>>Valley Patriot>>
|
An Interview
with Jim Rurak:
mayor
Concealing growth numbers
TOM DUGGAN
(10/04/07)
Why should the voters
look to you for leadership in Haverhill instead of mayor
Jim Fiorentini?
When I was mayor we had a certain sense of balancing
growth with preserving Haverhill’s quality of life
and I think we are losing that balance. The mayor is
concealing the fact that his growth is really on the edge
threatening to eat up our quality of life. I acquired
over 300 acres of open space when I was mayor. I am pro
growth. I believe in economic development and industrial
expansion but, I think you need to manage it in such a
way to preserve what is unique to Haverhill.
Haverhill is a community with over 40 square miles, has
lakes and open spaces, a well developed downtown as well
as an industrial park, but the balance between the two
needs to be upheld. You see, the mayor is not being
truthful about the growth numbers. That’s why I
brought an Eagle-Tribune to show you the headline about
...
That’s not going to help your case.
Well the point is that the balance between residential
growth and incoming revenues is just not happening. Now
we find out that … and I warned about this in
February … we learned that there are 121 new
students as the result of new growth.
During my tenure as mayor we planned for growth, we built
new schools and kept under the levy limit just to make
sure the revenues that were brought in kept pace with new
growth. Right now we are getting to the point where the
new growth is outpacing the revenue, and that is why I
think people ought to vote for me. I have found a way to
balance new growth and provide the revenue needed for the
services that are required to run the city. Fiorentini is
bringing us to the edge where it’s going to take
quantum leaps in our tax rates and our water rates to pay
for the growth and he’s denying that’s
happening.
OK, so you say you have a plan for doing that how
do you go about it?
We need to put a residential cap on growth downtown.
During the 90’s we also had caps on buildings
throughout the city We had two kinds of caps; one was an
absolute building cap every year. The other was, there
was no development permitted that was to be built out all
at once. They had to do it over a period three years. So
you don’t get an all-at-once influx of new people.
In 1995, when we didn’t have the water we froze all
permits and didn’t allow another one unless we could
find a way to pay for the water without increasing the
water rates. As soon as we did, we imposed a hookup fee
for new construction to pay for the water lines that come
from Crystal lake and cross downtown to Kenoza. So we did
those types of hard decisions to control growth and make
sure we had the money to pay for it.
You said he is concealing the growth numbers why
would he do that?
He claims that the growth that we have is not going to
demand more services and it’s going to pay for
itself but the numbers are showing there’s going to
be a demand for more services. If the numbers show that
we are going over the threshold then the growth is not
good, that’s what the numbers show now. If the
numbers didn’t show that and they showed an even
pace that is good. So, he’s concealing the numbers
and it’s going to push us beyond our limits.
What are the quality of life issues that you se
as the most important for the people of Haverhill
One of them is the preservation of our natural resources.
We acquired over there hundreds acres of open space when
I was mayor and at least half of that was on watershed.
Haverhill has seven lakes, four are tied into the water
system and we acquired land around all of them. We put in
recreation spaces. These are natural attractions that are
part of the fabric of Haverhill. He sold off some of the
open space that we acquired.
The Schools are also a quality of life issues. There
needs to be a different tone set with the school
committee and the superintendent.
What kind of a tone is he setting?
Divide and conquer. I’ll give you an example, one of
the things Haverhill fell behind in recently are the
books to keep up with MCAS. We are teaching from books
that do not contemplate what it is that the test is going
to check up on. So, the school committee says ‘well
look, we’ll buy the books but we can’t borrow
money because the city’s getting financial aid for
the schools.’ So, in order for the schools to borrow
money they have to go through the city council. We’ll
pledge $150,000 a year for three years to buy $450,000
worth of text books today, we just need the council to
authorize it. And he votes for it. So Mr. mayor your job
is now to take this request from the school committee to
the state house and advocate for it. He decides all on
his own that he is going to try and look like a fiscal
conservative and say ‘well, no the school have to
put up the money out of this years’ budget and he
would only let them borrow the money over three years.
They don’t have that kind of money. He ripped the
loan order in half and it caused an enormous outcry. He
finally backed down and he went and did what he was asked
to do in the first place. That sets a very bad tone.
Is he a fiscal conservative?
I don’t think so, but I think he wants to project
himself that way.
The other quality of life issue is the services we
provide to our seniors and our kids. We’ve cut back
on our senior services, the nursing programs and other
programs like after school programs for the youth. We’ve
turned our backs on programs for kids after school. A lot
of kids don’t have a stable home and they need a
place to go after school. He cut that.
What about MCAS, there is talk of lowering the standard
to make it easier for kids to pass the test. Do you
support MCAS? I was the first mayor to embrace
MCAS. I supported it then, I support it now. I think it
is always important to look at whether it is pushing at
the appropriate level. I’m not an expert at that. So
I think we need to let the experts tell us about that. So
we have to look at that but I don’t support lowering
standards for political reasons. I do think we have to
look at that but not for political reasons. They came up
with the MCAS, and one of the reasons they came up with
it is so that communities like Haverhill and Lawrence
would get additional funds to hire the teachers they
needed to do the job.
There is a perception, correctly or incorrectly that you
are responsible for the Hale debt and the debacle that
ensued. Can you address that?
Let’s discuss the $6.5 million Hale debt. The mayor
is fond of using that $6.5 million number and I’ll
address that in a minute. It would be wonderful if the
city could be in the Hospital business and make money at
the same time. It’s impossible. It was made
impossible by the balanced budget act and the reputation
that municipal hospitals have throughout the state.
We had a disproportionate number of Medicaid and Medicare
patients at the Hale so, when the federal government cut
back substantially cut on funding for procedures they
did, the Hospital was bound to lose money. The problem
with the Hale was, Quorum Management did not book those
reductions until far too late and that wasn’t even
caught by the auditors at Ernst and Young. We were paying
Earnest and Young good money to oversee Quorum and they
did not catch the slight of hand by Quorum.
Did they work for the city directly?
They worked for the trustees and the mayor. It would have
been wonderful if we could have made money but what they
did was cook the books.
So, we were all under the impression that the hospital
was making money. The city had to pay all the bills that
the hospital incurred and we were hoping that the money
we got would cover that but in May of 2000 we discovered
we didn’t have any cash so we did an investigation.
At that stage we realized we either had to close or sell
it off.
In 1998 the hospital lost 5 million and what they did was
put the debt on the back of the hospital and said you pay
off the debt until it’s paid off. Now the Hospital
was built in 1984 for 35 million. It lost money in its
first three years and every year forward it lost a little
more money. So what you had was, it had to be subsidized
by the city.
Once we went to bid we found a remedy that was not as bad
as Fiorentini is portraying.
You had the 6.5 million debt hanging over the hospital
and it was on the city‘s ill we had to accept that
debt if we wanted to sell the hospital. But the city’s
ability to pay a bill is not 6.5 million less. Up through
2000 the city was putting in annually almost $2 million
dollars a year to keep the city afloat. That’s gone
now.
So, the 6.5 is reduced by the 2 million we are not
spending. The other thing is we had a 1.2 million margin
in the tax levy. So we applied that to the hospital
debt. So now that 4.5 million debt is 2.5 million.
So I’ve been called a tax and spender, I’ve had
that reputation but I was the first one to get Haverhill
below the tax levy after proposition 2 ½ by any
considerable amount.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The October 2007 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 15,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
Boxford, Amesbury, Newburyport
Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, Merrimack, Newburyport,
Westford, Acton, and Lowell.
Hampton & Salisbury Beach, (summers
only)
|
Valley Patriot Archive
Valley Patriot Story
ARCHIVES
Prior Lead
Stories
Prior
Valley Patriot Editorials
Prior Columns by ...
Tom Duggan
Dr. Chuck
Ormsby
Paula
Porten
Ralph
Wilbur
Hanna
Ted Tripp
Valley
Patriot of the Month
Griselsilva.com
Patrick
Blanchette
D.J.
Beauregard
Jim
Cassidy
D.J. Deeb
Marcos
Devers
Bob
Desmarais
Regina
Faticanti
Jim
Fiorentini
Bill Kelly
Wilfredo
Laboy
Peter
Larocque
Vilma Lora
Ed Maguire
Billy
Manzi
Paul
Murano
Mark
Palermo
Hartley
Pleshaw
Debbie
Quinn
Raise Em
Right
Dr. Peary
Kathleen
Corey Rahme
Barney
Reilly
Angel
Rivera
Jim Rurak
Grisel
Silva
Mike
Sullivan
Sandra
Stotsky
Mike
Sweeney
Ken Willette
Scott Wood
Jim
Xenakis
|
