Inaugural addresses are opportunities for mayors to shine. Basking in the popular mandates that got them elected, and with a new year stretching before them, Lynn Mayor Jared C. Nicholson, Peabody Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. and Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll mapped out grand visions in speeches they delivered on Monday night.
Nicholson talked about Lynn living up to its history as a pathway to opportunity, Bettencourt wants to get a children’s museum built in Peabody, and Driscoll sees Salem taking a leading role in combating climate change through flood prevention and creating “hundreds of green jobs.”
But the speeches and the pomp and circumstances are over and done with, and now is the time for mayors to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
Battling COVID-19 and helping to pull their cities out of the pandemic is at the top of the mayors’ to-do lists. To help them accomplish that task, the federal government has poured a torrent of tax dollars into states, counties, cities and towns, with Massachusetts, according to information posted on the state website, receiving or set to receive $113 billion in federal assistance.
That staggering sum includes money already allocated since 2020, money sent directly to individuals and businesses, and more recently allocated Coronavirus Relief and American Rescue Plan money.
More money is on the way if the foundering Build Back Better spending plan can find traction in Congress.
Obviously, all of this money won’t be spent at once. But Nicholson, Bettencourt, and Driscoll have a big job ahead of them in mapping out spending priorities this year for their respective city’s share of pandemic-relief money.
Even as they prioritize pandemic-relief spending, the mayors and elected officials in neighboring communities must establish local spending-oversight procedures and a process for providing public input on spending.
The procedures and process will be heavily dictated by federal regulations. But Nicholson and his counterparts will be tasked with the job of ensuring the right people in city government are assigned the responsibility of overseeing pandemic-relief spending.
COVID-19 is, hopefully, a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. New mayors like Nicholson, and experienced ones like Bettencourt and Driscoll, have a responsibility and an opportunity to ensure federal money allocated for pandemic recovery helps their cities recover, and sets the stage for them to prosper throughout 2022.
