NORTHAMPTON - More than 100 area residents filled the Leeds Elementary School cafeteria Wednesday night to hear from the three candidates vying to become Ward 7 city councilor - a position left vacant with the death of longtime incumbent Raymond L. LaBarge.
The forum, which was co-hosted by the Florence Business and Civic Association and the Leeds Civic Association, allowed candidates George J. Russell Jr., 7 Heffernan St., Eugene Tacy, 158 N. Maple St., and Deborah Jacobs, 82 Grove Ave., to introduce themselves, list their qualifications and inform residents of their positions on a variety of issues facing the city.
The first hour of the forum required the candidates to answer five prepared questions touching on how each would represent Ward 7; their view of the city's recently produced Sustainability Plan; the passing of the Community Preservation Act and the Proposition 2½ override; and what they would hope to accomplish in their first year as a councilor.
Russell, 69, a 46-year resident of the ward, retired city police sergeant and former member of the city's Board of Public Works and Planning Board, said his experience working with numbers and balancing budgets would make him an asset to the City Council, and, if appointed, he would focus on bringing businesses to the area.
"We're losing a lot of businesses both in the city and in Ward 7, and we have to be innovative to attract them here and keep them here," Russell said. "We need that for our tax base, and recently we have been losing businesses constantly."
Tacy too named attracting business to the city as one of his top priorities. A lifelong area resident and Vietnam-era veteran, Tacy, 53, said his many years working as a contractor for the city have given him a firm understanding of how the council works - and turned his office into a museum of city government documents.
"What sets me apart from the other candidates is really up to the voters," he said. "I'm very active with City Council, and my experience with the city goes back a long way."
Jacobs, 65, who has chaired the city's Tree Committee since its founding in 2003, said she moved to Leeds as a single mom in the '70s so her daughter could go to a neighborhood school. She said she would focus on rezoning and that her 30 years of experience in the health care field would prove beneficial when listening to the concerns of area residents and reaching compromises with other councilors.
"During my time working in health care, I learned to respect other people even when you don't agree with them," Jacobs said. "It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but one that would put me in good stead with city councilors."
The forum also featured a segment where residents could ask the candidates questions directly, during which Garson Fields wondered how each felt about the city using a zero-based, baseline budget for the upcoming fiscal year - where councilors would start from zero and go from there.
Both Russell and Tacy said they would support using the format to balance the budget because it would offer greater transparency and would highlight unnecessary positions that waste taxpayers' money, and Jacobs said if enough Ward 7 residents came forward in support of the plan she would definitely consider it.
All three candidates will appear on the Sept. 15 preliminary election ballot; the top two vote-getters will move on to November's general election. Voters in Ward 7's Precinct A will cast their vote next Tuesday at John F. Kennedy Middle School's Community Room; Precinct B voters will do so in the Leeds Elementary School gymnasium.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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