Former Lynn Mayor Edward J. “Chipper” Clancy Jr., who held the city’s top office from 2001 to 2009, died Sunday night.
With his clipped manner of speaking and direct approach to solving problems, Clancy personified West Lynn toughness and love for the city’s politics and sports.
The city’s only non-incumbent to run uncontested for mayor, Clancy succeeded former Mayor Patrick J. McManus, who capped off a 10-year tenure as mayor with his decision not to run for reelection in 2001.
For Clancy, the mayorship was the culmination of a political career that saw him run for mayor in 1981 as a two-term councilor. He lost that bid, but told The Item, “A new mayor back then with the economy the way it was would have only had one term.”
Clancy wasted no time as mayor; he quickly took on two of the city’s sacred cows — the Joseph B. Devlin Public Medical Institution and the Lynn Convalescent Home. He understood that these vestiges of 19th century healthcare and municipal services represented a drain on the city budget that Lynn could ill afford.
Closing the Devlin and the Convalescent Home made Clancy enemies, and disagreements with the Lynn Fire Department’s unionized members presented Clancy with a daunting challenge when he sought a third mayoral term in 2009.
McManus was in the midst of mounting a political comeback, which was cut short by his death in July of the same year. In the fall of 2009, Clancy faced a challenge from Councilor Judith Flanagan Kennedy.
Clancy’s narrow November loss — and a subsequent unsuccessful recount — echoed the stinging defeat he delivered in 1990 to another Lynn political legend: the late Thomas W. McGee, former Massachusetts House speaker, who lost his West Lynn/Nahant seat in the House to Clancy.
Clancy’s exit from politics did not lessen his presence in Lynn. Friends could reliably find him at the Little River Inn, and he was easy to spot loping along the Nahant Causeway, demonstrating his iron-willed dedication to running.
Clancy personified a time when politics was personal and tough, with often-heated conversations about municipal decisions typically — but not always — ending with the combatants patching up hard feelings.
Chipper Clancy loved Lynn, and he let you know it.
