Special to the Journal
Mayor Jared Nicholson delivered the State of the City Address Jan. 21 in the Lynn city Council Chambers.
Following is the text of Mayor Nicholson’s remarks:
Thank you, Faustina. Good evening Lieutenant Governor, Councilors, School Committee members, Legislators, and guests. Thank you all for being here. Gracias a todos por estar aquí.
I want to especially thank my wife, Katherine, my sons Henry and Benjamin, as well as my parents. I’d also like to thank my staff and the entire team working for Lynn for all that you do.
A particular thank you on this frigid evening to all our first responders and volunteers who are helping us deal with the extreme cold, including the additional emergency warming center opening tonight at First Church of the Nazarene on Eastern Ave with the support of the Public Health Department. Thank you.
The state of the city is ready.
We’re ready for this to be Lynn’s time. We’ve known all along that this is a great community whose strengths are too often undercounted and that we could be even greater with the right support. And we’ve put in the work. The foundation has been laid. The shovels are in the ground. We are hitting our stride.
We are ready for the City’s opportunities to become actual improvements in the lives of our residents.
At the same time, we’re ready to be a force for good in a time of uncertainty. Ready doesn’t mean knowing exactly what the future holds, or even avoiding challenge and hardship. Ready is having the right team in place and the right plans in place – and having confidence in our commitment to our values.
Infrastructure
We’re ready for the infrastructure projects that we’ve been diligently advancing to start bearing fruit.
There are major projects are already done. Blossom Street now extends across the Lynnway directly to our ferry terminal. The new Lynnfield Street was a long time coming and looks terrific. Several other roadways are in various stages of construction and planning. In the meantime, we set a record last year for the amount of roadway paved in a single year.
Saying we are ready for change is sometimes a nicer way of saying we’re sick and tired of the status quo. But I’m just going to say that we’re sick and tired of a dirty King’s Beach.
We are ready to try something new this summer with a temporary ultra-violet treatment pilot, which we will be asking the Swampscott Select Board to support, and which, if it works, would make the beach swimmable this summer. We know it is time to do things differently and we’re ready to try new ideas.
We’re ready to enjoy the beautiful new parks we’ve opened: the playgrounds at Lynn Woods, Kiley Park, Barry Park, Cook Street Park. We’re ready to open this year a new Keaney Park, Gallagher Playground and McManus turf field. And we’ll keep going; next on the list for a major overhaul is Sagamore Street Park. We’re ready to deliver these parks in a way that’s much more inclusive too, with all these new playgrounds being handicap accessible.
We’re ready to reclaim our waterfront. This summer we will open Lynn’s Harbor Park, more than 20 acres of beautiful landscaping and breathtaking views of the harbor. What was once literally a dump has been transformed into a place for recreation and a point of pride for our residents. We’re ready to continue the momentum we have on the waterfront, to capitalize on one of the most important development opportunities in Greater Boston while making sure it stays true to our community. We do that with teamwork and planning, so I’d like to thank the whole team driving forward the South Harbor Implementation Plan.
We’re ready for a cleaner city.
The new barrels all over our parks, playgrounds, streets and lots have been a great success. But clearly, we need to do more. We’re launching a downtown beautification initiative this spring in partnership with local businesses to get more eyes and hands on the street.
Budget
We’re ready to continue to make the most of limited resources. Our fiscal discipline has been paying off – exiting state fiscal oversight was a significant sign of strength and our bond rating was upgraded and then affirmed at the last issuance. We’ll continue our fiscal discipline in 2025, being careful stewards of taxpayer funds and aggressive in the pursuit of outside grants. A great example of that is the Energy Manager we’ll be hiring in 2025, funded by National Grid through a federal grant. This person will help our buildings become more energy efficient, a win for the environment and our budget.
We’re ready to finally bring City governance into the 21st Century, including a more formal capital planning process. The City Council and I appointed a Charter Review Commission for the first time in decades. This Joint Commission put forward some good government, common-sense reforms that I fully support. I hope and expect the Council to send those recommendations to me so we can send them to the legislature for approval and implementation.
Our new capital planning process will give us more visibility and therefore better control of our long-term goals and spending. It coincides nicely with the creation of our Capital Projects Unit, which moves the folks overseeing our long-term construction projects out of the Inspectional Services Department and into its own dedicated unit. This will allow for the ongoing preparation and implementation of a robust capital plan, something that all high-functioning cities need.
Community
We’re ready to come together and support one another in difficult moments. We’ve made tremendous strides in making city government more welcoming. City Hall better reflects the community we serve, both in the diversity of our personnel and our ability to deliver services in multiple languages.
We saw this progress noted in the equity audit we completed last year thanks to a state grant. During the audit, community members touted our inclusive values, progress in language access, inclusive hiring, and community-building. I want to thank the entire City team that works tirelessly each day in service of our community.
We’re ready to continue this work. We have a major community event this spring for our 175th Anniversary of becoming a City, when we’ll turn on the refurbished fountain on our historic Lynn Commons. We will continue this summer with the return of our Summer Kickoff Festival, which 5,000 people attended last year, and into the fall with the fourth annual Lynnside Out Festival and our annual Halloween and holiday festivities. Bringing people together and making positive connections between residents and their City Hall help us build the kind of strong community that supports us all.
We are ready to support particular communities to whom we have a special obligation. Our seniors will have a refurbished, expanded senior center later this year as the renovation completes. Visit any day and you’ll see firsthand the power of community to offer essential services while providing joy and connection for all who seek it.
Our veterans, who fought for our freedom, deserve our unending gratitude. Thanks to the initiative of the Veterans Council, 2025 will see the renaming of Heritage Park to become Veterans Memorial Park just steps from the Gold Star Families bridge.
Transit
We’re ready for the state to finally deliver on their transit promises.
That’s actually happened in a real way with the restoration and extension our ferry service, which I know we all greatly appreciate, and you see that in the numbers with a ridership last season of more than 40,000.
Working with our state delegation, we’re still waiting and pushing for major improvements at the MBTA Garage site. The state of repair of that facility is outrageous. We need parking to continue to support the downtown and we deserve it to be maintained with respect for our residents. That said, we are excited about the opportunity for redevelopment in conjunction with the preservation of a significant amount of parking and appreciate the Healey-Driscoll Administration and MBTA for taking this on. We have the same urgency and long-building frustration with the efforts to rebuild our commuter rail station and electrify our rail line. We appreciate the T’s work on these projects as well. When they are done, we will have near-rapid transit like every other region in Greater Boston.
Lynn has been left out for too long. Remember, saying that we are ready for change is a nice way of saying we’re sick and tired of the status quo. We’re ready for the transit service we deserve.
Peace and Public Safety
We’re ready to strengthen public safety. Our Fire Department does excellent work in keeping us safe, and they deserve facilities that are up to the task. We have upgraded Fire Station HVAC systems around the City and are continuing a major renovation of the Fayette Street station. Last year we got two new engines and a ladder and another two engines are coming this year.
We’re ready to hire more police officers. Our police officers do heroic work every day to keep us safe and we need more of them. We have 13 recruits going to the next academy. If you know someone who’s like our officers, someone who is brave and community-minded, tell them to sign up for the civil service test before January 28th.
We’re ready to grow the team of people tackling gang violence. Under the state Shannon Grant, we’ve added new partners in the Lynn Housing Authority as well as Justice Resource Institute to provide extra supports with the goal of violence prevention.
We’re ready to make big investments to combat the opioid crisis. We’ve laid the groundwork for spending the Opioid Settlement Funds, gathering extensive input from diverse perspectives and starting to award grants to learn what’s possible. This learning and investment will continue in 2025.
We’re ready for the next generation to enter the workforce. Last year, we made a bold commitment to offer a job to every young person who applied. Interest soared and we followed through, tripling the size of our summer youth jobs program. We’re preparing for another big year this summer.
We’re ready to continue to take City Hall and our message of peace through community engagement to the streets. Last year we went door to door with City volunteers around Commercial Street, Veteran’s Village, and the Highlands. Our next community canvass this spring will be around Flax Pond.
We’re ready to launch the City’s unarmed response team, the Lynn Calm Team. This new team will help us tackle mental health issues and further racial justice. We’ve already made the first hires and will be launching the pilot this spring.
We’re ready to respond to whatever comes out of Washington. We don’t know yet what that will be. But we are a welcoming, inclusive community. We’ll support all of our residents regardless of immigration status, regardless of gender, or even who you voted for. We’ll fight for our values and one another. That has been my commitment as mayor from day one – a Lynn for all of us.
Housing
We’re ready to continue the hard work to address the housing crisis that continues to hurt so many of our residents. The inclusionary zoning policy we implemented with the Council is expected to create units this year for Lynn residents. This year we can also implement the housing stability ordinance that the Council passed last fall that will give us some of the best tenant support in the Commonwealth by making sure all tenants are notified of their rights.
We’re ready to break ground on three important projects that we’ve supported extensively, extremely low-income housing at the Hennessy House on Andrew Street with Lynn Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development (LHAND), veterans housing at the Lynn Armory with LHAND, and senior housing at the Solimine House at the former Union Hospital site.
We’re ready for even more, having invested several million dollars into projects with American Rescue Plan Act and Affordable Housing Trust funds that will unfold in the coming years creating another 565 affordable units.
And we’re ready to overhaul our zoning ordinance, to make sure it matches the readiness for positive, balanced, growth that’s articulated in the Vision Lynn master plan.
Jobs
We’re ready for our residents to get better access to high-paying jobs. We are a hard-working city full of hard-working people. Too many of our residents struggle to afford to live, despite how hard they work. A lot has to change to fix that. But one strategy that’s in our control is workforce development.
We have launched the Lynn Workforce Collaborative to formalize the City’s approach to workforce development. We want to grow programs like the adult education happening at Lynn Tech and the English classes at Washington Elementary. We want to get our residents into the higher paying jobs that exist, which is why Lynn Tech added a shop in Biotech this year. It’s why next year, Tech is adding a shop in Construction Craft Laborers. To make sure that the development that is happening in Lynn and the region includes our own community members.
Those and other additions we’ve made at Lynn Tech have increased capacity there by 25 percent. Tech schools around the state, including LVTI, have become oversubscribed. Here in Lynn, we were ready to do something about it and have made a significant dent in the annual waitlist.
Schools
Speaking of education, we’re ready for the facilities our students deserve districtwide. For years, our classroom sizes have swollen beyond what’s reasonable or fair to our students and educators. We were tired of waiting on an outdated and inequitable state school building system. We were ready to take action ourselves. And we’re doing exactly that by creatively and effectively opening new schools by repurposing existing buildings.
We purchased the former Eastern Bank headquarters on Market Street last year. Now we’re ready to transform those offices into classrooms and double the size of the Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy, our new early college high school. That acquisition will allow us to open a new pre-K center at Bennett Street by moving the administrative offices to the bank building, continuing our momentum to increase access to education in those vitally important early years. And it will allow us to open a new, Arts & Sciences-themed high school at Fecteau-Leary, moving the amazing programs offered in that building currently to new spaces at the bank and repurposing the old Classical building.
This isn’t possible without a lot of teamwork, creative thinking, and determination. I want to thank all the educators, the Superintendent and her team, students, families, and facilities staff for their hard work and collaboration on these projects.
By the way, we’re also ready for a new Pickering Middle School. This year we broke ground on the brand new, state-of-the-art school, a project that has been a decade in the making, and expect it to be ready for students two years from now in 2027.
That will help our schools do their jobs in making sure our young people are ready to live complete and fulfilling lives.
Being ready implies that you’ve done the work physically and mentally to prepare. Walk around the city and see the hammers swinging, for instance at the new Virginia Barton Educational Center at Briarcliff opening in February or the GAR Building under renovation downtown, or crack open our many planning documents, from Vision Lynn, the City’s first ever master plan, to the new Lynn Public Schools Strategic Plan to our $11 million federally-funded Safe Streets For All traffic safety improvement plan and you will see that we are ready in the sense that we’re doing the work physically and mentally to prepare. But no one can predict the future. Being ready, ready for anything that comes, also implies that your heart is full of courage and love.
One of the notable aspects of being mayor is becoming aware of some of the city’s hardest moments. After three years, I can absolutely assure you that Lynn’s heart is full of courage and love. From the police officer who saved a stabbing victim with an improvised tourniquet to the firefighter who reversed an overdose, from the librarian who calmed a disquieting patron to the teacher who intervened in a dangerous situation, from the community organizer who helped a family avoid homelessness to the business owner who poured everything she had into a new venture, I see that your hearts are full of courage and love and I know that the state of our city is ready for a bright future whatever comes our way.
Thank you.