clearly that he’s incapable of leading a one-man parade, let alone the United States. This past weekend’s Trump rally – where the campaign paraded a line of supporters who went on racist tirades against Puerto Rico, Hispanic-Americans, and African-Americans, lobbed anti-Asian and misogynistic insults against Kamala Harris, and culminated with Trump’s usual inflammatory and fascist rhetoric about the “crooked, radical left machine” and “the enemy from within” – is just the latest example. Someday in the future, history will look back at this era, see the people who supported Trump – whether fervently or passively – and judge them harshly. And Hulk Hogan is dead to us now.

We were ok with hoping for another four years under Biden like the last four, ready to vote for Kamala Harris to be the successor. Biden stepping aside just moved it up a bit. Do we like Kamala Harris? Absolutely. Does she have the intellect and temperament to be President? Absolutely. Is she more likely to preserve America’s standing in the world? Absolutely. In a Harris presidency, Ukraine will be supported, NATO will be a powerful tool to neutralize Russian expansion, Taiwan will be protected from an invasion from the mainland, and we’ll continue to be the only major global economy that didn’t have a full-on recession from COVID and the aftermath. And yes – despite what your cousin yelled at you at the Labor Day barbeque – she DOES actually have her own agenda of plans to make life for Americans better. It’s all on her website and social media. Tell your cousin to loosen that MAGA hat, and go read all about it instead of embarrassing himself in front of his kids.

Joe, thanks for the memories. Kamala, let’s make some new ones. Donald, we told you to stop calling us.

We are really going to miss the “Dark Brandon” memes, though.

Our pick for US Senate: Elizabeth Warren

You don’t need us to tell you about Elizabeth Warren. Or maybe you do, if you are one of those types that thinks she is a raging socialist because she has the audacity to say that a society where all the wealth sits with a handful of people (note: this is not you and never will be) isn’t the best way to run things. She may go a bit hard for some people, but honestly, we probably need that. If you are the type who seriously doubts her bona fides, indulge yourself on one of her 13 books (the majority of which were written before she was a senator, so just cool your jets before you go off) or her sizable library of academic publications. In terms of policy, she has been on the right side of almost everything we care about: health care, child care, making sure the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, et cetera et cetera. We would probably pick Warren over a lot of people on those alone.

We’ll admit, John Deaton is doing his damndest to make himself seem electable, if for no other reason than to avoid Warren crushing him more handily than she did Geoff Diehl in 2018. Deaton has said that he’d break with his party and vote to make a woman’s right to choose the law of the land, as well as a couple of other things that are unusual to hear from a Republican who is running at the federal level. This is Massachusetts, after all. But merely not being a crazy person isn’t a particularly compelling reason to elect someone to be a US Senator. In any case, we’ve seen what happens to seemingly reasonable Republicans when they get to Washington and have to get along with the rest of their party, which has vacated any facade of a desire to govern responsibly. We don’t know if you remember Scott Brown, but we do.

How could we forget?

Scotty 2 Hotty won a special election to take Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate in 2010. His appearance on the scene killed any prospect that the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) would be anything more than the landmark-though-slightly-underwhelming legislation that it ended up being. It was also quite a lift to get Brown to listen to his constituents and break ranks to vote for some sensible banking regulations after the worst Wall Street-induced financial crisis since the Great Depression. (Sensible regulations, we will note, which included the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of a pre-Senate Elizabeth Warren.) We aren’t willing to take that gamble now that the Republican Party has flipped from “corporations are people” to “dictator on day one.” It isn’t just about good policy anymore. It isn’t even about passable policy. The woman, trans folks, people of color, and others that regularly come under attack from both elected Republicans and their base can’t take that risk. Fascism is pretty bad for the economy as well. It’s Warren all the way.

Also, a crypto bro with an endorsement from Elon Musk? Really? Nope.

Our pick for State Representative: Ann-Margaret Ferrante

Ferrante has been the state rep for Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex since 2009, with Manchester getting thrown in during redistricting to give her the full Cape Ann set since 2022. As the daughter of a fisherman who has lived in downtown Gloucester her whole life, Ferrante knows the community and the people in it. She’s also got a pretty hefty educational background: a double-major bachelor’s degree including economics, a law degree, and a master’s in public administration. She has proven to be effective and actually pretty visionary, having helped to spearhead the creation of the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute and Gloucester Biotechnology Academy, bringing science to Gloucester’s waterfront and giving students a new path to actual careers in the life sciences without needing a college degree. GMGI even named a fellowship after her in recognition of her pretty relentless support.

More than all that, Ferrante has played the State House game well. Politics is fundamentally about working with people, after all. She worked her way up, serving as chair of a number of committees and a stint in House leadership. Now she’s earned a spot as Vice Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. For those of you who had friends in high school and aren’t government nerds, the Ways and Means Committee is the last stop for every budget and piece of legislation that goes through the Massachusetts House of Representatives before it gets a vote on the floor. That means that every bill, every dollar appropriated, and every amendment filed comes across Ferrante’s desk and gives her the opportunity to press her finger on the scale in favor of her constituents (that’s us). With something like 5000 bills filed every legislative session, that’s a lot of paper.

Ann-Margaret Ferrante’s desk, probably.

It’s also a pretty big deal, if we say so ourselves. Combine that with the fact that Bruce Tarr is the minority leader in the Senate and Cape Ann gets two very big influencers at a scale that rank and file reps and senators can’t match. Year after year, they have worked together to bring the funding to Cape Ann necessary to do things like grow GMGI, vastly expand The Open Door to meet growing food insecurity, support the formalization of the Grace Center to help the unhoused, reopen the UMass Marine Station for fisheries and environmental research, and a lot more. Heck, we are such fans of the tag team that we might even tell you to make sure you vote for Bruce too, even if he is a Republican and doesn’t have an opponent this year. As Jim Dowd told his kids at every election cycle, Bruce Tarr is “The one Republican daddy votes for.” We miss that guy. 

We aren’t going to waste much time talking to you about Ferrante’s opponent, if for no other reason than the fact that he hasn’t given us much to talk about. Former Ward 3 City Councilor and City Council President Steve LeBlanc pulled papers to run as an independent. He has said in the one interview he has done as of this writing that he likes to help people and do things and that the parties don’t do enough bipartisan work. It would be a wonderful message if not for the paragraph immediately previous to this one where we talked about LITERALLY ALL THE BIPARTISANSHIP between Bruce Tarr and Ann-Margaret Ferrante. It also lacks any actual reasoning to throw out Ferrante in favor of him, which would be a pretty uphill argument anyway, given the results she produces and her position in the House. We heard that he wouldn’t even accept an invitation from the local League of Women Voters to have a debate. If you can’t manage to debate one person, how can voters be even remotely confident that you can joust with the 159 other reps who are gunning for the same resources for their districts that you are for yours? We’ve been positive on LeBlanc in the past during his tenure on the City Council, but there isn’t even a case to make here.

Our pick for Register of Deeds: Eileen Duff

Eileen Duff is a North Shore powerhouse who has served on the Governor’s Council for 12 years. Southern Essex County needs a competent leader to fill the shoes of retired Register of Deeds John L. O’Brien, Jr., who occupied that office for an impressive 48 years and worked to make the massive number of historical records in this institution accessible to all. Duff has taken up that call. A lot of people level criticisms at politicians running for offices for which they don’t seem to have any relevant experience, but nothing could be further from the truth in this case. Duff not only brings her experience with the judiciary from her time on the Governor’s Council, but also a ton of real life interactions with the registry from her time as a real estate agent. Especially in forward-facing roles like the registry, having a broad range of experience from the customer’s perspective is extremely valuable. We have no doubt Duff will use this experience to continue serving as O’Brien did while bringing her own fresh ideas and flair to the office. Come on Eileen! (Sorry, kinda.)

Now, we’re not one to get on too much of a high horse when it comes to how one dresses, but we’ve always firmly held to the idea that you should dress for the job you want. That is why half of us here at the Clam dress like elves and the other half dress like space elves. With this in mind, we aren’t quite sure what Duff’s opponent, perennial Republican candidate Jonathan Ring, thinks he is running for.

He seems to take this seriously.

The answer could be, “Basically anything.” By our count, Ring has run for Rockport School Committee, Rockport Town Clerk, Register of Deeds (the current run marks his second), and Rockport Housing Authority, the latter of which being the only office he succeeded in holding. Even that was a bit much for us, with what we know about his views on gay, trans, and women’s reproductive rights, for a start. Given the results of all those other elections, we are willing to bet that a lot of people agree with us on that. Now, what harm could those views bring with Ring in the registrar’s office? Who knows, but we aren’t willing to give him that chance. We would much rather see Duff bring her experience to bear in that office to continue moving it forward.

Our pick for Governor’s Council: Eunice Zeigler

Eileen Duff’s departure from the Governor’s Council leaves a larger-than-Eileen-Duff sized hole in the Council. Duff’s pick to be her successor is Methuen City Councilor Eunice Zeigler. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Governor’s Council, it is the body of eight elected councilors in Massachusetts that confirms judicial appointments and reviews pardons and commutations. We agree with Duff that Zeigler, a first generation Haitian-American with a master’s degree in economic and social development, seems right for the role. Her background and work in the community – giving individuals and families the help they need to be self-sufficient – has put her in contact with exactly the types of people who need the justice system to understand them the most. She has proven herself on the Methuen City Council and she’s ready to dive into this important yet not-well-known position. While we aren’t crazy about losing our friendly neighborhood Governor’s Councilor seat to the opposite end of the district, we will trust that Zeigler is a fan of the beach and that we will be seeing her often.

Zeigler’s Republican opponent, Peabody City Councilor Anne Manning-Martin, describes herself as “a strong independent voice.” Her pretty stock, right-wing opinions on the justice system indicate otherwise. Now, we think there are roles for all sides of the justice system to play in deliberations about how to get the best justice possible. We endorsed former cops Kevin Coppinger and Paul Tucker in their races for Essex County Sheriff and District Attorney, respectively, against opponents that were arguably more liberal, and we did it exactly for their experience in the field. We also sometimes think that one side of things already has pretty good representation in the system. A current corrections official running on her determination to make sure Massachusetts judges collaborate with ICE ain’t it for us. Anyway, given how Republicans at the federal level are handling the courts, we aren’t hot to give the same thing a chance to happen to Massachusetts.

Our pick for Essex County Clerk of Courts: Tom Driscoll

The various clerks and registers around Massachusetts may be the only elected offices that have even lower profiles than the Governor’s Council, other than Electors Under the Will of Oliver Smith (this is a real thing in nine municipalities in western Mass). We’re not even sure that we would remember that Register of Deeds existed if Jon Ring wasn’t running for it all the time. The Clerk of Courts is responsible for keeping the court’s records, running court sessions, and acting as a liaison between judges and lawyers. In Essex Country, our clerk of courts is Tom Driscoll, and we think it should stay that way. He’s been doing this job effectively since 2001. We don’t think a long incumbency should be anything but a benefit in a job that is almost solely administrative. We say Driscoll is a steady hand at the wheel, and we need that more than ever these days. 

Driscoll has two opponents for the first time… ever? They are two unenrolled (AKA “independent”) candidates named Todd Angilly and Doris Rodriguez. The fact that the Republicans don’t even seem to want to contest the seat should say a decent amount on its own. We are sure they are fine people (Angilly’s the guy who replaced Rene Rancourt as the Bruins’ anthem singer), but we just don’t see the logic here.

And: Ballot questions. 

Question 1: The Clam is a bit divided on this issue, though a majority of us will be voting yes. We all agree government transparency is of the utmost importance in order to uphold our democracy. What isn’t clear is if this will be successful in moving that goal forward. Currently, the Legislature is periodically audited by an outside accounting firm. If question 1 passes, the measure states that the Auditor would have the authority to audit the state legislature, something that was a significant campaign issue for current Auditor Diana DiZoglio. However, it isn’t likely to go without some pushback from the House and Senate, who say it would violate the constitutional separation of powers. We are waiting to see how this unfolds either way.

Question 2: MCAS or Nah? 

The Clam is a resounding Yes on this one. 

MCAS = teaching to the test, highlighting economic disparities among students. MA teachers and students are already stressed out enough these days without worrying about this huge test. At the same time, voting Yes doesn’t eliminate the MCAS, and that’s probably good. Standardized testing is a useful way to see where disparities lie between demographic groups and different districts. But tying graduation to a single test (or series of tests, in the case of MCAS) has never been a good idea. Let teachers teach.

Question 3: Yes. Unionize ride-share drivers, like Uber and Lyft drivers, who always seem to get the booty end of the stick thanks to their VC-backed employers. Slam dunk. 

Question 4: Yes. As we learn more about mental health care and how much we all differ as humans, why not regulate the use of psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and other hallucinogens derived from plants as another option for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD? Responsible providers will prescribe it and monitor its effects. A commission would be formed to regulate the sale and services of psychedelics. A tax would be imposed on any psychedelic treatment facilities and sales. It would also allow anyone age 21 or older to grow, possess, and use the substances in Massachusetts. (Sauce: https://www.wcvb.com/article/question-4-legalize-psychedelics-massachusetts/62600006) This seems like the most trivial of causes and, like the recreational cannabis ballot initiative a few years ago, it’s scary to opponents. Fact is, like pot, magic mushrooms are already out there. Until the Feds set up a way to do this nationally, we might as well lead the way on regulating use and distribution. 

Question 5: Your The Clam are about an 80-20 split internally on this question about raising the minimum wage for tipped workers. We know and love so many people in the restaurant industry who are a No on this question, and that is about where we’re at, too. In theory, we’d like to protect those waitstaff who are in vulnerable positions at quieter, less expensive restaurants. The ones who know if they tell their boss to abide by the “minimum wage if tips dont add up” they’ll get taken off the schedule in retribution. However, this bill’s pooling of tips didn’t make sense and implementation was overly onerous. As consumers, we’d like to make sure our waitstaff aren’t hampered financially by people who chew and screw, or just leave no tip and rely on the rest of us to make it up. In reality, a more prevalent autograt on a tab for ALL would help even the playing field if this doesn’t pass. 

Question 6: Yes. 

Question 6 is a non-binding ballot referendum question which is only on ballots in 11 districts around the state. It is asking our opinion on whether we would like single-payer health insurance for everyone in Massachusetts. It will give our lawmakers a good idea of where we stand. More info here: https://masscare.org/ballot-question-2024/ 

 

2023 Gloucester Municipal Election – Clamsplainer

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Hey all – it’s the brief return of Your Clam with our latest effort in groupthink – the biennial Clamdorsements for the Gloucester municipal elections. A couple of years ago we wrote these for Salem and Beverly too, but frankly their elections are a lot more boring right now so they’re not worth the effort. Maybe we’ll do a snarky Facebook post about them the week before. But most of us live in Gloucester, and that’s first in our bivalve hearts. Plus it’s batshit crazy here in town.

MAYOR 

The Clam’s choice for Mayor: Incumbent Greg Verga. 

The Clam has been hard on Verga in past elections, but we give a tip of the hat to him: he’s been a steady hand during this term. He’s tackling the big issues (secondary sewer treatment plant kicked down the road for 40 years; climate changes; long-range planning with community involvement; allocating ARPA funds to improve infrastructure) and the softer, fuzzier ones (participating as much as possible in Gloucester’s 400+ anniversary events).

He hasn’t shied away from difficult issues. He’s managed to increase the City’s road budget by 500%, no mean feat. He helped get us through a severe drought accompanied by days-long wildfires. He has repeatedly said he wants Gloucester to be a place his grandchildren can enjoy well into adulthood. That also means making it as affordable as possible to live here, and he has been a man of his word as far as working toward more diverse housing stock for all including directing $1.5M of ARPA funding to that end.

And to be clear, we were big Sefatia stans during her time in office. She had a good staff, she was entertaining and generally competent, and she was basically the more fun Id of Gloucester. Despite that, we’re enjoying the lack of drama associated with Mayor Verga a lot more than we ever expected to. He doesn’t make a lot of fuss, he just does the job well.

Challenger: Mary Ellen Rose

Where do we even start? This is MER’s second or third time running for office in Gloucester. She ran for Council in 2011 but did not win. She was our Health Department director for…five months and three weeks. Yes, she has a Ph.D., but what good does that education do when she thinks “Sound of Freedom” is legitimate journalism?

Comments during her public, Zoom-recorded job interview included an anecdote about how she told a room full of Black graduate students they had no idea what it was like to be in her position as a white person with no support at home, basically saying she feels she has been overlooked for opportunities because of the color of her skin. She said that! With a straight face! Tell us you don’t understand white privilege without telling us you don’t understand white privilege, Mary Ellen. And, no, it is not our job to explain it to you. 

Perhaps out of sheer desperation, MER was hired for the Health Department director job but stayed only 5 months. She did say during the Lanesville debate she’d be happy to share her personnel file with whoever is interested. We at The Clam are wondering if she would allow the City to release the record. Sure, she says she has her personnel file on hand. If it is also the same as the one in the City of Gloucester Personnel Department, why not just make that one public? As a former City employee, she could do that. 

What we do know is, thanks to a Public Record request for MER’s City-owned cell phone records, it seems her political stance is in line with the far-right. We’ll put the screen shots on our Facebook page because, honestly, this is long enough already and we don’t want you to leave this blog post yet.

Still not sure? Here’s a fun new game we’re calling “Match the quotes below to the candidate for Mayor who said them!”*

*these things could have been said in past bids for office as well. All public statements are fair game. 

  1. “I don’t want this city to become a bedroom community of Boston or a welfare state”
  2. “You have no idea what’s it like to be a white person from an uneducated background”
  3. “Public participation is a crucial piece around the future of the former East Gloucester School site”
  4. “Beware of those who share information who do not have generational roots in Gloucester”
  5. “I believe housing is a basic human right”
  6. “It was a privilege to share a moment with 97 immigrants”

Vote Verga, yo. Bonus: good alliteration. 

(answer key: 1 – MER, 2 – MER, 3 – Verga, 4 – MER, 5 – Verga, 6 – Verga)


CITY COUNCIL

COUNCILOR-AT-LARGE

Incumbents: 

Tony Gross 

Jason Grow 

Jamie OHARA

Jeff Worthley

 

Challengers: 

Val Gilman (Current Ward 4 Councilor and City Council President)

Chris Dimercurio-Sicuranza (but he’s finally going with the shorter name on the ballot)

 

The Clam endorses the following candidates for Councilor-at-Large: 

Val Gilman 

Tony Gross 

Jason Grow

Chris Sicuranza 

First of all, we’re huge fans of both Jason and Chris. Jason Grow is admittedly a good friend to a lot of the Core Clams. We love his practical approach to government. Chris was the person who did a lot to help keep the Sefatia administration on track, and he’s a government pro. Val and Tony are both longtime Gloucester leaders. Val is stepping out of her Ward 4 role and going for At-Large this term, which would be her 4th on City Council. Gloucester City Council has finally been able to resume hybrid meetings as of September. Val has repeatedly expressed her desire to follow Council rules of procedure and Robert’s Rules of Order. We’ve seen what happens when Council meetings go off the rails. As the Council President, Val is charged with reining in her rowdier colleagues and members of the public, many of whom do not care to learn how Open Meeting Law or City Council agendas actually work. We want representation with experience running meetings, please and thank you. This hearkens back to when Jim Destino was the Council President and streamlined the agendas so not every meeting went past 11pm.

Tony also goes by Robert’s Rules and all that other stuff, and he is intimately familiar with the struggles of everyday Gloucester citizens here. He’s an OG, as the youths sometimes say. 

Jamie O’Hara has admitted to spending the majority of his last term in Florida. Or maybe in West Virginia? This he told a CBS Boston reporter, sounding almost bemused. 

What the hell, dude? Is this a joke to you? You are supposed to be representing Gloucester, not Pensacola. We don’t care how many American flags you use for your Zoom background photo. You are out for yourself and you are making a mockery of our government. 

Hybrid meetings do have their flaws.

For real, tho 

 

Jeff Worthley: The Clam is once again not endorsing Jeff Worthley. We are too tired to even bother saying why. Like, if Jeff was our boyfriend, we’d be muting his notifications because gurl, he just does not stop with the DM’s. We already told him we have work tomorrow.

 

Besides that, Jeff is a blatantly opportunistic politician. One of many examples: How much control does he have over Gloucester Public Schools Paraprofessional salaries? None. Zero. That’s up to the School Committee. Yet he has somehow managed to convince swaths of locals that some of his competitors aren’t in favor of a living wage (laughably untrue). What happens if he’s re-elected and the paraprofessionals are still in the midst of mediation with the School Committee? We somehow don’t think they’ll lay the blame at Jeff’s feet despite the ownership he’s taken of the situation. 

Two Alaskan mayors on each end of the standard deviation? Yep. We couldn’t believe it, either.

On a scale of political opportunism from Stubbs, 20-year Mayor of Talkeetna, AK (least) to Sarah Palin, Tina Fey impersonator (most), the Clam finds Councilor Worthley somewhere between Springfield Mayor Joe Quimby and Schitt’s Creek Mayor Roland Schitt.

 

WARD 1 

Incumbent: Scott Memhard. Scott has been a steadfast and calm listener during his time as the Ward 1 Councilor, even as he was undergoing major heart surgery during the COVID pandemic. We haven’t always agreed with his votes, but it is obvious his colleagues respect him, and that instills confidence in us. Scott picks up the Clamdorsement for Ward 1. 

 

Challenger: Mary-Ann Albert Boucher, known in some circles as Queen MAAB. Vocal NIMBY. Says she educates herself by listening and participating in meetings, yet somehow still believes she understands traffic studies better than people who do them for a living. 

 

WARD 2 (open seat):

Dylan Benson

Dan Epstein

 

Both of these men are professional, well-educated, and invested in their neighborhoods. Dylan and Dan have both earned the Clamdorsement, we believe either would serve the Ward well. Lucky you, Ward 2!

 

Just before publication, we received word that NEITHER of the Ward 2 candidates received an official invitation to participate in the 10/25 Chamber of Commerce debate. They both heard about it that morning, and apparently not through official channels. Rather than scramble to get ready for it at the last minute, both teams talked to each other and issued a joint statement. Good for them. We are even more impressed. 

We wish more campaigns operated this way. Really.

WARD 3

 

Marjorie Grace: Liberal and can’t stand Trump, which we Clammunists appreciate, but another vocal NIMBY. Also hates tourists, yet relishes being a tourist elsewhere. Yr The Clam is, itself, not too fond of tourism. It’s a reality of our economy, though, and we want our many friends who rely on tourism for income to be able to stay put. 

Joe Orlando (no, not that one, and not that one, either.) This Joe Orlando was on the Council in the ‘80’s. Unlike Marjorie, Joe answered the recent Housing4All municipal candidate survey and seems to have a good grasp of the housing crisis here. That’s good enough for us. Joe gets the Clamdorsement for Ward 3. 

 

WARD 4

 

Frank Margiotta (current Ward 3 Councilor): even-handed and well-thought-out responses during meetings. Responsive to constituents. Does his research. Does not play favorites. Frank handily picks up the Clamdorsement.

 

Mary-Pat Da Rosa: Cape Ann GOP favorite. Don’t do it, Ward 4. 

 

WARD 5

Unopposed Incumbent: Sean Nolan. Yr The Clam is a big Sean Nolan stan. We’re thrilled he is willing to put up with all this nonsense for another term.

We’ll cover the School Committee race in a couple of days – but that’ll just be a Facebook post.

AOK – Champion of Human Rights?

  By , ,

We’ve been presented with a Clamsplaining conundrum today. And we had to have a full group discussion in order to fully wrap our heads around it. We’re still a bit puzzled, so we’re going to open up the conversation and the problem to you all in Clam Nation.

Do we take the time to explain to the good people of Gloucester, that if you are a fan of Human Rights, you need to send a message today to the City Council, to prevent the appointment of Amanda Orlando Kesterson to the Human Rights Commission? Or, do we explain to that same woman, that this city commission she has applied to join, is in fact, responsible for ensuring the rights of ALL people (gay, straight, trans, cis, undocumented, women and their reproductive rights) are protected, and advanced?

We assume that the good people of Gloucester may need a heads up that the vote is this week, and that we are certain the city can find a person better suited to serving on this commission (or perhaps, couldn’t find a WORSE person). Please, send an email. Make a call.

Upon reflection, we actually don’t think it is possible that AOK understands the function of the Human Rights Commission, nor the responsibility that she would be tasked with. This is not a chance to debate the importance of “men’s rights”, or to affirm the notion of “reverse racism”.

BASICALLY THIS

Briefly, the Commission is tasked with ensuring that:

No person in our city shall be unlawfully discriminated against in matters of housing, employment, education, contracts, purchasing or public accommodations, on the basis of: age, ancestry, citizenship, color, disability, economic status, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender, military status, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation or source of income.

We feel it might be helpful to help Amanda understand that, by being appointed to this commission, she would be expected to be a loud voice in our community advocating for the right, and ABILITY of all people in Gloucester to live a life of freedom and liberty. The Commission does not debate IF people are worthy of basic rights, but rather, to provide support, insight, and advocacy for people when their rights are at risk.

Her letter asking for consideration to the city council suggests that she is unclear on this aspect of the position. She offers that she can’t know in advance what her positions will be on issues coming before the commission… there will not be debates about who deserves to be treated with equity, it should be pretty easy to say “if appointed, I commit wholeheartedly to offering the full spectrum of my gifts to ensure that human rights are protected, full stop”.

 Seeking political support from people who have fought hard AGAINST the ACTUAL RIGHTS OF OTHERS, IS, IN FACT demonstration of an inability to treat “ALL people with respect, kindness and understanding”.

 In nearby communities, Human Rights Commissions have led forums on Immigrant rights, and Sanctuary. Educational opportunities to enter into challenging dialogues around race, and support for those in our state recently targeted with the efforts to roll back civil rights protections for trans people. We hope and expect the same here in Gloucester.

IS A FRIEND OF JIM LYONS A FRIEND OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

 

It is fascinating to us, that in the same week that her appointment is to be reviewed, she held a fundraiser with Jim Lyons, arguably the most prominent ANTI-LGBTQ politician in the state, before he lost his seat in that liberal hotbed of Andover, he was particularly known for his championing of GAY CONVERSION THERAPY, and his efforts to prevent the state from providing civil rights protections for trans people in MA.

A Human Rights Commission is a sign of a community that cares about those on the margins, and specifically, members of a Human Rights Commission need to be capable of handling difficult and sometimes sensitive information. Members of a Human Rights Commission need to be people KNOWN for compassion, for commitment to those who don’t share the same privileges, and for being willing to step up and step forward for those whose rights are most at risk.

We have seen time and again, how Amanda has leveraged local politics to gain a voice at the state level, and even nationally. Little about her past performance suggests that she has the ability to

“increase mutual self-respect, harmonious intergroup relations and the peaceful enjoyment of life in our diverse community;”

We applaud her desire to stretch and grow in this new and unforeseen way, but until she has had a chance to demonstrate the ability to offer voice and advocacy for those already oppressed, we think her past actions, statements, and fundraisers (as long ago as 1/09/2020) suggest she is not an appropriate fit for this role in our community. And we’d urge Gloucester’s City Council to reject her appointment.

Your The Clam Voting Guide – 2019 Salem City Elections

  By , ,

Good morning, Clam Nation! As you know, we’ve got connections here in our Top Secret Gloucester Clam Underground Lair to people all over Essex County, including Salem and Beverly! Our reach is just, wow. Since we know a lot of our readers live down the line and the Clam is all about togetherness, we decided to lock our Gloucester Clam Actual Politician™ into the basement (even more underground, we’re not sure he’s getting enough air but we’ll check later), and we want to prove to you that we’ve been paying attention. We let Josh give us some info on people but we then proceeded to at least partly ignore him. So wrapping up the grand Clamback, below are our Clamdorsements in the Salem City Council and School Committee elections, because you guys are no fun and only make your mayor run every four years instead of two.

In the City Council race, they’re super polarized right now. A bunch of the Councilors have gotten the reputation of being total mayor suckups. A bunch more have gotten the reputation of being totally against her. We like Driscoll up here in Gloucester – if Salem gets tired of her feel free to send her our way. We like Sefatia too (hell, we love her), but competition would be nice. Anyhow, in Salem they’ve been fighting over zoning and all kinds of crap all year, and the Councilors from Wards 4 and 6 give each other death stares every meeting. We’ve seen video. It’s bad. And this writer deals with toddlers all day, that’s nothing compared to this crew. We’d like to fix it, so here’s our picks (Clam choices in Bold).

City Council At-Large:

Vote them out. All of them. At least, all three incumbents that are on the ballot (Sargent, Milo, and Dominguez – Tom Furey is stepping down after a long career as an elected official without having used email once). That leaves us five non-incumbents to pick from, and they’re a good lot pretty much. Here’s our four top ones.

Conrad Prosniewski (that’s a frigging mouthful) is a recently retired police captain. Everyone in Salem loves him, he’s gonna win. Vote for him anyway, he’s a good guy. Conrad isn’t on any particular side and that’s healthy, we think. Progressives love him, conservatives love him.

Shark costume

SHARKS FOR PROSNIEWSKI IS SUCH A SALEM KIND OF THING

Alice Merkl ran for office a year ago, losing closely a race for Southern Essex Register of Deeds, a job you’ve never heard of. She’s slumming with this race, but we like her a lot. Super progressive, empathic, and for years has been an active volunteer all over the community on top of her work teaching music. It’s also a lot of fun in Salem when we have majorly progressive people on the City Council because it makes Facebook explode with annoyed conservatives.

In that same vein, we like Jeff Cohen. He ran for City Council two years ago, and came in last. This time maybe he’ll do better. He is the kind of progressive who needs you to know how progressive he is, and how the rest of us aren’t doing it right. Jeff, we’ll have you know that we’ve got people here in the Lair who were out manning the barricades when you were in diapers, and make you look like a right-winger. We give Josh shit all the time for not being progressive enough for us. But he’s fun, plus he’ll also make conservative heads explode. They think Jeff’s a left-wing terrorist. We also like his environmental focus. So we like him, despite crapping all over him here.

And our last pick, but nowhere near our fourth one (more like 1A with Conrad) is Ty Hapworth. Ty checks all the freaking boxes there are. He’s a Army vet living in a beautiful downtown home and married to his high school sweetheart, with a fancy executive job at Microsoft doing something Josh tried to explain to us but it made our heads hurt. And the Housewives of Salem thirst for him. Dude probably ought to run for Governor instead but we think he can’t handle the pay cut.

Ty Hapworth

THE DUDE IS MEME WORTHY

The Clam choices: Hapworth, Prosniewski, Merkl, and Cohen. Some of Team Clam likes George McCabe, too – and if you switched one of your votes to him we won’t hunt you down.

Then there’s the Ward races in Salem. Always interesting, always weird.

Ward 1 features a contest between 6-term Councillor Bob McCarthy and long-time activist James Willis. The Clam endorses McCarthy, though Willis is perfectly fine. The two are almost identical on every issue, our pick is mainly because of experience and entertainment value, Bob turns so red when he’s talking to fools that we worry a bit. You can even see it on the 480p cable access. Even though Willis has been generally a supporter of Mayor Kim, a lot of the people that hate Driscoll are backing Willis because Bob has a long track record of supporting her, too. And with us throwing so many of them out, we need to keep a couple of the better ones around.

Ward 2 has a theoretically unopposed candidate in Christine Madore, who is smart, technocratic, a little too process-driven, and does a good job overall. At the beginning of October the Federal Street crew who religiously oppose Mayor Kim at every turn put forward Federal Street housewife, anti-Driscoll activist, frequently ousted volunteer, and occasional jazz singer Stacia Kraft as a write-in candidate with a massive coordinated effort and a float in the Halloween Parade. It’s ridiculous, but in Salem shit like that happens. Be jealous, North Shore, be jealous. Madore hasn’t given us any particular reason to get rid of her but when the local John Birchers and angry neighborhood activists line up behind Kraft and don tinfoil, that’s a reason to keep Madore as well.

Ward 3

WARD 3, BASICALLY

In Ward 3, there’s an open seat. Incumbent Lisa Peterson won her seat in 2017, decided the City Council was a hot mess (she’s not wrong), and quit to run for Congress instead. You’ll see her next year. Meanwhile, her hand-chosen successor Patti Morsillo is running against local Steak & Eggs guy Bob Camire. Bob doesn’t believe in email (they were almost done with candidates like that when Furey retired) and thinks liberals are ruining Salem. Vote Morsillo.

WE LOVE THIS PICTURE OF CAMIRE THOUGH

Ward 4 has more weirdness. Firefighter Tim Flynn won an open seat in 2017 and since then has been the guy to throw red meat to Salem’s MAGA crowd (yes, even Salem has them). The dude is a walking Blue Lives Matter meme. We’d link you his hot mess of a Facebook page but you’ll tear your hair out. While he continues his war on liberalism, development, taxes, and the No Place for Hate Committee in Salem he’s also dealing with his challenger Michael Cusick. Michael is a really smart retiree who’s pitch seems to be “if you’re going to put a generic white guy in office, it should be a smart one”. We agree. Vote for Cusick. Even if Flynn loses, you’ll see more of him – the last conservative white guy with a buzzcut and a government day job to lose an election came back to run for mayor next time out. Of course, he lost, it was in 2017.

Hannibal Meme

BASICALLY TIM FLYNN ONLINE MINUS THE PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE

Ward 5, Oh well. You’re stuck with Josh Turiel again because he’s unopposed for real (in contrast to the fake unopposed in Ward 2). He told us he’s quitting after this term, so at least you’ve got that to look forward to. We’re stuck with him and at some point have to let him start posting here again. We’ll text you your new password the day after this posts, ok Josh?

Josh

HE DOESNT REALLY NEED A PHOTO BUT THIS ONE IS SO DORKY WE HAD TO

Ward 6 is another open seat. Three-term Councillor Beth Gerard is quitting to spend more time with her cats and less time looking across the aisle at her mortal enemy Flynn. We don’t blame her, and we’re not sure which is the mongoose and which is the snake. The Mack Park Neighborhood Association has united to put forward two-time retread candidate Jerry Ryan as their choice. Jerry was Ward 4 Councilor for a while at the beginning of the decade before running at-large in 2013 and losing. After a term off, he ran again in 2015 and won a at-large seat, only to lose it again in 2017. Having changed addresses in the meantime, now he just can’t stay away and is running for the open Ward 6 seat. We’ve heard about the Mack Park crew, and their endorsement means a big NOPE for us. Fortunately, his opponent that the Clam endorses is Megan Riccardi, who is a political rookie, tech industry pro, and super smart. A bunch of us Clams have met her and you want her elected. Truth.

Ward 7 is Salem’s buffer with Swampscott. And it’s represented by Steve Dibble, who is (in his telling) the most important man in the universe and planted every tree in Salem. He also (if you ask him) wrote the zoning code, teaches chess, and is a blowhard to end all blowhards. Four years of him has been Dunning-Krueger come to life. Andy Varela is his opponent, the owner of Maitland Mountain Farm (pickle experts, not everything experts) – and Andy is everything that Steve thinks he, himself is. Varela is young, dynamic, runs a growing business, and has a perspective shaped by not being a Salem lifer. We like what he brings to the table, plus he has the advantage of not being Steve Dibble. When we have Clam board meetings and Dibble’s name comes up, our Salem members’ eyes twitch.

Pickles

THESE PICKLES WILL CHANGE YOUR DAMN LIFE

Salem School Committee has three seats up for election this year. One of them is open as incumbent Kristine Wilson didn’t run for a second term. Incumbents Jim Fleming and Mary Manning are running for reelection, and Manning is OK, we guess. Fleming, just nope. He’s tied way too much into the whole “neighborhood groups that exist to fight anything Kimmy does” crowd and we’re tired of that crap.

The two we do endorse fully are Beth Anne Cornell and Kristin Pangallo. They’re both college professors (Cornell at Wentworth and Pangallo at Salem State) who have kids in the Salem Schools – and right now there are ZERO parents on the School Committee. Fixing that with college professors WHO ARE ALSO PARENTS seems like a good idea to us.

Also running are Donna Fritz, who is also a Salem parent and a member of the PTO at Witchcraft Heights Elementary, and Jennifer Brown, who attended one debate, confused a rubric with a Rubik’s Cube, and hasn’t appeared at an event, debate, or responded to any media since. So nope. But vote for up to three candidates, and so long as none of them are Fleming or Brown you’re OK with Manning or Fritz. Just pick one of those two.