HANNA'S EDUCATION CORNER
Hanna Interviews Haverhill Mayor
James Fiorentini
by Hana, Age 10
Are
you originally from Haverhill?
Yes, I am. I was born here in 1947.
Did
you go to the Haverhill Schools?
I did, and I’m going to give you the same answer
that Methuen Mayor Sharon Pollard gave you. I went to
school right here in this building. My office right here
used to be my math class when I was a high school
freshman.
Did
your children go to the Haverhill Schools?
Yes, all three of my children went to the Haverhill
public schools. I also went to public school until
college. I believe strongly in public schools. So, my
kids also went to school in the Haverhill public school
system until they went to college. They all went to good
colleges and they all had a great education.
What
is your day like?
Hectic! My day is like this: people come into my office,
meet with me and ask me to make decisions. I also do a
lot of paperwork, you know, writing and dictating letters
for my secretary to type. Usually at night I have more
meetings. I try my best to get outside the building every
day to meet the people; after all, I do work for them.
Do
you like being mayor?
I love it. It’s the best job in the world. But you
know, some days are better than others.
Are
you going to run again?
Well, I haven’t announced anything yet, so I will
say ... in all probability, yes. In fact, the answer is
yes!
Wow,
an ex-clusive! Who do you think will be running against
you for mayor?
Who knows? You never know who is going to run against
you. Probably a gentleman who writes for The Valley
Patriot (Jim Rurak). You know, it’s a democracy and
anyone can run who wants to, and it’s up to the
people to decide whether or not I get elected … or
if they want someone else.
What
do you hope to accomplish if you win a second term?
Well, the number one thing I hope to accomplish is to
make sure the High School stays accredited. Right now, we
are on accreditation probation. I want to make sure that
we are off probation and that we have our High School all
fixed up. That would be the number one goal. The number
two goal would be to make sure that we use all of the
buildings and developments downtown. We really need
to reuse some of those old factory buildings. The number
three goal is to reconnect the people of Haverhill to the
waterfront. We need to get people in Haverhill more
focused on the river.
Do
you support term limits for mayor?
No, I do not. No mayor of Haverhill has ever lasted all
that long, so it’s not that big of an issue in
Haverhill. I firmly believe that the best term limit is
the ballot box. When the people get sick of you, they
vote you out of office and that’s the term limit. We
don’t have term limits in Haverhill and I think
that’s the way it should be. Term limits is a cure
that is worse than the disease.
So
far, what is your greatest accomplishment?
I think reversing the city’s financial slide. The
city of Haverhill has been in some financial trouble.
We’ve been able to reverse that and get the
city’s finances back on course, balance the budget
and get back on track. We have been able to fix some of
our school buildings and that was a great accomplishment,
but I think the greatest accomplishment so far is
stabilizing the financial ship.
What
has been your biggest problem as mayor?
Lack of money. Cities and towns run on money and
Haverhill has some financial problems. We don’t have
a lot of the money for Haverhill to do all of the great
things I would like to do. So that’s been the
biggest problem and also been the biggest challenge -
which is the best part of the job, to try and solve those
problems.
As
Chairman of the School Committee, do you Support MCAS?
Yes, I do! I think it is a good thing to hold kids to
strict standards and it’s a good thing to measure
progress by means of a test. So I do support MCAS and I
think it’s a good thing. I think if you look at the
history of how schools have done since we instituted MCAS
and No Child Left Behind, Massachusetts schools are doing
pretty well. So I think overall, it’s worked. There
are some difficulties, but it has worked well.
 Do you think good
teachers should be paid the same as bad teachers?
No. But it’s very difficult to determine who is a
good teacher and who is a bad teacher. Of course, good
people can disagree about that. My dad was a teacher for
32 years and I like to think that he was a very, very
good teacher. I think he was the best and if I was rating
teachers, I would rate him the best. But other people
would rate my sister as the best. She is a teacher too.
My aunts and uncles have all been teachers, so I would
like to think that there was a way to reward people
better who did better … but it’s not so easy
because people don’t always agree on who’s a
good teacher and who isn’t. I’m trying to find
a way here in city hall to reward good performance and
unreward bad performance. I can do that now with
non-union people and I intend to do that with my
department heads. But, it isn’t easy to determine
who is good and who isn’t. First, you have to set
standards and you need to be sure they’re objective.
You need to be certain that it’s not a political
process. I’m not for merit pay for teachers for the
reason that I want to keep politics out of it. But
I’d like to have some sort of means to do rewards,
whether they are promotions or other such compensation.
Several
months ago I interviewed School Committeeman Scott Wood
and he wants to privatize janitors. What do you think of
that?
Well, Scott Wood and I joined together last night to vote
against that move (April 28th). I was for it at
first, but I looked into it and the numbers aren’t
there as far as how much money we thought we were going
to save. Scott and I both voted against it; in fact, the
vote was five to two against.
What
is your favorite book?
Well, my favorite book is one most people have probably
never heard of. It’s called “The Power
Brokers” by Robert Caro. It’s a story about
Robert Moses, one of the greatest architects and
designers in the world. Now, as for fiction, I like
“The Broker” by John Grisham.
One
last thing … I really like these chairs: where did
you get them?
Well, these chairs are exactly what is wrong with
government. It’s a pretty funny story if you want to
hear it. When I took office, these chairs were broken.
The wheels were all bent or broken off. It took me six
months to get these wheels fixed. I was very frustrated
because what I was told over and over again by the
janitors and custodial staff was to toss them out - get
rid of them and buy new chairs. So I finally went into a
temper tantrum and I called the head of the maintenance
department. I said, “Get me a hammer,” and he
came into the office and I fixed them myself after
waiting six months and nagging people to get them done.
*Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
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