Beverly Mayor Cites Strong Reserves, New Programs In State Of City

BEVERLY, MA — Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill lauded the city's expanded services, municipal department improvements and strong cash reserves in his annual State of the City address on Monday as he faces some headwinds from the City Council on a series of impending large capital projects.

"As a city, we face many challenges both in this budget season and in the coming years," he said. "I am grateful for the professionalism and the commitment to this community that members of my administration bring to their work every day of the year.

"The state of our city remains strong. With their partnership and with (the City Council's) I know the state of our city will improve and become even stronger well into the future."

Cahill also stressed the $18.9 million in stabilization funds and $11.355 million in cash reserves on hand for weathering any economic cliff and to pay for one-time expenses in a given year. It was there that he referenced the capital projects that have become a sticking point as the City Council seeks more communication and transparency from the administration following its vote to shoot down a proposed large-scale library HVAC replacement and renovation last month.

"The very point of reserves is to ensure that we are able to continue to educate our children, keep our residents safe and provide enriching and meaningful services for all our residents whenever the next real economic downtown hits," he said. "And that we're able to continue to deliver these critically important services at a high level right on throughout any hard times.

"Our reserves are meant to get us through a recession when revenues fall precipitously. And to do so without wholesale layoffs and drastic, deep cuts to critical services. These reserves are not meant to be used to outspend still strong and growing revenues during good economic times. They are meant to help us keep delivering the services people rely on during the worst economic times and through economic recovery through those bad times."

Cahill's library renovation proposal was recently rejected by a 5-3 vote of the Council with the mayor subsequently penning a letter to the editor through Patch in support of the renovation, while Councilors Brendan Sweeney and Todd Rotondo issued a response letter defending their vote against it and their assertion that a vote against the mayor's specific proposal was not a vote against funding library repairs and services as a whole.

Cahill's State of the City also included a rundown of planned and recently completed improvements to parks and recreation facilities, fire and police purchases, the creation of the Beverly Youth Council, the hiring of a new social services navigator as part of the city's opioid settlement expenditure, the transition to a civilian first responder dispatch, the work to enhance veterans services and the upcoming Warrior Weekend II, $5 million in grants secured by his administration for municipal projects and proposals and the ongoing work of the administration on racial equity.

He also praised the implementation of the Beverly Community Electric utility aggregation company program as well as the applications under the new accessory dwelling unit ordinance passed by the City Council late last year, which he said has four applications as well as additional inquiries and interest.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)