>>Valley Patriot>> |
I feel wonderful, especially here in your kitchen the day after the election being interviewed by you. Let me tell you why: you were the only reporter throughout this whole campaign who treated me fairly. None of the other reporters ever printed a fair report except for you. That’s why I said last night to your mom after I won that I wanted to give you the exclusive post-election interview. You know it goes both ways - when a reporter is good to a candidate, it is only right that the candidate be good to the reporter. Hanna: Why do you think the voters picked you? I think they picked me more because of the progress that has happened in the city rather than because they liked me personally. I have chosen not to criticize others and run a positive campaign and I think the voters responded to that. People don’t want to hear the negative all the time; they get that every day reading the newspaper. I think the voters wanted someone who could look at the city from a positive point of view and try to move the city forward, not someone who can only see the bad. Hanna: Were you surprised by how much you won by? I was confident going into the election and I was very excited. But no, I was not really surprised. Hanna: What are the first things you will do now that you have been elected to a second term? Today, the first thing I did was to thank the people who voted by going out at 6:30 this morning and holding signs that said Thank You. I also thanked all the people who ran for office. I thanked all those who won and the ones who didn’t. And I told them that they need to be involved in what is happening in the city even when it is not an election, because that is very important. One of the things I am going to do is promise to treat the next four years as a new administration, not just as an extension of my first term. I think that is a big mistake elected officials make when they get reelected. So, in the next 45 days I am putting together a transition team and we are going to analyze what we did well in the last four years and some of the things I didn’t do well, and do what I can to change them. There are going to be some big changes in my second term. Hanna: How do you feel about Carlos Matos trying to stop the election, and do you believe Marcos Devers had anything to do with it? I don’t think it
was good for the city. I don’t think it was done the
right way. I think by going into Boston on Friday at 5
o’clock when the election was really two days away
wasn’t the right thing. It cost the city money as we
had to pay for attorneys. The judge decided quickly on
Monday that it had no merit. Obviously, I didn’t
agree with Carlos’ thinking, though he wasn’t
alone when he did this - we all know that. As far as
Marcos Devers, I can’t really say whether he was
involved in it. All I can say is that the people who were
involved in trying to stop the election were members of
his campaign and people who had endorsed him, so I
can’t imagine he didn’t at least know about it.
Hanna: How
did the media cover your campaign and did they get
anything wrong? If so, would you The media were very wrong during this campaign to make this election about race, making it Anglo versus Latino. It was very wrong for them to do that. Those kinds of comments and analysis about this election were made by most of the media. It was Channel 4, Channel 7, the Boston Globe, the Eagle-Tribune and even the Herald. I think when it comes down to it, people do not vote based on your race, but based on who they think is the best person for the job. The Valley Patriot was the only paper that did not make this campaign about ethnicity. I appreciate that you, Hanna, and the editors of your paper focused on the issues, the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, and what was important to voters, instead of taking the lazy road of whipping up racial sentiments. I think the rest of the media was really off on that, but you know the media are the media and they do what they do. I just tried to run a clean campaign. I can give you another example of something the media reported that was really unfair and inaccurate. And by the way, they repeated the inaccurate information even after we corrected them and it was never correctly reported. And that was the way the Eagle-Tribune reported on the Veterans Memorial Stadium. They reported that we only spent $300,000 on fixing the Stadium. That was just wrong. We spent over $7 million on that project with a lot of hard work and effort, and yet, there was the Eagle-Tribune saying it was only $300,000 on more than one occasion. They never did correct the record. So that is one thing I would like to correct, because people should know the truth. They were very wrong on that. Hanna: What changes are you planning on making in City Hall? Well, we are planning on putting together a transition team, as I said, and that team will be looking to make big changes in City Hall like merging some departments, changing some of the appointments we have made to some of the boards, filling open positions, and moving some personnel around. This will happen with a specific, controlled outcome. One thing I don’t want to do is make any quick emotional decisions. I know Tommy (Duggan) criticizes me for that sometimes, but that is my style and I think it is important to move slowly sometimes. Hanna: What did you think of the newly elected Council? I am very positive and excited about the new Council as a whole, and I plan on doing a better job with the Council this coming year. I did a really bad job over the last four years working with the City Council and I am going to make a big effort to correct that. Everyone gets elected to help the city and I know we all have different ideas, but we have to work together if we are going to help the people of this city. So I am going to take full responsibility for the poor relationship I have had with the Council over the last term and try my best to change that with the new people coming in. Hanna: I wanted to ask you, off the record, what you thought of the whole issue with Israel Reyes and the way he lost? Why is this off the record? Let’s do everything on the record. You’ve been good to me, Hanna; I will tell you anything you want to know and I will tell you on the record! Hanna: (laughing) OK, on the record! Councilor Israel Reyes decided to withdraw his name as a candidate, even though he never removed it from the ballot. But let me say this: as a person I do not base my opinions here on him as a person — this is not about him personally — but, when I look at people like Israel Reyes, I base it on the Council and the way he voted over the last two years against most of my initiatives. So I think the voters saw that, and on September 27th the vote that he received made him realize it was probably best to remove his name from the running. If you look at the councilors who are not coming back, they are all councilors who opposed our administration and the initiatives we tried to put forward. Carlos Matos, Marcos Devers and Israel Reyes were the ones who all voted “no” on the majority of what I was trying to accomplish. I like them all as individuals, but I am glad the voters spoke on that issue. Hanna: What do you think of the new school committee? I am looking forward to working with them. As chairman of the school board, I work together with them taking votes. We have a lot of work to do. We are building a new school. We have to get the test scores up at a faster rate. We have a lot of good people. I am glad to see five new faces and we are going to work for the best interest of the students. Hanna: How do you feel about race (ethnicity) being brought into the election? Well, as I said earlier, the media were wrong about that and particularly the radio talk shows were wrong about that. I feel good that the voters yesterday proved them wrong. I know Marcos brought it up after the primary, but the Boston Globe flew someone in from Washington and found out that 51 percent of the Latinos could vote and had this earth shattering question: how can I possibly win? But with that attitude and with that ideology, they would have to assume that Oki (Robert Okeniewski, Devers’ campaign manager) was going to vote for me. In other words, they were assuming the people who are Latino were all going to vote for Marcos Devers and all the white people were going to vote for me. That seems a little racist, if you ask me. I am especially proud that the voters did not vote that way. They voted based on whom they thought was the best person, regardless of race. And that is good news for the city, because it proves we can work together despite our differences, rather than making our decisions based on race. I don’t think race should ever be brought into an election the way it has, and I am glad they were all proven wrong. Hanna: What about political party being brought into the race? That is a great question. That’s ano-ther issue that should never have been brought into this race, but the other candidate brought it in and it obviously didn’t work for him. The people who live in Lawrence don’t ask you what party affiliation you are when they want their streets cleaned. Party has nothing to do with the mayor’s race and that is why it is called a non-parti-san race. People want city services to be delivered and I don’t think they care what party you are. I know Mr. Devers brought in some party Democrats from Boston, but the voters in Lawrence saw through that. Hanna: Do you have any political goals beyond being mayor? Well, your mom is
going to be my campaign manager from now on (laughing)
and Tom is the brilliant strategist of course. Whatever
Tom and your mom think I should do, I am going to listen
to them - they haven’t been wrong yet. Hanna: When will the Veterans Memorial Stadium be finished? The stadium will be finished within 30 days. On December 1st they are going to hand us the keys. So, let me tell you what has been going on. We are going to have a grand opening next spring. By that time, the landscaping will be done and the veteran’s flags will be up. We are going to have a huge, grand opening ceremony once the weather gets nice in the spring. You know, we just put down the field turf and it looks absolutely beautiful. And I can tell you that this is an exclusive because not one newspaper has covered the field turf yet. I know I saw something on The Valley Patriot web site a few weeks ago, but nobody else has even mentioned it. In fact, let me call my office and get you a picture of the new turf. It looks amazing and I am so happy that the kids in Lawrence will have a first class stadium to play on in the spring. (See page 15 for a picture of the stadium’s new field turf, courtesy of the mayor’s office). Hanna: Do you plan on staying on as mayor of Lawrence for the full four years? I know there are rumors floating around like four years ago, but I love being mayor. Hanna: Rumor has it that you are on the short list to be the Lt. Governor’s running mate next year. Well, you always have to consider things like that and you never say never. It’s like that with life too. You always look at your opportunities. But I plan on being mayor for four years. That is what I am elected for and I have no intention on leaving the mayor’s job before my term is up. Hanna: What have you learned after four years as mayor and a very long campaign? What I learned is that, when you be-lieve in something, and you let the vo-ters decide every four years, they will tell you if you are doing a good job or they want a change. What I thought was that we got a lot done in four years and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. We made a lot of good moves and, yes, I’ve made a lot of bad moves. But the people said they want me to stay on the job and I think we are on track. I also learned that the mistakes made in my administration are mine, and I have to not only own up to that when it happens, but then take steps to correct those mistakes. I wished I had done a better job of that in the last four years. I am certainly going to look at this as a learning experience and make sure I take more responsibility, as well as making sure that the mistakes that are made are corrected. Hanna: Is there anything I didn’t ask that you would like to address before we finish? Well, I want to once again thank the voters who participated in the election, but also criticize those who didn’t vote. There were a lot more people who didn’t vote than who did. So we need to do some things to make sure more people vote. But you can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do. I think we can do a public relations campaign in the future to publicize the city elections. By the way, I had five lucky ties that I wore during the campaign. Back in August I started wearing a different American flag tie every day, through yesterday. Those were my good luck ties. And what I want to do, because you were the first one who interviewed me as a candidate for reelection and you were the most fair of any reporter who covered the election, I want to give you my Wednesday tie. And if you look at some of the pictures that The Valley Patriot has published throughout the campaign and you see me wearing this Statue of Liberty tie with the American flag, you know that the picture was taken on a Wednesday. I had a specific tie for each day of the week and they brought me good luck. So now YOU have my good luck Wednesday tie. *Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
Hanna: Congratulations on your win
yesterday. How do you feel now that it is all over?
like to correct the record now?