A mayor's fall from favor

Many allies don't expect Newton leader to seek reelection

It was nothing more than the mayor's annual budget speech, but in Newton, the event had all the trappings of the president's State of the Union address.

A delegation of aldermen escorted Mayor David Cohen into the chamber of Newton's huge Georgian Revival-style City Hall. Everyone was asked to rise. Cohen stepped forward, followed by an entourage of city department heads. His smile looked more pained than happy, and he waved stiffly at board members and the handful of people who sat in the audience. The prelude may have been designed to convey power, but these days Cohen stands on shaky political ground.

Once heralded as a brilliant state legislator and a can-do mayor loved by the wealthy and well-connected in his hometown, Cohen, 60, is expected to make an announcement today about his election plans for 2009. Many of his allies expect him to call it quits.

The fall from favor followed missteps richly woven into a city that prides itself on good schools, parks, and expensive real estate. The new $197 million high school Cohen has staked his reputation on has become the most expensive school construction in state history and a symbol of suburban excess. The local weekly twice called for him to leave office at the end of his term. Cohen has put forward a controversial $12 million property tax override, threatening teacher and police cuts and library branch closings if it does not pass.

And in the midst of these battles, Cohen this week proposed increasing his salary of $97,876 by 28 percent, quickly withdrawing the idea after it was greeted with derision.

"It is a sad irony that the mayor may best serve the city he loves by announcing that he will not run for another term," said longtime supporter Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "He has become a kind of lightning rod on the [override] issue. People have said to me that they would otherwise vote yes, but are uncomfortable doing so with him in office beyond this term."

On Tuesday, the day the proposed salary increase became public, Cohen sat in his oak-paneled office and in an interview defended the high school, the override, and his reputation.

"There have been some concerns that the programming is extravagant, that the building" is extravagant, Cohen said, growing angry with a reporter's questions. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

Soaring construction costs, an expensive building design that allows for natural light in classrooms. and expensive technological efficiencies, like a fuel efficient heating system, account for the school's high cost, he said. He noted repeatedly that the project is "exactly the same" as it was when it was conceived, approved, and voted on by aldermen and taxpayers several years ago.

"There's nothing secretive about it," he said before cutting the interview short. "They [critics] say there's not enough money and there's too much money. I've planned for contingencies."

His spokesman, Jeremy Solomon, followed up the same day in an e-mail saying the "mayor feels badly" about the interview and "understands his tone . . . was not conducive to a productive interview."

Newton may be a small city of 80,000, but politicians frequently talk about residents' "expectation of excellence," especially when it comes to schools. Cohen's plans for the new Newton North High were clearly designed to meet that standard.

In 2002, he announced plans to renovate Newton North High School, but the $40 million renovation ballooned into a $109 million project to build a new "state of the art" high school after parents learned that students would need to be relocated during construction. Aldermen and state officials urged Cohen to scale back the new plan, but he did not. Instead, with the support of a majority of the aldermen, the city hired architect Graham Gund to design the building.

Since then, costs continued to soar. Last year, when the city announced that the cost of the high school would rise to $147 million, Cohen sidestepped blame and left it to his chief administrative officer, Sanford M. Pooler, to inform aldermen about the new price tag. The mayor's spokesman had said Cohen was on vacation at the time and unavailable to comment, yet a reporter spotted Cohen leaving City Hall 20 minutes before the announcement. "I don't think it's fair to jump to a conclusion that he had someone do his dirty work," Solomon said about Cohen, in reference to the incident. "He has faced the Board of Aldermen on many, many occasions and not only to present good news."

Solomon said last night that he could not remember the circumstances of why the mayor may have left City Hall that day.

Cohen's coalition of support had already begun to crumble, undermined by the cost of the building, an unrelated fight with the city firefighters union, and increasingly feisty aldermen.

Ward 4 Alderwoman at Large Amy Mah Sangiolo, who took office the same year Cohen became mayor, said the mayor effectively used Solomon, his $97,000-a-year spokesman, to shield himself from critics and the media. She said it was a big change from her early days in office when Cohen invited board members to meetings in his office, and she thought they shared many similar views on education (she supported the new school) and the environment.

She has since broken with Cohen. "He was elected to set the policy and vision of the city. What has his vision been?"

Sangiolo said. "The whole emphasis has been on [the high school] and that it's going to be built no matter what."

Cohen's refusal to acknowledge critics' concerns has baffled even supporters. Martina Jackson, cochairwoman of the Newton City Democratic Committee and a personal friend of 30 years, said Cohen is not a glad hander.

He can be "awkward socially" but funny, she said. Once, when he was a state legislator, he called her to pose this Woody Allen-esque question: If police arrested Marcel Marceau, would officers have to mime him his Miranda rights?

Some say the writing is on the wall. Cohen did not hold his annual fund-raiser this year, and gave his campaign manager permission to get rid of his lawn signs.

"In our opinion, it's clear he does not intend to run again," said Christopher Hill of Move Newton Forward, the pro-override group.

Cohen surely hopes his legacy will be Newton North High School. But that legacy will undoubtedly be colored by the pay raise proposal.

Brooke Lipsitt, a former president of the Board of Aldermen and a Cohen supporter, said it's clear the mayor's unpopularity will cost the override votes on May 20.

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "And I'm sure he is, too."