Peabody mayoral candidates pledge to work together whatever Tuesday's outcome

By Justin A. Rice, Town Correspondent

As muddy as the Peabody mayoral race has gotten at times, the candidates both say they will be willing to work with one another after Tuesday’s election. In fact, Ted Bettencourt and Sean Fitzgerald have worked together before, not only growing up on the playing fields of Peabody but just last year when they played on the same team in the Peabody Men’s Basketball League.

“It’s two people that love the city, two people that strongly believe they are the person for the job,” Bettencourt said. “Certainly there’s been some back and forth, there are times I’ve been frustrated with information pushed forward by my opponent.  I think when all is said and done our relationship will be fine and we’ll be able to shake hands. Both of us want what’s best for the city and we’ll be able to put aside any hurt feelings during the campaign.”

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But for now, the candidates remain in the mud pit. A few weeks after Bettencourt charged Fitzgerald, with plagiarism, Bettencourt claimed Fitzgerald distributed “misinformation” about him — including claiming that Bettencourt is “not really a business owner in downtown Peabody.”

During an Oct. 20 debate at a packed Wiggin Auditorium, Fitzgerald had to speak over the loud boos of Bettencourt supporters on several occasions.

And just yesterday, Fitzgerald’s camp released a statement from Fitzgerald’s former boss, outgoing Mayor Michael Bonfanti saying that Bettencourt misled voters by using a quote from the mayor out of context.

“I am outraged with the use of my name on a piece of campaign literature recently distributed by Ted Bettencourt,” Bonfanti said in a statement.  “The literature prominently features three of Bettencourt’s public endorsers and was presented in a way to mislead voters into believing that I was among them.  One could draw no other conclusion than to view this act as a deliberate attempt to deceive voters. This is a dishonest campaign tactic and I am compelled to set the record straight.”

The quote in question was about the city’s increased bond rating.  

“My quote in the February 2006 news article was incomplete and taken out of context,” Bonfanti said. “It represented nothing more than an attempt on my part to share some credit with the entire City Council and was in no way meant to single out Bettencourt only to mention him as he was the subcommittee chairperson. At the time, Bettencourt was a novice city councilor and, quite frankly, in my opinion, he did not know the difference between a triple A bond rating and a triple A baseball team.”

Bettencourt responded to these allegations during a phone interview last night.

“For several weeks now Sean and now the mayor have been trying to drag me into negative exchanges, and I think the city of Peabody deserves better than the ridiculous quotes like the mayor has stated,” Bettencourt said. “I am proud of the work the city council did to help strengthen our bound rating and although I have great deal of respect for mayor and his work I don’t think it’s helpful for the citizens of Peabody to engage in a negative exchange.”

During a separate phone interview last night, Fitzgerald stressed that he’s tried to run an issues-oriented campaign.

“We’ve been asking people just to make a well informed decision, we have a lot of information on our website Peabodymayor.com,” he said. “Certainly experience is something that we’re really asking people to consider Peabody is a very busy city, we have a lot of important projects under way including flood mitigation, downtown revitalization, the Higgins Middle School [renovation].

“I have extensive experience managing millions of dollars of resources not only for the last two mayors in Peabody but as a town manager.  So I think that experience will make a real difference in how well Peabody maintains its affordability and how we define our potential. That experience stands in stark contrast with my opponent.”

Bettencourt, a four-term city councilor, has raised $20,820 compared to Fitzgerald’s $10,545 in the last few months according to the state’s office of Campaign and Political Finance website.

“I believe working on the city council the last eight years through tough economic times, dealing with neighborhood issues, and difficult city issues, has prepared me well to tackle the challenges ahead,” Bettencourt said. “I believe it’s crucial for the city to successfully solve these problems and work together as a community. I believe I have gained a reputation on the council for working well with people to bring people together and I think more than ever we need a mayor with community building and team building skills. That’s the type of mayor I will be.”

After the election the two men will have to try to work together beyond the boundaries of the basketball court.

“Whoever gets elected will need to work with all parties,” Fitzgerald said “I have the experience of working with a lot of local, state and federal leaders. You have to have tough conversation every now and then about the direction but once you get done with the election you start governing.

“We’ll start the dialog and we’ll start healing the rifts that happened during a heated campaign. I’ll call Teddy, we’ll sit down, have cup of coffee and put this behind us and start thinking about the future of our hometown.”

Seven candidates are also running for five open at-large city councilor seats on Tuesday -- Tom Gould, Bob Croce, Michael Garabedian, David Gravel, Russell Donovan, James Liacos and Anne Manning-Martin.

Incumbent City Councilor Rico Mello and Tom Serino will also face off in the Ward 3 city councilor race on Tuesday.

Incumbent Tom D’Amato will face off against Bill Aylward, Brian Birmingham and Dennis Feld for City Light Commissioner.

The four School Committee candidates include David McGeney,  Brandi Carpenter, Edward Charest and Bernard Russell.

Justin A. Rice can be reached at jrice.globe@gmail.com.