Beverly Mayoral Candidates Spar On Development, Roads, Land Purchase

BEVERLY, MA — The second candidate forum in a week between Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill and challenger and small business owner Jamie Zarella featured some sharp policy exchanges on development in the city, the downtown municipal lot purchase and the state of Beverly's roads.

The Ryal Side Civic Association hosted the forum Monday night where Cahill touted the progress the city has made during his 10 years in office and how he can professionally and thoughfully navigate the path into the future, while Zarella hit Cahill on what he called "deplorable" and "disgraceful" roads, a communication disconnect between the administration and residents and the dangers of overdevelopment.

The exchanges were far more spirited in the second forum than they were with the largely scripted answers of the Greater Beverly Chamber of Commerce business breakfast forum last week.

"We need to slow down the growth of the city and maybe even pause it," Zarella said. "I think it's putting a serious strain on our city services. I think we need to increase our commercial base to help generate revenue."

Cahill countered that the city population has not actually grown much in recent decades and that the new middle school and high school are below student capacity. He said the city has added nine police officer positions, and eight firefighter positions and is poised to add four more positions through the transition of dispatch to civilian service.

"We've got the staff we need to keep our community safe and deliver the services we need to deliver," he said.

Zarella said Beverly is "turning into an urban development down here" and that "enough is enough."

On the roads, Cahill said the city is looking at a "three-year lookout" for road work and construction that best uses municipal resources as well as state, federal and utility contributions to get as much done as possible. He cited the Bridge Street project as one where the city is investing $1 million into what will ultimately be a $13 million project that begins next year.

"We'll keep pushing as much as we can," Cahill said. "The reality is that there is a decades-long backlog (of projects). It's 160 miles (of roads)."

Zarella argued that at the current pace, the city will "never catch up" with road work and that Cahill's projects have focused less on necessary repaving and more on "sidewalks that are too wide" and "crazy roundabouts."

"(The streets are) deplorable, they're a disgrace, they are unacceptable," he said. "I'll bring your roads back."

Zarella called the $7.5 million purchase of the Dollar Store lot downtown "a very bad deal" for a "postage-sized lot" and said that he wants to slow the residential growth downtown and bring business growth to the eventual Bass River overlay district.

Cahill said the main reason behind the property purchase was to preserve 108 parking spaces because "our downtown businesses need this and our downtown residents need this."

He cast some doubt on whether it will ultimately be cost-effective to move municipal services into the building — one of the selling points of the purchase that was presented to the City Council before it was approved — but that plans remain for the lot to eventually become mixed retail with 50 units of "workforce affordable housing for working families."

In closing, Cahill asked for another term to continue the progress the city has made in building "the best middle school and best police station in the state" in recent years and to "balance all these valid needs and address them the best we can every year."

"I will end the disconnect between the administration and the people," Zarella said. "I will be a mayor for the people."

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