Lynn mayoral campaigns, supporters sling mud, sully rivals

LYNN – With Lynn municipal elections 12 days away, mud slinging has begun in earnest by both camps seeking to gain an edge for their mayoral candidate.Most of the accusations, name calling and rum-or mongering come from reader comments on itemlive.com, the Daily Item’s Web site, where the names of mayoral chal-lenger Judith Flanagan Kennedy and incumbent Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. – as well as of their supporters – have been bantered about.Among those feeling the fallout this week is Kennedy’s campaign manager, Dennis Liberge.Itemlive readers have publicly questioned Kennedy’s choice of Liberge as campaign manager because his past allegedly includes a drug conspiracy conviction.Past associations and political black eyes have not been ignored. Those opposed to Clancy have used e-mails and letters to call attention to his involvement with Swampscott chiropractor David J. Kiloy, who in 1998 was under investigation by the state Ethics Commission. The enforcement agency wrote a letter to Clancy, then a state senator, outlining his violation of the conflict-of-interest laws for meeting with two members of the Board of Registration of Chiropractors to discuss a pending board hearing concerning Kilroy.The commission’s letter to Clancy stated, “In a meeting privately with (the two board members) and attempting to influence the outcome of the adjudicatory proceeding, you went beyond assistance that you could properly have provided to your constituents.”Clancy told the Ethics Commission he was simply trying to help “a kid who went to work for a bad guy”, adding, “I guess I was a little too aggressive.”Clancy on Thursday said he stood by that statement.Kennedy on Thursday was campaigning door-to-door in East Lynn when asked about the circumstances relating to Liberge. “The first I heard any of this was (Wednesday) when I read about it on the blog,” she said, noting she also received an anonymous e-mail with an attached link to a federal appeal of a drug case. The defendant’s name was Dennis Liberge, guilty of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute – a verdict later upheld by a court of appeals.”The case attached to the e-mail was from Maine. There was no age listed for the appellant and no facts about where it occurred, so I don’t even know if it’s the same Dennis,” Kennedy said. “I’m going to talk to him about it.”Asked Thursday if she would remove Liberge as campaign manager if the reports of a criminal past prove true, she said, “I can’t make that jump yet. The first thing is to confirm or refute what they are saying on the blogs. I plan to talk to Dennis face-to-face, but I can’t be sure that will happen (Thursday) because right now I’m knocking on doors. Later (Thursday) I’m taking my daughter to a dentist appointment and then a school athletic event, and after that there’s the debate. So there’s a good chance I won’t see him (Thursday).”Reached at campaign headquarters Thursday, Liberge acknowledged the conviction.”We’re talking about something that occurred over 28 years ago,” Liberge said Thursday. “That was my past. But I haven’t discussed it with Judy and I would like to discuss it with her first. Besides, I’m not the one going in office. I personally think Clancy is running scared and going through his usual gutter tactics.”Another shot at Clancy digs up a 2004 matter before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). In that case, an affidavit signed by Lynn firefighter Patrick O’Sullivan, giving testimony before the commission, swears that during a firefighters’ union function at St. Michael’s Hall in “approximately 1998,” he spoke to Clancy who was then a state senator. According to documents of file with MCAD, when O’Sullivan told Clancy he was originally from South Boston, the senator replied that upon retirement he planned to return to Ireland. Clancy then added, “You know what’s (expletive) wrong with this city? (ethnic slurs toward African Americans and Hispanics),” according to the sign