Six race to the front four

LYNN — Five of the six councilor-at-large candidates in November’s election sounded off in a debate at LynnArts Wednesday night. The big topics of discussion were the public education system and the fight to keep Union Hospital open.Current at-large councilors Gordon “Buzzy” Barton (absent due to a conflict), Daniel Cahill, and Hong Net are running for re-election. A fourth seat, vacated by State Rep. Brendan Crighton, is up for grabs.Also running are teacher and union organizer Brian LaPierre, former City Council president Timothy Phelan, and School Committee member Richard Starbard.All candidates agreed that there is a need for Union Hospital in the city and that the fight to keep it there is not over.”We, City Council, just voted two weeks ago to send to the Attorney General’s office to investigate the foreclosure on Partners Health,” said Net. “We will not give up, we will do all we can to fight it because we need it. It’s a big city. We cannot afford to fight the traffic to go to Salem.””I ask every one of you to not lose hope,” Net said.”We already lost our first centrally located hopsital years and years ago,” said LaPierre. “Now we have the threat of losing another with a 90,000-plus population of lynn and a greater Lynn population of 120,000.”I think we need to hit partners in the pocket book,” he said. “We’ve got to fight back as a community. I want to do that through a petition process through our state. If we gather enough signatures we can really hit Partners where it counts this fall and start breaking them down systematically.””This is a financial issue,” said Phelan. “Partners Healthcare said they were losing money and that’s why they had to close Union Hospital.”With a little research we found out that they had systematically eliminated services over a period of time,” he said. “Things like cardiac care units, outpatients rehab, a wide range of different things. They eliminated all these services so there was no way to generate any money.””If I was a city councilor I would implore my colleagues to vote and have the council mandate that our law department file its own suit representing the 90,000 taxpayers in the city of Lynn to create another impediment to try to keep this from happening,” Phelan said.”This is a life and death situation,” said Starbard. “If the attorney general can’t do anything to stop this then maybe it’s time we start legally looking into our options potentially for a land taking, or if we could get another provider to go in there such as Lahey Clinic, who has expressed some interest, I’ll be the first to drop my Partners’ doctors and I think anybody else in this city would too.”As Brian said, that’s a way to hit them in the pocket book,” he said.”Everyone needs to get involved. Everyone needs to fight it,” Cahill said.The candidates commented on an issue with the public education system being underfunded by $15 million in the last fiscal year and discussed different payback options, agreeing that it was looming to have the debt hanging over its head. The education system itself, however, they all agreed was doing a fantastic job.”Lynn Public Schools systems have given me a lot of opportunity,” said Cahill. “I was able to parlay that into some great things. Not only professionally but personally.”There are mentors in your life that shape your values and your views and I got a lot of that from Lynn Public Schools,” he said. “Lynn teaches you to be tough, smart, and aggressive to what you want. I’m looking forward to having my kids have that experience as well.””I happen to work both locally with the Lynn Teachers Union and at the state federation level for the American Federation Teachers,” said LaPierre. “I go across the state each and every day and I see quality instruction in our schools. Lynn is second to none across the state.”Starbard, who worked as a teacher in Lynn for more than 13 years, said the diversity in the school system provides students with more than just a traditional edu