Tim Phelan
This year, we are delighted to name Council President Attorney Tim Phelan
the Lynn Journal’s Man of the Year.
Phelan one of the city’s best known and well-liked elected public officials has been a consistent ticket-topper and has served the city well as council president.
Over the years, he has grown into a leader and more and more Lynn businesspeople and voters, homeowners and residents have been looking to him for leadership.
Phelan has stepped up to the plate.
Despite a busy law practice and family obligations his actions on the council have been notable.
City Council transparency has achieved new heights because of Phelan. All city council meetings are sent out on Twitter. All official city council minutes are now listed on the council website. All proposed ordinance language is now listed on the council website prior to public hearings. All meeting notices and council agenda are also listed on the council website.
When residents were distressed t hear a strip club might be coming to the Lynnway, Phelan initiated, drafted and successfully passed an aggressive ordinance making it virtually impossible to open a strip club in Lynn.
When Garelick Farms milk plant on the Lynnway was emitting a powerful odor, ruining the quality of life and failing to keep to environmental requirements, Phelan was the first to take the company to task. In the end, the company spent almost $1 million on a new odor mitigation system.
The new VNA building about to go up was 2 years of work for Phelan, dozens of meetings, site plan reviews, et cetera. This was his baby and now in downtown Lynn, a new state of the art building is going up in a local effort helping to squash the recession.
Overall, Tim Phelan has shown class and timeliness during his term as the city council president.
He knows it takes working together to accomplish anything in a place like Lynn.
We applaud his efforts to do so – and we congratulate him on being named 2010 Man of the Year.
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