PHOTO BY PAULA MILLER
Rick Ford packs up his desk in the Chamber as he is retiring his position as the Ward 7 City Councilor.
BY THOR JOURGENSEN
LYNN — Rick Ford does not have a speech prepared for Tuesday night, but the Ward 7 City Councilor will bring a “cheat sheet” with him when he addresses his colleagues formally for the final time in the Council Chamber.
An 18-year council veteran, Ford, 59, decided not to run for re-election this year after considering, then rejecting, a campaign for councilor at-large. Tuesday’s council meeting might be his last, but his sense of civic pride will outlast his public service.
“I love Lynn,” he said last Friday while sorting through items accumulated in his City Hall desk drawer. “I’m proud of the city. I don’t even eat out of Lynn.”
Ford is not the only councilor saying his farewells Tuesday. However, Councilor at-Large Brendan Crighton will remain in the public eye as a state representative for West Lynn and Nahant.
Ford was well-known to West Lynn residents in 1998 for his participation with West Lynn Pop Warner and Little League when he found himself in a conversation with David Solimine Sr., the late John Nerich, and Ford’s uncle, former Councilor John Ford.
“They instigated me,” he said. “They said, ‘You would be a great councilor.’”
Ford credited his strong local sports associations and door-knocking with helping him to win the West Lynn seat. He promptly carved out a reputation as a hands-on, constituent-focused councilor who literally picked up trash off streets to keep the neighborhoods he represented looking neater.
“I stop if I see a barrel blowing around the street. I pick up tree branches after windstorms,” he said.
Ford stocked his car trunk with spray cans for quick use in painting over graffiti he spotted around Ward 7 and he distributed a quarterly Ward 7 newsletter updating constituents.
His proudest accomplishments as councilor include helping to get homes built on the former Lynn Convalescent Home site on Boston Street, supporting construction of a new Washington Street police station, keeping the ward’s fire stations open and ensuring environmental cleanups took place at the former Empire Laundry and Carr Leather sites.
Ford, son of Dorothy and Thomas Ford Sr., grew up in the Florence Street home in which he currently lives, with his wife, Tina, who runs West Lynn gathering spot and eatery, the Little River Inn.
The Fords have two sons, Joseph, a Marshall Middle School teacher, and Richard “Buddy” Ford, currently serving in the Navy. Ford’s daughter, Erin, made Rick and Tina Ford grandparents with the birth of her daughter, Madison.
A one-time left-handed pitcher, Ford graduated Lynn Vocational Technical Institute and worked for 10 years as a General Electric machinist before taking a job in 1990 with the state Racing Commission.
“Jim Nagle (Ford’s father’s first cousin) called Mr. Boverini (late state Senate Majority Leader Walter J. Boverini), and I got on part-time and then full-time,” Ford recalled. He currently works for the state Gaming Commission, although Ford said he is currently out of work on disability with an injury to his right foot.
He refrained from endorsing Councilor-elect Jay Walsh or candidate Brian Field during this year’s election and praised both men as worthy successors.
“They’re both good kids,” he said before sounding a cautionary note about possible future political ambitions.
“I’m not sure it’s out of my system,” Ford said.
