William Cosmas: Beverly City Council Candidate Profile

BEVERLY, MA — William Cosmas is seeking his first time on the Beverly City Council as an At-Large candidate.

The 42-year-old attorney told Patch he wants to use his unique skills and experiences to help assure Beverly is a city that works for all of its residents.

A graduate of Georgetown University and Boston College Law School, he runs his own litigation practice out of the Cummings Center.

Cosmas lives in Beverly with his wife, Karen, two daughters and his mother.

Campaign website

willforbeverly.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I'm a husband, a father of two kids in Beverly Public Schools, a small business owner operating my law firm at the Cummings Center, and a homeowner who looks after an elderly parent who lives with us. I'm running for City Council At-Large because I love this city, am invested in every part of our civic life together and want to make Beverly an even better place.

Last November, a friend from another Beverly neighborhood reached out with concerns about a decades-old chemical spill and the potential threat to the safety of her family, her home, and her neighbors.

Since then, I have been a volunteer advisor to Voices of Concern (VOC) North Beverly, working with residents, city and state officials, and the responsible company to finish the cleanup permanently and to protect residents and their property for the future. This work inspired me to run for office because it showed me that I could use my experience, skills, and talents to serve the broader Beverly community.

The single most pressing issue facing our city is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

We face a number of challenges and opportunities as a community — from questions of future development, investments in better roads and sidewalks, COVID-19 recovery, and school funding, to ensuring that Beverly is an open, welcoming, and just place for all — but we must prioritize our environment.

We need to address the pollution left over from Beverly's industrial past, preserve our open spaces and Beverly's natural beauty, mitigate our impact on the climate, and prepare for the impact that climate change will have on our coastal city.

If elected to the City Council, I plan to prioritize efforts to remediate lingering pollution — as I have been working to do with VOC North Beverly — support reducing our climate footprint, and strengthen our existing infrastructure. The time for inaction on climate change has passed. We can retrofit older buildings with green technology like solar panels and better insulation, which also has the potential to create new jobs for Beverly residents in a growing industry. We can require any new developments to use the same sort of green technology, and we can continue our invaluable work with the city of Salem on a climate action plan.

I would also look for ways to secure more state and federal funding not only to mitigate the effect we have on our climate but to prepare for how our changing climate will affect us. Our infrastructure — from our storm drains to our roads — must be able to face the challenge of the "hundred-year storms" that now seem to hit us every couple of years. As a coastal city, in order to remain the sort of place where people want to start or grow a business, want to visit to enjoy our restaurants and other cultural attractions, or to raise their family like my wife and I are, we must address this threat to the future livelihood of our community.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

First, I'm the only candidate in this race who is all of these things: a husband, a homeowner, a father of two kids in Beverly Public Schools, a Beverly small business owner, and a son who looks after an elderly parent. I'm invested in each part of our civic life together. A City Councilor can have a pile of policy papers taller than a stack of bibles, but if they don't experience the impact of those policies on a daily basis, it's difficult to understand what they really mean to their constituents.

Second, I'm an attorney. I've been a practicing business litigator for 14 years. My profession requires me to read through dense documents, figure out what they mean, find the most important parts, investigate relevant facts, and advocate on behalf of my clients to reach the best possible result for them. Sometimes this means negotiating with people on the other side of an issue to reach that result. I'm also trained to apply the facts to the law. I see these as key skills and talents for a city councilor, where my goal will be to get the best deal for Beverly, its residents, and its businesses on the wide range of issues that confront us today.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

Given the nature of this race, in which there's only one incumbent running for one of three spots, I don't necessarily see myself as a challenger. Beverly has been blessed to have steady hands leading the City Council for many years, but with two councilors At-Large stepping aside, there's an opportunity for new leadership and new experience. I'd like to build on the success of the city council in steering us through difficult times and investing in our future. I think we can be more proactive in reaching out to the community concerning issues that affect them and encourage transparency in our city government. Nobody has "failed" — we just have an opportunity to move forward, together.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

Our city government performed admirably during the pandemic, which was a situation without precedent bringing unprecedented challenges to a group of dedicated public servants. For example, the sacrifice of our public servants to open schools and child care facilities as soon as possible was of obvious and critical importance to me and my family — and represents a great success on the city's part. From first responders on the frontlines of the pandemic, to city workers who kept our parks and open spaces available for us to use, to the foodservice workers at our schools making sure that everyone had something to eat, the best of Beverly shined through even the darkest days of the pandemic.

Elsewhere, I think the city has tried diligently to use its available tools to keep people safe and protected. I know that my mother, for example, appreciated the "reverse 911" update calls from Mayor (Mike) Cahill. I might have tried to increase the level of communication, education, and transparency even further on issues like the removal of trash barrels from our sidewalks, planned capital projects, and public health measures imposed by the city.

Overall, however, I was proud to live in Beverly during the pandemic because of how our city government, first responders, and school system worked to guide us through. As we move forward, we have decisions to make about spending federal funding for COVID recovery, and I am eager for a proactive, transparent, and collaborative approach to address them.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

I intend to be a proactive city councilor who reaches out to our citizens, our neighborhoods, and our businesses to understand their concerns and bring them before the city council and other relevant departments. Aside from the environmental issues I addressed above, we face a number of challenges and opportunities as a community — from questions of future development in Beverly, to making sure that all of our neighborhoods enjoy our investments in better roads and sidewalks, and helping our small businesses and residents who continue to recover from the impact of COVID-19, to issues of human dignity like making sure our children have the opportunity to reach their full potential and ensuring that Beverly is an open, welcoming, and just place for all.

Beverly continues to grow, which is a positive sign for any city, but we need to approach this growth responsibly. When considering any new development, we need to think about how it fits within a coherent plan: how will it affect and interact as part of the city we already have; how it might impact the ability for people to get around; whether there will be adequate parking and other services for any new residents; whether we can require the use of green technology to minimize the additional impact on our electrical grid or our precious water resources; and how it will fit with the historic nature and character of our beautiful city. Any process also needs to be transparent, so that whatever deal we reach for our residents becomes reality and not just a set of empty promises on a piece of paper. We also need to address the aging parts of our infrastructure — like our roads and sidewalks — that can be not just inconvenient but hazardous.

Responsible development also means making sure there are places where people can afford to live. Beverly should continue to lead in the volume and access to affordable housing, and we also should look for creative solutions for "missing middle" housing options for our residents. Additionally, we should seek to encourage in-law apartments and accessory dwellings to increase our housing stock and overall affordability.

We have a detailed and promising Master Plan, which we can use as an important guide as we think about where we emphasize growth and development. As a litigator, I know that I can use my skills to ensure that we get the best deal possible for Beverly in the process, with terms we can enforce on things like pest mitigation, recreational and open space access, and green technologies as any project moves forward.

Diversity gives any community strength — and we must ensure that Beverly is an open, welcoming, and just community for all people. As the grandson of immigrants from Greece who brought their dreams to this country in the early 1900s, I have an understanding of what it's like to be new to a place and to face barriers as a result.

Through our city government, through our schools, and on the neighborhood level, we must do all that we can to make sure our fellow residents are treated with dignity and respect — no matter where they're from, what they look like, who they are, or who they love. This is a moral issue, and it is everyone's responsibility to bear. We need to support related, existing groups and initiatives - and to challenge ourselves to embrace a dynamic and growing Beverly that might look different from how it once did but could be even better.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have built a successful legal career representing a broad range of individuals and businesses in an even more comprehensive array of cases and situations, applying different sets of facts to the law in each instance. In addition to my work helping the residents affected by the Varian spill in North Beverly, in 2014, I represented, pro bono, one of the first successful petitioners for a pardon from the commonwealth in 12 years. On behalf of my client, who was 28 years old and had turned his life around, I navigated an exceedingly complex legal, regulatory, and political framework - for which there's no guidebook — to help him obtain clemency and change the trajectory of his life. I know that I have the skills, talents, and experience to be an effective City Councilor At-Large and advocate for the people of Beverly.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

When I was in high school, my late father told me: "I don't care what you do with your life — just be a good person." That's what I strive to do in my personal life and how I would approach my work on behalf of my constituents.