Exit laughing

Springfield's lame-duck mayor relishes his feud with the FDA

By Christopher Rowland, Globe Staff, 10/7/2003

Television lights for two national networks clicked on and boom microphones swooped in his direction as Mayor Michael Albano of Springfield strode into a State House hearing room and struck a defiant pose in his battle over Canadian drugs with the Food and Drug Administration.

"We are going to forge ahead, despite the opposition of the FDA,"Albano declared last week as he told a group of social activists and union officials about Springfield's groundbreaking program to import prescription drugs from Canada for city employees.

A lame-duck mayor with just three months left in office, Albano has seized the national spotlight on the drug issue with an all-consuming gusto. In the process, Albano, a focus of FBI investigations in 1983 and 2001, appears to be enjoying a laugh at the expense of the federal government.

"He's having a lot of fun with it," said Springfield City Councilor Timothy Ryan, a frequent opponent in budget and policy battles whose father, Charles V. Ryan, is running to succeed Albano. "He's getting great press, he's back in demand, and he gets to thumb his nose at the United States of America."

Albano, 52, denies that an element of payback has contributed to the spring in his step. After all, the FBI, which probed his relations with alleged organized-crime figures, has nothing to do with the FDA. He launched his drug program in July, he said, strictly as a money-saving measure, not realizing it would generate so much attention. But Albano does concede that he is suddenly having a ball as he prepares to step aside after eight years leading a tough, sometimes troubled city.

"It's been enjoyable," he said. "It's bigger than I ever imagined. Much bigger."

As a leading advocate for the importation of Canadian drugs, Albano was embraced by members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including US Representative Richard Neal, the Springfield Democrat, during a recent trip to Washington. The national news media have been swarming around Springfield. Albano told his own story about ordering prescription drugs for his son, Mikie, a diabetic, in The Washington Post. He has given interviews to CNN, CNBC, National Public Radio, and newspapers across the country. Camera crews from NBC and ABC dogged him at the State House.

Still, in Springfield, Albano faces challenges. In response to big budget shortfalls, the mayor has presided over the layoff of scores of city workers in the past two years, including 190 teachers, 75 police officers, and 53 firefighters. The city teachers union, its contract talks bogged down, picketed Albano at a School Committee meeting Thursday night.

Albano said all the attention he is paying to Canadian drug imports is aimed at helping him leave his eventual successor a balanced budget for next year and avoid further layoffs. The city is hoping to save $4 million to $9 million a year with the move.

But some critics say his focus has drifted too far from local problems.

"Mike Albano is bored with what is going on in the city," said Paul Caron, a former state representative whom Albano trounced in the 2001 mayoral race. "He wants to go out in a blaze of glory."

Springfield pharmacists, whose business could suffer, are also critical. Nicholas Creanza, the pharmacist at Campus Pharmacy & Medical Services in Springfield, echoed an FDA warning about counterfeit, expired, or adulterated drugs coming from Canada, and accused the mayor of acting recklessly.

"He's a politician, not a healthcare provider," he said. "I pray every day that no one dies, but if they do, it will be on his conscience, not mine."

Albano says the safety concerns raised by the FDA and pharmacy operators like Creanza are greatly exaggerated. To reassure city workers, Albano has personally visited pharmacies in Windsor, Ontario, which hold contracts with the city's supplier, CanaRx Services Inc. He said the Canadian pharmacies are no different from their US counterparts, and like them offer secure handling and shipping.

Albano is sometimes compared to another urban Italian politician with a flare for publicity, Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci of Providence, who remained popular among voters while being repeatedly investigated. In fact, Albano points out that the FBI targeted Springfield City Hall around the same time it was probing Cianci in Providence. (The key difference: Albano has never been charged with a criminal offense; Cianci has been convicted of two felonies.) Although lacking Cianci's flamboyance, Albano is an adept politician, a master of the inside game in a rough-and-tumble city where his father, Jack, was head of the local AFL-CIO. He graduated from Springfield College, worked as a probation officer, and in 1982 was appointed to the state Parole Board.

Just five months after his appointment, Albano supported parole for a convicted Mafia figure, Peter Limone, in defiance of the FBI's recommendation. In what Albano believes was retaliation, the FBI launched an unsuccessful investigation.

In 2000, Albano received vindication of sorts when the Justice Department determined that Limone and three co-defendants had been framed by a notorious mob killer and government witness, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza.

A second probe was launched in 2001. Two days after Albano cruised to a fourth term, agents investigating gambling in Springfield descended on City Hall and began carting away records.

While Albano has not been named as a target, the investigation, an expansion of an organized-crime gambling case, involves allegations that Albano's administration gave favorable loan treatment to the operators of certain Springfield restaurants and bars.

This year, as Albano landed on the radar of another government enforcement agency, the FDA, he has gone on the offensive. He criticized the FDA for "underhanded" tactics when it conducted a sting operation against Springfield's Canadian drug supplier. And he has pushed his fight into the financial realm, urging the city Retirement Board to divest from pharmaceutical stocks.

During an interview in his City Hall office last week, Albano seemed relaxed. A golf club leaned against his desk. A half-dozen signed basketballs, mementos from the Basketball Hall of Fame, were balanced in a glass case. Speculation about what Albano will do after he leaves office is rampant in Springfield. The mayor has set up a consulting firm, Michael Albano & Associates, but he said he has neither consulting jobs lined up nor associates.

"I don't see any angle. Who's going to hire me?" he said. Then he added, slyly, "I'm kind of waiting for an offer from the pharmaceutical industry -- to shut up."

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.