Time for Smarter Financial Management and Strategic, Long-term Fiscal Planning

An important election in Beverly is coming up November 4th, as the next mayor will now serve a four-year term. It is time for a change, as current financial forecasts for next fiscal year project Beverly running a deficit.

The problem in part is due to reactive and poor strategic financial decisions by the current mayor. Take the recent purchase by ‘friendly eminent domain taking’ of the Dollar Store to use the building as a temporary city hall while the current city hall undergoes renovations. The purchase price was $7.39M. Now it has been determined the site is unsuitable for that purpose, one reason being it would take about $2M to renovate the Dollar Store, and he only budgeted $1M, and the building requires extensive asbestos removal. Wasn’t the building fully inspected beforehand? It is now possible the sale of the building might only bring Beverly back $3M or less. The city has leased that lot for years and could have negotiated the purchase earlier in the mayor’s twelve-year tenure, before a developer had a P&S on the property, and possibly for much less than $4M or more we may now spend to keep the parking lot public. Now the alternative plan is to rent space for about two years during renovations. The current price tag for renovation was recently updated from $25M to $27M. I would be willing to bet Harborlight, which the city sold the Briscoe building to for $600,000, much less than other offers, did not spend $27M to renovate Briscoe, which would have made a fine city hall.

The mayor used the ‘friendly taking’ strategy to acquire the Rowand’s Fish Market property to address parking problems in the Fish Flake and Goat Hill neighborhoods, a parking problem the mayor helped create by pushing for a 360 seat waterfront restaurant, with a footprint that only allowed for 54 parking spaces, while zoning rules stated it should be 90. A variance was pushed for by the mayor’s which allowed the developer to count parking spaces near the Harbor Management Authority building, Beverly’s public piers, under the bridge, and the lot across the street from the Anchor Pub. The problem is those spaces were already highly utilized daily. $950,000 of taxpayer dollars were spent to acquire Rowand’s. The mayor also told the city council that the pier behind Rowand’s needs to be re-built, requiring significant taxpayer dollars. To make matters worse, the owners of the Anchor Pub had right of first refusal to purchase the property. The Anchor owners spent a significant amount on plans to renovate the building into another restaurant and rebuild the pier. This would have kept the property on the tax rolls. Given Beverly’s $21.44 per thousand commercial tax rate this would garner at least $20,000 or more in annual property tax revenue after final property assessment when completed. Instead, a waterfront property generates no tax revenue. Apparently, many city councilors were not aware of the Anchor owner’s right of first refusal, information not shared by the mayor. Would this type of spending and lost revenue be approved if it were? While $800,000 was from a state grant, that is still taxpayer money.

The mayor went to the state legislature requesting a home-rule petition removing our obligation to preserve the now waterfront restaurant property for ‘park and recreational’ use, a use the mayor supported as Beverly’s state rep. A $410,000 tax break was requested by the mayor, and a lease signed netting $1.75M over 40 years, significantly below market value for waterfront property. Another waterfront property not bringing in the tax revenue it should.

With the Beverly Public Library, the mayor initially presented a new geo-thermal heating system to cost $3.75M. Weeks later he presented a total cost of $18M, not known beforehand by the council. The city council voted this down as too costly. The mayor offered that those not supporting a $18M geothermal heating system, for a building closed more hours than is open, ‘did not value our library’.

The ‘Executive Office’ has grown from 2 or 3 people to eight under Mayor Cahill’s tenure, and there are now three full-time employees in the Solicitors’ office, yet we still spent thousands on outside legal services to negotiate union contracts.

The mayor’s re-election slogan is ‘Invested in Beverly’. These ‘investments’ have not been lucrative for Beverly taxpayers, resulting in lost one-time and recurring revenue streams now much needed by our schools and roads. We need smarter, long-term financial plans. The answer is mayoral candidate Brendan Sweeney, a current 4-year Councilor At-Large, who has experience doing just that. His experience at the Statehouse Budget Office, managing among many things Covid funding to 351cities and towns, and now as Assistant Town Administrator and Finance Director in Boxford, will give Beverly the leader it needs to set strategic, long-term financial policies. He successfully negotiated union contracts and Boxford’s new trash and recycling contract. Brendan is personable, accessible, responsive, and inclusive. He is ready to make the tough decisions facing Beverly in the next few years.

Tom Hayes

26 Morningside Dr.