LYNN — On Tuesday, city residents will choose their new mayor and vote for councilors at large, ward councilors and the School Committee members. The Item has compiled a quick reminder of the key elections information.
The two mayoral candidates are Darren Cyr and Jared Nicholson.
Cyr, 62, has been a city councilor for Ward 3 for 16 years and City Council president for the last four years. He is a graduate of the Lynn Vocational Technical Institute. Cyr worked in construction, owned construction businesses with his father — who was also a city councilor in the 1970s — and now works as a manager in the Asset Protection Bureau of the Massachusetts State Lottery.
Nicholson, 35, has served on the School Committee for six years. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, he is a law professor at Northeastern. He has lived in Lynn for seven years, originally coming to the city to work at a legal-aid practice with low-income entrepreneurs and small businesses. Nicholson also previously worked in business consulting in Mexico and on business and financial projects in the Dominican Republic and Peru.
The seven candidates running to fill four councilor-at-large positions are incumbents Gordon “Buzzy” Barton, Brian Field, Brian LaPierre, and Hong Net, and challengers Jose Encarnacion, Marven Hyppolite, and Nicole McClain.
First elected in 2011, Barton is a retired firefighter and a fan of high-school sports in Lynn.
Field, who was elected in 2017, is a funeral director at Solimine Funeral Homes.
LaPierre, elected in 2015, is the director of American Federation of Teachers for Massachusetts.
Net, a Cambodian American elected to the City Council in 2011, has been working for the Department of Revenue as a child-support enforcement specialist for 20 years and co-owns an adult daycare in Lynn.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Encarnacion, a father of six, worked at the consulate general of Dominican Republic for 16 years and currently works as a customer-service agent for JetBlue Airways.
Hyppolite is the youngest candidate at 29 years old; he ran for Ward 5 councilor three times and has been working as a constituent-services liaison for the sixth congressional district with U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) for nearly five years.
McClain served two deployment tours to Iraq as part of the U.S. Army National Guard, ran her own daycare for six years, founded the North Shore Juneteenth Association and now works at Bright Horizons.
Incumbent ward councilors Wayne Lozzi (Ward 1), Dianna Chakoutis (Ward 5), Fred Hogan (Ward 6) and Jay Walsh (Ward 7) have no opponents in these elections.
Elizabeth Figueora is challenging incumbent Rick Starbard in Ward 2. Figueora is an Afro-Latina community member, a mother of two sons who attend Lynn Public Schools, and a social worker who worked in senior care with underserved populations and nonprofit organizations. A lifelong Lynn resident, Starbard has been a city councilor for four years, implementing a monthly newsletter for Ward 2 residents and regular ward community meetings.
Coco Alinsug and George Meimeteas are running in Ward 3 to fill the seat of the current ward councilor, Cyr, who chose to run for mayor. The first Filipino-American and openly-gay candidate for ward councilor in Lynn history, Alinsug, who came to Lynn 19 years ago, was the youngest staff member to the president of the Philippines at 18 and the youngest delegate sent to represent the Philippines at the United Nations at 22. Meimeteas, a self-employed real-estate broker, moved to Lynn from Greece at 6 years old, got his juris doctorate degree from the Massachusetts School of Law in 2020 and is currently finishing his Master of Business Administration from Fitchburg State University.
In Ward 4, incumbent Richard Colucci is challenged by Natasha Megie-Maddrey. Almost a lifelong resident of Ward 4, Colucci, who works in real estate, has been a city councilor for nearly 30 years. Born in Dorchester to Haitian and Dominican immigrants, Megie-Maddrey is a mother of five, an attorney and has lived in Lynn for 23 years.
Nine candidates running for the six seats on the School Committee are incumbents Brian Castellanos, Donna Coppola, and Lorraine Gately, and challengers Eric Dugan, Sandra Lopez, Tiffany Magnolia, Lennin Peña, Daniel Richard, and PoSan Ung.
A first-generation Latino, Castellanos works as a social worker for the Department of Children and Families and advocates for children suffering from child abuse and neglect.
Coppola is a case manager for the teen-parent program at JOI Child Care Center in Lynn.
Gately is a retired secondary-education science, biology and introduction to engineering design teacher with 33 years of experience, mostly in the Lynn Public Schools.
Dugan is a third-grade teacher in the Danvers Public Schools.
Lopez is an assistant nurse, a decorator and a business owner of Slopez Multiservices.
Magnolia is a professor of English and coordinator of honors at North Shore Community College.
Peña is a municipal employee at Lynn Water & Sewer, a volunteer at Lynn YMCA and a director of the Outlaws Football program.
Richard, who works at Primerica Financial Services, is a father of an autistic child and a chairman of the Lynn Community Connections Coalition.
Born in Cambodia, Ung has worked as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital, and served as a pastor and community leader for over 25 years.
The polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. Here is a list of all the polling places by ward:
— Ward 1, Precinct 1 – Shoemaker School at 26 Regina Road
— Ward 1, Precincts 2, 3, 4 – Sisson School at 56 Conomo Ave.
— Ward 2, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – St. Pius Lower Church Hall at 215 Maple St.
— Ward 3, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – Marshall Middle School at 100 Brookline St.
— Ward 4, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – Harrington School at 21 Dexter St.
— Ward 5, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – Lynn Voc. Tech Annex at 90 Commercial St.
— Ward 6, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – Lynn Voc. Tech Fieldhouse at 80 Neptune Blvd.
— Ward 7, Precincts 1, 2, 3, 4 – Breed Junior High School at 90 O’Callaghan Way
A poll worker may ask for your ID (either license, bank statement, utility bill, lease, anything with your name and address on it) to check the spelling of your name or call the election office to verify your active or first-time voter status at that address.
