Lynn mayors, past and present, discuss city’s highest office

LYN N – Only 56 people have enjoyed the pleasures and endured the pains of serving as the mayor of Lynn, and Thursday night six of them shared some of their experiences during a special round-table discussion at the Lynn Museum and Historical Society.James Carrigan moderated the talk with mayors Tom Costin, Irving Kane, J. Warren Cassidy, Al DiVirgilio, Edward “Chip” Clancy Jr. and current Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, who all described the challenges of leading the city through cycles of dramatic economic and social change over the past 60 years. Former Mayor David Phillips was away on business in Australia, but Edward Calnan stepped in and read a letter Phillips wrote describing his term from 1974-75.Costin kicked off the discussion by going back nearly 100 years before he was elected in 1956, to George Hood, the first mayor of Lynn elected in 1850. Costin said that in the mid-19th century, there was no job description for being the mayor, but Hood managed with common sense, a disciplined approach to the economy and plenty of empathy for working and poor people.Costin said all the mayors at the table had brought the same essential qualities to the office.”Each mayor has left his or her mark for the better,” he said.Kane, who served from 1966 to 1969, said unemployment was rare during his administration, an era when 25,000 people went to work every day at General Electric.Kane said the city took some big hits during the ’60s such as the delay of urban renewal which led to abandonment of the Brickyard Neighborhood and the decision to pull the Eastern Bus line out of Lynn.But the waterfront, the woods and the residents have always been the city’s aces in the hole.”Lynn is a resilient city with resilient people,” he said.Cassidy served from 1970 to 72 and was the first mayor to bring a computer into City Hall where it was used to do the city payroll.He said his term was dominated by collective bargaining and the “orange barrel fiasco,” a redesign of city streets that filled downtown with the bright colored barrels.In his letter, Phillips described how Lynn started losing residents to the suburbs during his term. Rent control also ushered in a wave of arson.When DiVirgilio took office in 1986, the city was, as he said, in “bad shape,” and Prop 21/2 limited property taxes and the local government’s options. But DiVirgilio said teamwork and community involvement set the school system and other city services back on track.Clancy didn’t feel he needed to go through the high and low points of his administration that ran from 2002 to 2010, since it was still pretty fresh in people’s memories. Instead he emphasized that politicians have been criticized unfairly.”Anyone active in the affairs of government is involved in a noble and valuable calling,” he said.Kennedy wrapped it up by saying she was the shortest, and the tallest, the thinest, widest, richest and poorest woman mayor in the history of Lynn. As the first women to hold the office, she is cutting a new path. But she also described what every mayor of Lynn has had to deal with.”There’s no training manual for this,” she said. “We can only do what we think is best.”