Ward 1 Lynn City Council candidates square off at debate

By Thor Jourgensen -- The Daily Item
Thursday, September 18, 2003
 

About 70 people spent more than an hour listening to Ernie Carpenter, Richard Eramian, Wayne Lozzi and Michael Phelps answer questions about taxes, senior services, televised council sessions and a city smoking ban.

The forum, sponsored by the Daily Item and Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce, set the stage for next Tuesday's preliminary election. Two of the candidates will survive the preliminary and face off in the Nov. 4 final election.

All four candidates support streamlining the city's permit granting process, reopening the Lynnfield Street fire station and televising council sessions.

Phelps said the next ward councilor must bring neighbors, city officials and developers together to work out problems before construction projects are started in Ward 1.

Lozzi said future development must include plans to preserve open space. He warned that plans for a residential subdivision in Peabody near Sunset Drive off Cannon Rock Road could channel "unsafe traffic" into Lynn.

"Ward 1 has reached the saturation point. There are lots on ledge and edges of cliffs," Lozzi said.

Carpenter said the city must monitor traffic generated by developments, not limit future construction.

"If a development is done legally, there is not much we can do."

Phelps, a former Wyoma Little League president, stressed that the city must solve its budget problems by attracting more business to Lynn and increasing the commercial tax base.

Eramian, a Lynnfield Street resident, called for lower taxes and less government involvement in the lives of Lynn residents.

"There is no point in having government grow every year," he said.

Former Ward 1 Councilor Carpenter said the Newton firm hired to maintain Gannon should be given additional time to spruce up the course. Carpenter called Sterling Golf Management "very capable," but Phelps and Lozzi criticized the city's decision to place golf course maintenance in private hands.

"This is a case of the city fixing something that wasn't broken. The contractor can't handle the job," Phelps said.

Lozzi, a state environmental analyst, said the city should balance the financial benefits of auctioning 36 city-owned lots against the need to protect watershed land near local reservoirs. He called himself an optimist who believes that the "pendulum will swing back and revenues will come back."

Lozzi said Lynn's public schools have been saddled unfairly with unfunded state and federal mandates, including tutoring and transportation costs.

Phelps, Lozzi and Carpenter said the next ward councilor must work with residents on Woodland, Anchor Road and other streets bordering Union Hospital to monitor future hospital expansion plans.

Phelps said the hospital has been "a little slow to react to the neighborhood." He said he will support a city smoking ban if ward residents favor one. Carpenter supports a ban while Eramian called it "meddling."

Lozzi promised to study the merits of a ban and weigh it against the impact on restaurants and bars.

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