Swampscott board to discuss hiring a lobbyist

SWAMPSCOTT – The Board of Selectmen will discuss hiring a lobbyist for education and transportation projects at their Monday night meeting, a possibility that town and state officials agreed was a unique and perhaps precedent-setting step for a town.”I think this is the way that government works, that’s why every fortune 1000 company has a lobbyist,” said Selectman Barry Greenfield, who suggested the discussion be placed on the meeting agenda.”I feel like, based on research I’ve done, we’re hindering ourselves by not even exploring the opportunity of hiring a lobbyist to get us money for transportation, education and grant money.”Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said Friday that the town’s small size and small population means that it rarely sees direct allocations of state and federal money for local projects.Meanwhile, the town is aggressively pursuing grant opportunities in energy efficiency – a recent success being the town’s designation as a Green Community, which came with a grant award of $143,800 this spring. But few of these grants are specifically for small communities.Furthermore, Selectmen voted unanimously in July to support a lawsuit challenging the fairness and constitutionality of the state’s Chapter 70 education funding legislation that they say shortchanges the town. The state must pay a minimum of 17.5 percent of the school budget according to the Chapter 70 law.But Swampscott and several other communities joining the lawsuit are funded at less than that due to a complicated formula based on property values, residents’ income levels and other data to allocate the state’s contribution to local public schools.But state and federal representatives work on many of these issues. For instance, State Rep. Lori Ehrlich (D-Marblehead) has filed legislation to restore the education funding to 17.5 percent. She is also organizing a group of school and municipal officials including Swampscott School Superintendent Lynne Celli to testify at a hearing of the bill – which she notes has 23 legislators signing on to support – on Oct. 4.Hiring a lobbyist “is a local decision,” she said. “I don’t take it personally, because I know that I’m working hard on (the education and other issues).”Nevertheless, having a lobbyist representing a town would be unique.”I often see town managers and mayors at the State House, but not once have I been lobbied by a hired gun by a community.”Maylor said the intention was not to supercede the representatives’ jobs.”It doesn’t mean they’re not doing their job,” Maylor said, “but they are competing for multiple towns.Greenfield agreed.”In an ideal world, state reps would spend equal amounts of time on all constituents,” he said.” Swampscott has been overlooked in the past for a lot of different things – right now we’re on a list for federal government money to pave Humphrey Street. For $50,000, which is what a lobbyist would cost, our chances go up dramatically at getting that ?Why not at least look at it?”