SAUGUS — More significant changes could be on the horizon for the town in 2023 if Board of Selectmen Chair Anthony Cogliano gets his wish.
Cogliano, who has chaired the board since 2019 and has served a total of 14 years, said he believes Saugus should explore the possibility of changing its charter — and becoming a city.
“When I got back involved in town government I wanted to make change and I would like to see Saugus change our charter and finally become a city,” he said. “It would take time for that to happen, so if I could get it on a ballot next year, and then if they approve the charter changes, in 2025, we could be looking at having our first run for mayor in Saugus, that’s something that I would love to see happen.”
“It’s time. We’ve overgrown our present form of government and I think there’s so many more benefits to become a city and I would love to see that happen,” Cogliano added.
If Cogliano is successful, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s pushed through major change in town.
In 2022, Cogliano, as a member of the landfill committee, helped negotiate a Host Community Agreement between the town and WIN Waste Innovations, which would bring Saugus millions.
Earlier last year, he helped lead the charge for the legalization of recreational marijuana dispensaries, another change that could dramatically increase the amount of revenue the town generates each year.
As he reflected on the year, Cogliano said he was proud of what he’d been able to accomplish.
“Creating the Host Community Agreement … was 45 years in the making, and I’m very happy to be a major component with that and it’s going to be a tremendous benefit to the town to have a working relationship with them, and finally receive a financial benefit and lower emissions from [WIN], and I think that was one of the biggest things that happened in 2022,” he said.
“I’m also happy to say that the zoning change that was approved on the marijuana licenses, which in my opinion, will bring another at least three, maybe four and a half million dollars a year to the town that we haven’t got. If you couple those two things together over a 25-year period, I think we’re going to have an excess of $80 million from those two things. That I led the charge to bring to fruition so I’m happy about that.”
With the town’s population nearing 30,000 people, Cogliano said it was his belief that the transition away from town government would be in line with the continuing expansion Saugus has seen. He cited growing development along Route 1 as one of the ways in which the town would continue to change in the coming years.
All of that, he said, leads him to believe that “it’s time” for Saugus to become a city like neighbors Lynn and Melrose.
“There’s more funding available to cities, our school system can use all the funding it can get and I just know that cities receive more funding than towns do,” Cogliano said. “One of the biggest reasons [for the change is] the accountability factor, for a mayor as opposed to a town manager. The mayor has to answer to all the residents and not just keep two members of the Board of Selectmen because it takes three votes to hire a town manager and four to fire.”
Cogliano said he did not believe Town Manager Scott Crabtree was doing a “bad job,” but said he believed there was a better way to approach connecting to the town than Crabtree has.
“I’m not saying that Scott has done a bad job. I think he’s done an outstanding job at certain things. I just think that his interaction with the town as a whole and his involvement with different things that go on in the town, I just think that there might be a better way,” he said.
Citing his experience crafting and winning approval for the Host Community Agreement as well as the zoning changes to allow dispensaries, Cogliano said he was looking forward to pushing for the charter changes.
“A lot of people never thought that the Host Community Agreement would come to fruition or the marijuana thing and I pushed for those and I’m gonna push for this too because I think there’s a big taste for it throughout the town. The time is ripe for it and I want to see that happen,” he said. “I’d say it’s 80 percent of the people that I’ve talked to throughout the past year see it as a benefit to becoming a city and there’s a lot of people that have been pushing for it for years. This is the time and I have the ear of the people and if we’re ever gonna get it done, this is the time to do it.”
Other priorities Cogliano cited were making progress on the construction of a third fire station serving west Saugus and figuring out the best uses for school buildings vacated in the wake of the consolidation of the town’s schools.
“It’s not a priority anymore. It has to happen,” Cogliano said of the fire station. “1996 it was supposed to open and here we are 2023 and it’s still not even in the planning stage and that’s got to end. That’s got to be number one … the West Side fire station has got to be priority number one.”
Regarding the vacant school buildings, Cogliano said he would like to see neighborhood groups formed to decide what use for the building makes the most sense for the area, citing Precinct 10 Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian’s efforts to do so for the Ballard School as a model.
“I would like to see that happen for every school. We have to find the right fit, hopefully, it fits in with the neighborhood, but there’s going to be things that everybody wants and things that nobody wants, it’s just trying to find the correct balance and make sure that people are happy with what they’re going to get,” he said, citing parks, charter schools, an expansion of the youth & rec program, and bringing the Boys & Girls Club to Saugus as examples of what the spaces could be used for.
The other issue Cogliano cited facing the town was the impending Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School building project, which will require Saugus to approve a debt exclusion. If the debt exclusion is not approved, Cogliano said, the town would likely face layoffs in order to create the revenue necessary to contribute to the project.
“If we ever had to face layoffs to fund that project the town would be in trouble,” he said. “I think that and all these other creative ways I have to bring revenue to the town that are important.”
With his reelection coming up, Cogliano said he planned to make his case to voters by citing his achievements — primarily the Host Community Agreement and the marijuana zoning changes — but also by remaining available to residents.
“I’m probably the most active on social media. People call me out for everything and they get an answer, I can’t always provide what people ask, there’s a chain of command in Saugus, people ask me [for] something I have to go to the town manager first. He calls the shots,” he said. “I have a great relationship with our police department, our fire department, our DPW, all the town hall workers, and I think people view me as a leader and I like to deliver on what I got elected to do,” he said.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
