2015 vision: Lynn election coming into early focus

LYNN – The state and congressional election season may have ended just last week, but potential candidates in next year?s municipal election are already cranking up campaigns and jockeying for position on the local political landscape.School Committee member Rick Starbard, teachers union organizer Brian LaPierre and City Councilor Rick Ford are running for councilor at-large, triggering a potential election battle next fall for the Ward 7 council seat Ford currently holds.Ford?s cousin, School Committee member John E. Ford Jr., has announced that he is running for the West Lynn council seat, as has Brian Field, a Lois Lane resident who has worked for Solimine Funeral Homes since 1996.Ford?s father, John E. Ford Sr., represented Ward 7 with a political tenure that spanned the 1960s.?For me, running for the ward seat is a chance to come home,” Ford said.Field said his funeral home experience translates into working closely with people to meet their needs.?I?m on call every minute of the year – that?s really what a ward councilor does, too,” he said.John Ford said returning phone calls can make or break a ward councilor. “Trees, stop signs and snow plowing – the biggest thing in any ward is constituent services,” he said.Rick Ford said he ran in 1998 to represent Ward 7 at the urging of customers frequenting the Little River Inn, the Boston Street breakfast spot he runs with his wife Tina. He is seeking an at-large seat for a chance to campaign across the city talking about “bigger issues” including Lynn?s waterfront revival.At-large seats are currently held by Council President Daniel Cahill, Gordon “Buzzy” Barton, Hong Net and state Rep.-elect Brendan Crighton.Starbard is also focused on the Lynnway and the waterfront in his run for an at-large seat. He thinks the former River Works gear plant site near the General Edwards Bridge should be developed, ideally, by a rail-dependent business.?We ought to capitalize on what we have available – water and rail,” he said.Former and current at-large councilors have jumped to the council from the school committee, including Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, former Councilor Timothy Phelan, Cahill and former Councilor Loretta Cuffe O?Donnell.Former Ward 3 Councilor Charles O?Brien ran successfully at-large, but Cuffe O?Donnell and O?Brien said the push to get to know voters across the city in a bid to win one of the four at-large seats is a challenge.?You?ve got to walk around and talk to the people: I walked and walked and walked,” O?Brien said.The city election season doesn?t officially start until June when candidates return nomination papers, and campaigns don?t typically accelerate into high gear until after Labor Day in advance of the September preliminary election preceding the November final election. LaPierre was 21 when he topped the ticket in the 1995 Ward 3 preliminary election, but he lost the final election to O?Brien. The American Federation of Teachers organizer told supporters two weeks ago “education, for me, is the cornerstone issue because it relates to so many other opportunities for people.”Cuffe O?Donnell said it makes sense for Starbard, LaPierre and Rick Ford to announce their candidacies well before the summer to overcome different political disadvantages she said they each face: Starbard is familiar with school issues but not citywide concerns; Ford is not as well known outside West Lynn and LaPierre is not as well-known politically as the other two.?It?s good to get a big push in the beginning – at-large is a very difficult seat to get,” she said.