DRUGS FOCUS OF MAYORAL RACE

FITCHBURG -- Dan H. Mylott ran his first successful campaign for mayor on a
promise he would clean up the city's drug problem.

Two years later, Mylott, the mayor of Fitchburg, says he is "very, very
proud of our efforts as far as drug trafficking are concerned."

He believes voters should reelect him based on those efforts.

But Bernard Landry, a tough-talking, blue-collar candidate with no
political experience, says Mylott's efforts have failed to curtail even the
most bold use of heroin in the city's center along Main Street.

"It's business as usual," Landry, a Republican, said of Mylott's
administration. "I can't have that in the city anymore."

The city's drug problem is just one example of how the four mayoral
candidates disagree on what direction the city needs to move in on a
variety of important issues, including education, city finances and public
safety.

Mylott, the Republican incumbent, is challenged by longtime City Councilor
Annie K. DeMartino, a Democrat, and two political novices: Landry, a
Republican, and Ronald Dionne, a Democrat.

The two candidates who garner the most votes in the Sept. 23 preliminary
election move on to the general election on Nov. 4.

The winner will earn a two-year term and a $50,252 annual salary.

If elected, Landry, said he would deploy drug dogs on Main Street, mount
surveillance cameras in public places and unleash a specially trained
police unit on drug users.

He said after one year of aggressive policing, the streets would be safe
enough to end the special program.

Landry has vowed to serve only two terms as mayor -- long enough to have a
lasting impression on the city's crime rate.

Crime fighters?

"The primary reason that convinced me (to run) is crime," he said. "Because
the job was not getting done, I feel that I have to get in there."

Mylott said his administration has worked hard to rid the city of drug
dealers, and that will continue to be the top priority.

"That continues to be the first and most important issue on everybody's
mind, including my own," said Mylott, a Fitchburg native and former city
councilor who left his retail job to become mayor in 2002.

He said after he hired Police Chief Edward Cronin nine months into his
first term, the city's efforts have gotten even more aggressive.

"He put into place all those ideas and issues I had been talking about for
two years," Mylott said.

Mylott pointed to several programs he has implemented to fight drug sales.

Landlords can now be held responsible for renting to drug-dealing tenants,
and there is a citywide drug task force that meets on a regular basis to
discuss ways to combat the problem.

Annie DeMartino, who spent her career in social services after emigrating
from Ireland in the 1960s, sees interdiction as a necessary tool to
diminish drug use.

She hasn't offered any new initiatives to combat drugs and crime.

Ronald Dionne, a Democratic candidate who has done little visible
campaigning and who has yet to unveil any substantive policy initiatives,
said he would work closely with Cronin to thwart drug trafficking and crime
in the city.

Dionne, an unemployed truck driver, did say police foot patrols in the
downtown area should be done "24/7."

Education

DeMartino, while largely eschewing the topic of drugs, has declared
education the centerpiece of her campaign.

"Without education, a person will live in poverty, and we'll end up paying
for them anyway in the prison system," she said.

Rather than increasing education funding, she said she'd look to the School
Committee to control salary hikes.

Pointing to the 6 percent raises earned by the majority of school
administrators this year, she said, "Maybe they could have changed that and
taken less."

School job cuts

DeMartino also noted that school administrators were spared while 124
teachers, paraprofessionals and other staff lost their jobs because of
budget cuts.

"One administrator would be three people's salary," she said, arguing it
would have been cost effective to trim from the top echelon. "No big person
went. All the little people went."

On the granite counter of her cafe, Brownie's Tea Time, which serves as her
campaign headquarters, DeMartino turned to page 70 in the city's budget.
The School Department received $39.8 million from the city for fiscal year
2004.

"How can we not have pencil and paper and books for the kids with this
budget?" she asked.

Mylott has also said that top-tier administrators are paid too much.

But the mayor, who didn't mention education during a recent interview,
hasn't made the topic a priority in his campaign.

Landry also criticized the amount of money top administrators are being paid.

"We're not helping our children with the poor funding that we have, and
with the high salaries in the front office."

Landry said he would work to shift a portion of education funding from
administrative salaries to the classrooms.

"We should have bought books before we give pay raises," he said, referring
the 6 percent hike most administrators received this summer. "That's just
common sense."

The mayor automatically assumes the chairmanship of the School Committee,
which will negotiate new contracts for teachers and administrators before
the school year ends.

This is the last year of a three-year contract, in which administrators
received pay raises based on merit.

Merit raises would end, Landry said.

"There would be salary freezes and then salary cuts," he said. "We've come
to the point where we've overpaid" administrators.

Mayors throughout the state will continue to face tough choices as state
funding to cities is expected to drop again this year.

Mylott said his experience dealing with budget cuts over the past year --
when he laid off 38 city employees -- will help him deal with any more
cutbacks.

"We'll deal with it and watch every cent that goes in and every cent that
goes out," Mylott said.

DeMartino said her experience as a mother on a fixed income -- as the
result of her late husband's long-term illness -- sharpened her budgetary
skills.

"I've got great fiscal skills," DeMartino said, noting her achievement of
putting her two children through college. "I can make a nickel work."

Landry, who supported Mylott in the last election, said the mayor unwisely
cut funding for the police and fire departments.

He said Mylott should have cut from other city budgets and increased public
safety spending.

"I'm sorry I voted for him," Landry said of Mylott. "I think he's
mismanaged everything. The whole thing."

Dionne said although Mylott did an "excellent job" on the budget, creative
options to save money were limited because the mayor waited so long to
begin work on it.

"I have a plan I've been working on, and the plan is to make the city
prosperous within the first year," Dionne said of what he would do about
the city's budgetary woes.

But he refused to reveal any details until he sees "how the preliminary
election goes" so nobody could borrow from his plan.

Dionne, who is also running for both Ward councilor and councilor at large
to give him a better shot at winning, would only say the plan would require
some restructuring at City Hall.

All of the candidates, with the exception of Mylott, support implementing a
city-operated ambulance service. They say it could offset budget reductions.

Mylott, however, says public safety should not focus on being profitable,
and points to the free service provided to the city as a suitable and
stable form of ambulance service.

Like many cities, the issue of how city officials do keeping the streets
clean in the summer and plowed in the winter is a contentious one.

DeMartino said the mayor has not been doing a good job with the roads.

Citizens are "sick and tired of the potholes," she said. "They're sick and
tired of the streets not being plowed. They're sick and tired of the sand
being left on the street."

DeMartino, in addition, said, "Utility rates are going sky high," and she
suggested she would invent a position, or assign a city employee, to act as
a "watchdog" during public utility meetings.

"We need to have somebody from our city ... down there to watch what
they're doing," she said.

Landry, who believes the Department of Public Works has failed to complete
its workload this year, would rehire James Shuris, the former DPW
commissioner, who Mylott fired on June 10. Shuris has since filed a lawsuit
to get his job back.

"I would offer (Shuris) his job back if he would drop the suit," Landry
said. "That is my game plan."

Mylott claims the DPW is operating better without Shuris, and that city
projects are moving forward on schedule. He has also said morale has improved.

Mylott said publicly this week that he wants the commissioner's post in the
DPW filled by the end of October, though by week's end he had yet to form
the search committee to do so.

But he said the establishment of the Civic Clean-up Corps "has helped us
achieve the goal of a more beautiful city," and the cleaning of sidewalks
and streets has helped turn desolate places around.

"The cleanup of the city is very apparent, there is a huge difference today
than two years ago," Mylott said. "We'll continue the cleanups and all the
efforts to enlist volunteers to keep the city clean and make people proud
of where they live."