Clancy calls for support of $10M bond

By David Liscio - The Daily Item
Friday, February 24, 2006

LYNN - Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr.'s state-of-the-city speech Thursday was laced with one unwavering message: Lynn residents must vote on March 21 in support of a $10 million bond to make sorely needed capital improvements. 
  

The eight-minute address at the Porthole Pub offered a synoptic breakdown of city finances and was summed up with the opinion that Lynn can afford to borrow the money. 

The mayor cited three major developments that occurred in the City Council since the year began that will help Lynn become more financially solvent - the decision to put the $10 million capital improvement bond before the voters, the vote to sell three branch libraries, and the vote to transfer school janitorial services from the School Department to the Inspectional Services Department.

Clancy offered some basic mathematical calculations to the audience of community and business leaders in an effort to explain how the city can afford the bond.

As he put it, Lynn's overall value is $5.9 billion. Five percent of that amount is $294 million. In other words, the city has an "inside bonding capacity" of about $300 million.

The city currently has $25 million in outstanding debt. That leaves approximately $275 million in reserve borrowing capacity, according to Clancy.

Most of the current indebtedness resulted from expenses related to Manning Bowl and the new police headquarters, he said, adding that other repairs or improvements are pressing, including boilers in two school buildings and roofs on at least one school and two municipal buildings.

"March 21 is a very important date on our city's calendar," Clancy said, urging the audience, mostly members of the Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce, to spread the word among residents to vote in favor.

Clancy drew parallels to the deteriorated levees in New Orleans that broke last year, causing massive devastation.

"The Army Corps of Engineers gave $1.9 billion to the state of Louisiana to fix those levees, but a lot of that money was siphoned off into other pet projects - canals, bridges, what have you. The money given to Louisiana was not used wisely," he said. "But here, spending this money will be done wisely. It will only be spent on capital repairs. There will be no wasting or squandering of this money."

The mayor stressed that the city is not a for-profit business with a bottom line that attempts to show profit.

"Our mission is to provide service," he said. "And that's what we're trying to do."

Referring to the sale of the branch libraries, Clancy said those proceeds would be kept in a "locked box" and used exclusively to repair and maintain the main library on North Common Street.

"That building is solid as the Rock of Gibraltar," he said, adding that widespread use of the Internet by residents and students lessened the need for branch libraries.