Latino campaign comes up short

Once again, a Latino candidate has failed to get elected as mayor of Lawrence.

Tuesday's defeat of City Councilor Marcos Devers in a city where more than half of the registered voters are Latino raises questions such as: Will Lawrence ever elect a Latino mayor, and what will it take for that to happen?

It was the second time that incumbent Mayor Michael J. Sullivan staved off a challenge from a Latino candidate and Sullivan's wins highlight the divisions within Lawrence's Latino electorate.

But local activist and radio personality Isabel Melendez, who lost her own mayoral bid against Sullivan in 2001 by fewer than 1,000 votes, believes the right Latino candidate with the right message can break through, pulling from all ethnic groups and galvanizing the disparate elements among the city's Latinos.

''Eventually it will happen," said Melendez. ''The community is learning. It's growing."

Devers, a 55-year-old Dominican-born engineer who emigrated to Lawrence 17 years ago, failed to make history by becoming the first elected Latino mayor in the Commonwealth's history.

Instead, Sullivan won a second term in office, persuading enough Latino voters to give him four more years. The 48-year-old mayor took 6,121 votes, or 61 percent of the total, to Devers's 3,841, or 39 percent.

In this northern Massachusetts city where now around 60 percent of residents are Latino, getting Latino support is key to political survival for any citywide officeholder. Latinos make up an increasingly large percentage of the city's estimated 32,000 registered voters and have had recent gains in winning City Council and School Committee seats.

Sullivan rode to a second term building a coalition of Anglo voters from South Lawrence and key Latino figures that included state Representative William Lantigua and Lawrence school Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy.

For his part, Devers said he believed he did all he could to give Lawrence voters a clear alternative to Sullivan. ''We came up with all the issues people should know [about] from our perspective," said Devers, who avoided mentioning ethnicity during the campaign and stuck to issues such as economic development and fighting crime.

That wasn't enough to defeat a popular incumbent who has made inroads with Latino voters since first winning office in 2001, said Marguerite P. Kane, a political science professor at Merrimack College. ''Marcos [Devers] had to get his people out to vote and that just didn't happen," Kane said.

Only about 30 percent of the city's registered voters bothered to show up at the polls, the lowest for a Lawrence mayoral race in 50 years, according to Kane. That low turnout spelled doom for Devers, who had pinned his hopes on a large number of Latinos heading to the polls.

For example, in the Arlington neighborhood, or District C, where around 77 percent of registered voters are Latino, only 1,399 of the 4,197 voters cast ballots. Of the city's six districts, it was the only one Devers took.

In the Mount Vernon neighborhood, or District E, where fewer than 30 percent of registered voters are Latino, more than 2,300 of the district's 6,924 voters went to the polls. Sullivan won that district by a wide margin.

''Something went wrong this time. Dramatically wrong," said Carlos Matos, a city councilor and former mayoral candidate who supported Devers.

Matos blamed the poor turnout on voter confusion over the inactive voter flap that landed the city in federal court the day before the election. Matos and several civil rights groups asked a federal court to grant an extra day of voting after city officials failed to properly inform some voters that they were placed on the city's inactive list. But a federal judge declined to issue a restraining order.

Inactive voters were allowed to cast regular ballots if they provided proper identification, city officials said. They were allowed to cast provisional ballots if they didn't provide identification.

Matos said, however, that confusion probably caused some voters to stay home.

But Melendez said she believes voters just weren't excited by Devers as they were when she ran against Sullivan. ''The campaign was not the same," said Melendez. ''This campaign was more [about] personalities than issues."

Bob O'Koniewski, campaign manager of Devers, said he was proud of his candidate. ''We certainly, effectively put out an alternative vision of the city," he said. ''It's always difficult against an incumbent. Clearly more people felt that the city was moving in the right direction."

Matos said poor means of communication in Lawrence's Latino communities make it difficult for Latino mayoral candidates to spark voter turnout. ''We need to find some way to get more of the people through mainstream communication," he said. ''Lack of communication leads to misinformation."

Asked if he thought Lawrence would ever see a Latino mayor, Matos smiled and said, ''I think we will. I would put my money on it."

Matos said he plans to run for mayor at ''the next opportunity."

Melendez said for any Latino mayoral candidate to be successful, the candidate has to learn from the mistakes of the city's last two elections. ''We have to respect and accept different people's opinions and run a very positive campaign," she said.

Giovanna Negretti, executive director of ¿Oíste?, a Latino political group in the state, said for a Latino mayoral candidate to be successful in Lawrence, the candidate has to ''cross borders and bridges."

Right now, the Latino community in Lawrence is divided by ethnic lines and immigration waves, each with naturally competing interests. ''The demographics will talk for themselves," Negretti said, but ''this person needs to have an agenda-based campaign" that forges coalitions across ethnic lines.

''Finding a candidate who will be able to build bridges for a common agenda is the key," Negretti said. She said Boston at-large City Councilor Felix D. Arroyo is one political figure that has been successful at reaching across ethnic lines. Arroyo was reelected Tuesday, placing second.