LYNN — City Council President Jay Walsh said that while he’s enthusiastic for the city’s expected growth — small improvements will go a long way for Lynn in 2023.
In an interview with The Item, Walsh discussed the city council’s goals for 2023 — park improvements, city cleanup, and looking out for the average Lynner.
Walsh, a jack-of-all trades who works as a licensed plumber and an oil delivery driver at his family business, John’s Oil, stands at the halfway point of both his first term as council president and his fourth term as a city councilor.
In Walsh’s first year as president, city council was tasked with approving the allocation of nearly $75 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding toward affordable housing, infrastructure, and a variety of community projects from parks to non-profits.
Walsh said that in the new year, the city council strives to ensure that the city’s ARPA-funded projects are on track for completion.
“We did a lot in the first year with ARPA, there was a lot of back-and-forth with the community, and the money’s been cited there, but I think we have to follow through on that on those monies. We have to make sure that those projects get done before the deadlines, and we need to make sure they’re done appropriately,” Walsh said.
This summer, the city earmarked nearly $300,000 in ARPA funds to install 60 Bigbelly trash cans across the city. Walsh said that while the trash cans will help curb litter in Lynn parks, hiring two more Department of Public Works (DPW) employees, as budgeted, will go a long way to clean up the city.
“We’re going to need some more help in the DPW. And they’ve got to have some manpower. We did add two more people, I don’t know if the jobs were hired for as of yet, but those jobs are going to be able to produce results to keep the city cleaner,” Walsh said.
The city passed an inclusionary zoning amendment in December that aimed to both expand affordable housing, and pave the way for commercial and industrial development along the waterfront and in downtown Lynn.
With inflation at a nearly four-decade high, and utility costs skyrocketing, Walsh said that he expects to see the increased development bring high-paying jobs to Lynn residents, and consequently, increase the city’s tax base.
“We’re trying to keep taxes low, but that’s difficult. It takes a certain amount of money to run a city, and people expect a certain amount of good services,” Walsh said. “We, at this point, are providing the services that we can with the tax base that we have, and to continue to try to get better service for people, we’re going to need more tax base. The only ways to do that are to either cut taxes, which we really can’t, or try to raise more money by bringing more development and jobs that pay people well, in hopes that we have residents that are going to get jobs there.”
Walsh said that his proudest accomplishment in 2022 was the council’s ability to secure funding for Lynn’s parks. Over the summer, the city allotted more than $18 million in ARPA funding toward park renovations, followed by an additional $12 million in state grant funding in September.
The city’s plan to convert the 33-acre waterside landfill into Harbor Park, a large public park space is the achievement Walsh said that he looks forward to most.
“If I had to pick one (project), that’s the one. I grew up on the water — my family was in the boats, and always on the waterfront. And I always saw how Lynn people couldn’t get to their own waterfront. So, looking into the future, that’s something that I would like to really see,” Walsh said.
Additionally, Walsh said that in 2023, city council should continue to stay on top of the smaller municipal services that affect residents’ lives day-to-day.
“There’s big issues in the city that are going on, but as a counselor, the small issues for people are the biggest ones,” Walsh said. “They’re not the big headline stories, but when people see the broken sidewalks, or the streets aren’t plowed, those are the things that people who live in the city care about. You work 12 hours a day, and you come home and you trip over the same broken sidewalk —it gets pretty aggravating, and those are things people want us to follow through on.”
