Clancy, Kennedy spar before zealous Lynn crowd

LYNN – In an evening marked by quick jabs and a few low blows, the city’s two candidates for mayor publicly sparred Wednesday at the Knights of Columbus Hall, giving the packed audience reason to repeatedly break into applause.Mayor Edward “Chip” Clancy Jr. and councilor-at-large Judith Flanagan Kennedy traded sharp retorts during a debate that ran over an hour and 15 minutes. What emerged were fundamental differences in the way City Hall should be run.The candidates were questioned by panelists Sean Leonard, editorial page editor at the Daily Item, and Brian Magrane, a local businessman.According to Kennedy, an attorney in private practice, the Clancy administration is plagued by crony-ism, a place of where political hacks are rewarded with high-paying jobs, no matter whether they are qualified. Kennedy also accused Clancy of ignoring his constituents and instead doing whatever he pleases.”You wouldn’t listen,” she said to Clancy, contending that many residents were opposed to the mayor’s decision to close two city-run nursing homes, roll back bar room hours, insist upon a residency requirement for municipal employees, transfer school custodians to another department, shut down a Fire Department ladder truck, eliminate police bicycle patrols and officers in the schools and demolish rather than restore Manning Bowl. “People have been in lock step for too long.”When Clancy suggested Kennedy’s supporters are mostly bar owners and firefighters, she retorted by recalling her recent victory as a write-in candidate in the preliminary election – insinuating that the 3,200 write-in votes she received far outnumbered the city’s firefighters and bar owners.Clancy defended his decisions, linking the rolled-back bar hours to a crime-fighting strategy, and relating the reduction in fire protection to a squeezed municipal budget. The present financial hardships are caused by the loss of capital gains taxes after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the reduction of state aid to communities like Lynn, escalating health insurance costs, and the property tax cap imposed by Proposition 2-1/2.”We have spent our tax dollars prudently, ” said Clancy, emphasizing there were no police or firefighter layoffs in the current fiscal year.Among the accomplishments of his eight years in office, Clancy listed the opening of Federal Street to vehicular traffic, the reconstruction of Classical High School, the restoration of Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, the building of a new police station, the rebuilding of Manning Field and negotiating the planned relocation of electrical power lines along to Lynnway to make room for waterfront development.Kennedy challenged those assertions, stating that the police station was started under the late Mayor Patrick McManus’ watch and the power lines were already under a federal court order to be torn down. As for the residency requirement, she said nobody should be told where they must live.Clancy repeatedly referred to Kennedy as a registered Republican, suggesting she would not represent the bulk of the city’s residents if given to such partisan views. Kennedy pointed out she has the endorsement of labor unions and the city’s firefighters’ union.Clancy also lambasted Kennedy for not taking action over the past 16 years to change the situations or decisions she did not embrace. On several occasions the mayor ended his rebuttals with, “When was the epiphany?” Besides, Kennedy voted in favor of most of the decisions she has criticized, he said.Kennedy repeatedly returned to the televising of City Council meetings on the local cable station, an initiative she spearheaded despite resistance from some of her council colleagues. The candidate said government should be open, not secretive, unless those in elected office don’t want their constituents to know what is really going on.Clancy bristled at the suggestion of impropriety. And again Kennedy retorted, charging that Clancy did not post plum six-figure jobs nor advertis