NORTH WEEKLY / JOHN LAIDLER / THE POLITICAL TRAIL

Three local mayors are endorsing Gore

By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent, June 13, 1999

Vice President Al Gore is quietly picking up support among Democratic mayors for the upcoming presidential race.

In recent interviews, mayors Peter Torigian of Peabody, Bruce H. Tobey of Gloucester, and Richard C. Howard of Malden, said they were supporting Gore, who faces primary opposition from former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley. Another mayor, Stanley J. Usovicz Jr. of Salem, recently endorsed Bradley.

"The economy has been very strong. He's the vice president and my guess is he can share in some of that success," Torigian said, adding that Gore's experience as a senator and vice president had prepared him to lead the nation in the foreign policy arena.

Torigian said he was also impressed by Gore's reluctance to turn his back on President Clinton during the latter's darkest moments this past year. "Though personally I may disagree with a lot of those things, loyalty is a very important trait to me," Torigian said.

Tobey said he had heard Gore speak at a number of League of Cities' forums. "There is clearly a very good mind at work there. He has a real good knowledge of things, how to get the job done. He has a good sensitivity to where we are at at and how to keep going," Tobey said.

"He's very dynamic on issues of environmental policy and has shown real leadership on sustainable develoment as a linchpin to economic development policy," Tobey added. And he said Gore "can demonstrate concrete leadership on the whole notion of slowly but steadily undertaking the reinvention of government."

Howard said he liked Gore's program for urban areas. "He's talking about redeveloping brownfield sites and the sprawl issue. He's trying to preserve what open space there is while at the same time allowing developed areas [to be] the focus of redevelopment."

He said as long as Gore maintained "the centrist position this administration has taken in striking a good balance between a government that understands its role in trying to help folks while at the same time understands the role of the economy and the free market . . . I feel comfortable in being able to endorse him at this point."

The measure would allow the town to borrow outside the constraints of the state's tax limitation law to fund the construction of a $43 million high school on town-owned land off Humphrey Street.

Construction of the high school is the first phase of a nine-year, $130 million school building plan proposed by the School Committee. The plan also includes construction of a new elementary school and renovations and additions to four other school buildings (the existing high school would become an upper middle school, and the existing middle school a lower middle school).

With the election approaching, supporters and opponents of the debt exclusion have been hustling to get their message out to voters.

"Because of increasing enrollment, we need more space in our schools, and in our high school in particular," said Matthew J. Nash, chairman of Marblehead for a New High School, the committee urging passage of the referendum. "The high school itself is in deteriorating shape . . . When you look at the difference between repairing the high school and building the new one, the value is truly in building a new high school."

But opponents complain that the new plan is too sketchy in detail and too costly -- they contend the overall plan calls for much more school space than is needed. They also decry the loss of open space that would result from the construction of the high school, and the traffic woes they say it would cause at the location.

Patricia Warnock, chairwoman of Citizens/Parents for a Responsible Alternative, the group opposing the question, said, "Our group is a pro-education group. We know the schools need to be fixed." But she said, "This particular plan was put to the public very hastily. It has not been thought out."

Many of the opponents are urging greater consideration of an alternative proposal that would involve switching the current high school and middle schools. Both would be renovated and expanded.

But Nash said that alternative would require simultaneous overhauls of both the high school and middle school buildings, which he said would would be enormously disruptive. He said it would also cost about the same as building a new school, without providing the town the benefit of a new school.

Nash said traffic in front of the proposed school site is slated to improve due to a planned reconstruction of the intersection designed to take into account the potential of a new school. As for open space concerns, he said the proposed high school and related infrastructure would consume only 20 percent of the mostly undeveloped site.

Markey, a Malden Democrat, and New Jersey Republican Christopher H. Smith, jointly organized and will cochair the bipartisan caucus, whose formation was announced last week at a Capitol press conference. David Hyde Pierce, the actor who plays Niles on the NBC television series, "Frasier," and whose family has been touched by Alzheimer's disease, took part in the kickoff event.

According to Markey, 22 members of Congress already have joined the task force, and the goal is to have more than 100 members signed up by the end of the year.

As is the case with Pierce, Markey's interest in Alzheimer's has a personal dimension. His mother, Christina, died last July from complications related to the disease, which causes a progressive loss of mental capacity in older people.

"Four million Americans today are afflicted with the disease," he said. "As the population ages, a higher and higher percentage of the population is going to be hit with this disease, and as a consequence, so will their families. It's critical for us to dedicate resources today anticipating the medical care hurricane which will be hitting us 10 to 20 years from now,"