ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
March 17, 2005
Growing Dominican community eyeing Lawrence mayor’s
seat
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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