Peter Grocki may be the only candidate for municipal office this year who won’t accept a salary.
If elected Ward 2 City Councilor, the 50-year-old maintenance worker at the Salem Housing Authority said he will leave his $25,000 annual pay in the city’s coffers.
“The city of Lynn has been good to me and my family so this is my way of giving back,” he said.
Grocki, 50, is one of four candidates seeking to replace Councilor William Trahant, who decided not to seek reelection because of health issues. The others include former School Committeeman Rick Starbard, Gina O’Toole, and Christopher Magrane.
Grocki said his first priority would be constituent service.
“As I knock on doors on the campaign trail, I’m hearing the current councilor won’t even return phone calls,” he said.
Trahant took issue with the charge.
“I’ve been on the council for 18 years and one of the reasons is I answer every call,” he said. “He’s just mad at me because we won’t make his street a one-way.”
Trahant has endorsed Starbard.
The biggest issue in this year’s race is not the need for new schools, the city’s fiscal crisis or expansion of the commercial tax base, he said. Instead, it’s giving taxpayers more for their tax dollar.
“People want a little return on their investment as a taxpayer for 20, 30, and 40 years,” he said. “They want the trees in front of their homes trimmed, sidewalks in the neighborhood fixed, and they want cleaner parks and schools.”
The city won’t be in any position to hire more staff at City Hall or at the Department of Public Works, he said, until they get their house in order.
If elected, Grocki said he would trim the waste from city government.
“One thing I will do is trim the fat,” he said. “When I worked as a custodian at the Lynn Public Schools in the late 1980s there were 181 janitors with one boss. When the custodians were transferred to the Inspectional Services Department, the number of staff dropped to about 55 and they have five bosses, that’s wasteful.”
