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March 17, 2005

Yawu Miller

In 2001, Lawrence City Councilor Marcos Devers made history as the first Dominican mayor of a city in the United States.

The interim position, which came after then-Mayor Patricia A. Dowling was appointed to a judgeship, lasted just two months while candidates Ralph Carrero, Michael Sullivan and Isabel Melendez duked it out for Dowling’s job in the November election.

At the moment Sullivan clinched the mayor’s office in 2001, Devers announced his intention to run for mayor in four years.

Now, as Devers’ campaign organization begins gearing up for a heated race against the incumbent Sullivan, many factors look promising for a Latino to win.

Sixty percent of the 70,000 residents of Lawrence are Latinos. Dominicans make up 32 percent of the city’s population. And the Latino voters in Lawrence have been waking up to their electoral power. Four of the city’s nine city councilors are Latino as are two of the six school committee members.

The prospects for a Latino mayor were good enough to prompt District B City Councilor Carlos Matos to enter the race, complicating things for Devers. Also rumored to be contemplating a run for the mayor’s office is Council President Paul Blanchette.

So far, both Latino candidates are taking aim at Sullivan’s leadership.

“This city has gone through a recession and an economic boom, but we still have a 17 percent unemployment rate,” Devers told the Banner. “Our buildings are vacant, our streets are in deplorable condition. There is a pattern of low expectations here. People are using the mayor’s office as a stepping stone.”

Devers points to the Sullivan administration’s bungling of Community Development Block Grant funding, which forced the city to lose out on $4 million last year.

Matos says the $4 million the city lost out on is part of a larger pattern of governmental neglect. He too, cites the city’s unemployment rate, which is three times the state’s rate. Eighty four percent of students in the Lawrence public schools receive subsidized lunches while rents for two-bedroom apartments in Lawrence have shot up from $600 a month in 2000 to as high as $1,100 now.

“We definitely need to focus on our residents and how well they’re doing,” Matos says.

While the city has spent more than $450 million in state funds on building new schools, Matos says just 11 percent of the construction jobs have gone to Lawrence residents. Five years ago city officials outlined goals to create 560 units of affordable housing through the now suspended Community Development Block Grant program, but completed only 50 units.

“I want to focus the resources of city government on the issues of jobs, unemployment, youth opportunities, efficiency in government and small business development,” Matos says.

Sullivan, who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story, pointed to the city’s progress in his recent state of the city address. Describing the city as healthy and strong, he pledged to stay the course, citing development projects including a $110 million high school and a $30 million capital improvement plan which includes renovation of City Hall, Veterans Memorial Stadium and road improvement projects.

But Devers, a Dominican-born civil engineer, says that Sullivan’s administration has no master plan for development in the city.

“I think Lawrence needs a downtown that will attract its own people and people from other communities,” he said. “We need to tap into the great potential of the river walk and it’s beauty.”

From its birth in the 1840s, Lawrence was a planned industrial city. Large mill buildings, many of them vacant, still line the canals that cut through the downtown area blocks from City Hall.

The city has always been a draw for immigrants, its manufacturing jobs attracting Irish, French Canadians, Italians, Poles and Lithuanians. In the mid-1900s, Puerto Ricans began moving to the city. In the 80s, Dominicans began settling in the city in large numbers. The city now has the highest concentration of Latino residents in the state.

The Latino community began to flex its political muscle in 1998 when Jose Santiago, a former Methuen police officer, defeated incumbent M. Paul Iannuccillo during an ethnically divisive race.

Santiago became the first Puerto Rican to serve in the State House, thanks in no small part to William Lantigua, who proved his mettle as a campaigner with that decisive victory.

Devers’ appointment as interim mayor in 2001 capped a momentous year. That year, Devers garnered more than 8,000 votes in the at-large council race, pulling in more votes than Sullivan won in the mayor’s race.

That year, Puerto Rican activist Isabel Melendez, who spent $36,000 on her campaign, came within 900 votes of Sullivan. But Sullivan finished with 6,600 votes. Sullivan raised $123,000 in that race, demonstrating firm institutional support.

Much has changed in four years. Sullivan now has the advantage of incumbency and presumably a political machine.

“He will take at least 15 percent of the Latino vote and 95 percent of the Anglo vote,” says Lantigua, now a state rep in his second term.

Dalia Diaz, the editor and publisher of Rumbo, a Lawrence newspaper published in Spanish and English, expressed little enthusiasm for any of the three candidates, calling the challengers to deliver concrete plans for how they will accomplish their agendas and blasting Sullivan for alleged patronage. Diaz says Sullivan’s incumbency will give him a built-in advantage.

“The way things are right now, no one can beat Sullivan,” she told the Banner.

But Matos and Devers both express confidence in their ability to garner support from the white community. Matos says he’s held two fundraisers that have each drawn more than 100 attendees.

Devers’ campaign manager, Bob Okoniewski, says Lawrencians are becoming sophisticated enough to see beyond the race of a candidate.

“There are voters out there who just vote Anglo, but we are at a crossroads,” Okoniewski says. “If you want to stick with the status quo, you’re going to vote for Sullivan. If you want to see a new vision, we think you’ll choose Marcos Devers.”

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