SWAMPSCOTT — Former Selectman Robert E. “Bob” Perry was a townie if there ever was one.
Normally, says Thomas H. Driscoll, Essex County Clerk of Courts, the term “townie” has a negative connotation — meaning a person whose entire life is focused on the square mileage that makes up a town like Swampscott.
Not so, though; Driscoll says Perry, who died Friday, Jan. 7 at age 74, was passionate about local politics and a throwback to an era that defined the late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s remark that “all politics is local.”
“He was a staunch Republican, and my whole family was Democrat,” said Driscoll. “We didn’t agree about much of anything on the national scale, but when it came to Swampscott, that was different. We were able to work together to get things done when we were on the Board of Selectmen.”
There were many examples of Perry’s devotion to the town, Driscoll said. One of them involved the Swampscott Pop Warner football program.
“He (Perry) did a great job with it,” Driscoll said “When Pop Warner was in a bad way, he stepped in and held it together. That’s when I first got involved with Pop Warner when I came to the town.
“If people needed a little fundraising, he was there,” Driscoll said.
Edward A. Palleschi, undersecretary of the Office of Consumer Affairs for the Commonwealth, recalled when Perry and Driscoll fought to ensure his father’s (Arthur) appointment as the town counsel.
“Things were changing,” said Palleschi. “The town was changing. Local government was changing. And my dad was kind of a dinosaur in an era where previous town counsels were always lawyers from the town.”
It was also a time when there was no town administrator and “everything that had to be done and decided upon was handled by the selectmen,” Driscoll said.
And many of the selectmen of the era wanted a more professional look to the town counsel.
“There was an interest in hiring a town counsel from outside of town, from one of the Boston law firms. That was kind of a trend with a lot of municipalities,” said Palleschi.
But Perry was old school, said Palleschi.
“He had a relationship with my dad, and my dad had been assistant town counsel under Harvey Rowe. Bob was of the opinion that we should have a person from the town who lived in the community and was passionate about it,” he said.
Eventually, Palleschi got the job and served for 10 years.
“They were lifelong friends,” Palleschi said. “They shared a passion for local government and public service. I learned a lot from Bob. He was a great role model and a lifelong friend.”
Palleschi recalls working on Perry’s campaigns when he ran for state representative (a race he lost to Marblehead’s Larry Alexander).
“Both good guys,” said Palleschi. “It was a great time. Bob was just so passionate about Swampscott and about public service.”
Driscoll recalls that after his father, Thomas Sr., who was also a selectman, died, “(Perry) single handedly had a monument flag pole and benches put in at King’s Beach next to Mission on the Bay honoring my dad.”
He said Perry represented everything good about being a “townie.”
“Oftentimes, people have a negative connotation of what it is to be a townie,” Driscoll said. “But with him, he wasn’t parochial. He just had the strong sense of someone who was vested in the town.”
