LYNN — In the final 24-hour frenzy before Election Day, the candidates for mayor spent the day campaigning.
Supporters of Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy held signs while the mayor waved at motorists early Monday at Boston and Chestnut streets and later at Boston and Myrtle streets.
Challenger state Sen. Thomas M. McGee (D-Lynn) greeted commuters at the MBTA’s Central Square Station and visited coffee shops, according to Michael Cole, his campaign manager.
Kennedy said there’s not much more left to do.
“We’ve done the door knocking, the flyer, and standouts,” she said. “It’s all over but the voting. I’m ready for any outcome, nothing will surprise me.”
McGee, through his campaign manager, declined to be interviewed.
Tuesday’s election caps a campaign that started eight months ago. But rumors of a McGee run had been in the works since last year. At the time, McGee conducted a mayoral poll, but declined to release the results.
Before his election to the Senate in 2002, McGee served four terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he represented West Lynn and Nahant.
During the campaign, McGee said Lynn is doing well, but should be doing better. But given the city’s financial shape with a deficit pegged at anywhere between $4 million and $8 million, the senator has been reluctant to propose new initiatives.
He has said the city would benefit from a full time Chief Financial Officer and a Planning Department to augment the work of the Economic Development & Industrial Corp., the city’s non-profit development bank.
But he has not made any promises until a full audit can be done to see where the city is at financially, he said.
Kennedy used a series of debates to stake her claim for a third term telling voters what she has done. She typically ran out of time in the two-minute debate segments to list her accomplishments.
She served on the Lynn School Committee, was a City Councilor-at-Large and launched a write-in campaign for mayor in 2009 after the death of then candidate Patrick J. McManus and went on to defeat Mayor Edward “Chip” Clancy Jr. She was re-elected four years later.
The polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
