Dominick Pangallo Steps To Forefront As Salem's Next Mayor

SALEM, MA — Dominick Pangallo has spent his entire political career doing the work of government while standing just outside of the spotlight.

The Chief of Staff to former Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll for the final 10 years of her administration, Pangallo told Patch he found himself content in that role. Let others make the speeches while he deliberated on the important details. He was good with doing the work he believed in while many of the accolades and appreciation — as well as some of the slings and arrows — were directed toward the name at the top of the letterhead.

"It was never part of my long-range plan, to be honest," he said of running for elected office. "It was never something I envisioned for myself. I had always considered myself more of a policy person in the trenches getting things done but never thought of myself as a candidate."

But that all changed late last year as Driscoll's bid to become the state's lieutenant governor made it appear more and more likely that the Witch City was looking at its first new mayor in 17 years.

Pangallo said he felt anxious about whether Driscoll's successor would continue to push the city forward in a way he thought he had helped guide it over the previous decade.

"I did feel we were at a unique moment and a pivotal moment where there was a lot at stake," he said.

So last fall he became the first candidate to toss his hat in the ring to be Driscoll's elected replacement should she win. After she was inaugurated in January, he went on to top a five-person field in the preliminary election in March before claiming a victory in last Tuesday's run-off election by about 500 votes over former Salem Mayor Neil Harrington.

On Saturday, the man who always stood one or two steps to the left or right of the guest of honor at such events will become that himself when Pangallo is officially sworn in as Salem's next mayor at a 2 p.m. inauguration at the Bentley Academy Innovation School.

"I entered the race and made my decision to run for this seat with eyes wide open as that responsibility being great," he said. "The ultimate responsibility lies with the mayor. As the Chief of Staff, I had a role where I would advise and advocate for the administration's agenda. But at the end of the day, it was the mayor's name on the press release, or the city contract, or the ordinance.

"The person in charge has a lot on their shoulders. I recognize that and that's probably going to be the biggest change from what I've done."

Convincing residents he would continue to push what he viewed as the progress of the Driscoll administration without actually being Kim Driscoll was one challenge he faced on the campaign trail. He said that was one advantage of declaring early and getting the chance to let people get to know him as Dominick Pangallo, instead of the guy speaking on behalf of Mayor Driscoll.

"People may have been familiar with my work but not familiar with me," he said. "They needed that extra time to get to know me in a city where the mayor really is the chief executive officer. It's an important position and not just a figurehead."

Pangallo said the campaign reinforced some of his own feelings that the city had evolved well over the past decade, and that residents saw improvement in what was once an oft-maligned public school district. But it also showed him that some of the depictions around the city and the country at large were not necessarily the reality for all residents.

"One of the issues people are most concerned about is the cost of living," he said. "The idea that inflation is over is not the lived experience. The narrative you sometimes hear from the media and the narrative you hear at the doors from people who are having a hard time paying utility bills is at odds at times."

As someone who prides himself on making decisions and creating policy based on data and evidence over anecdotal perceptions — which became one of the few consistent campaign debate points between himself and Harrington — he said he came to realize that how people feel about a given situation may not always be how the facts and figures frame it to be.

"That's a tricky balance of government," he said. "The perceptions and feelings are valid in that will affect the way you are going to be able to do things in the future. At the same time, while we have to give weight to the way people feel about a situation, we also have to give weight to the reality of the situation.

"That's when you have to try to have a longer conversion. If we can have that conversation, I can tell you that I understand this makes you feel frustrated that the roads are congested. But let me show you how things are congested because of traffic signals and not because of bike lanes.

"It's hard. It requires thoughtfulness. It requires patience. Sometimes it requires a longer conversation than people want to engage in in a 140-character (Twitter) world. But when you can have those conversations that's when you can often get to a resolution that everybody understands."

With a career built on using public and government resources to try to help people, that sometimes means trying to convince people that government is not the enemy.

"Salem has a reputation as a place where we are going to try to be innovative and try to get involved," he said. "There is often an attitude that we don't want big government unless the government is going to help me solve that problem.

"But this government is all of us. It's public policy developed in a public process. We are using it to solve problems and not create them."

(In the second of this two-part Patch series, Mayor-Elect Dominick Pangallo will discuss some of the challenges he expects to immediately face upon his swearing-in to the office on Saturday.)