Salem Mayor's Race To Chart Divergent Courses For Witch City's Future

SALEM, MA — There is little doubt that Salem underwent a significant transformation in many ways during the 17 years of the Kim Driscoll administration.

How residents feel about that progress, or a perceived lack thereof, could go a long way toward how they vote in the city's special election to fill the post left vacant when Driscoll resigned to become the state's new lieutenant governor in January.

Former Salem Mayor Neil Harrington, who guided the city from 1990 to 1997, and former Mayor's Office Chief of Staff Dominick Pangallo, who served for nine years under Driscoll and has repeatedly referenced their collective accomplishments during the campaign, were the two top finishers out of a field of five in Tuesday's preliminary vote.

Pangallo finished with about 42 percent of the vote in unofficial results, while Harrington was a clear second at about 31 percent. About 20 percent of eligible residents voted in the primary — a number Harrington said he expects to increase significantly in the May 16 special election.

"I think that we will have different styles of campaigning and in the final election and we will emphasize different points because I think we look at several issues differently," Harrington, the current Salisbury town administrator told Patch Tuesday night. "I am looking forward to multiple debates and the opportunity to show a contrast between me and my opponent."

While Harrington leaned heavily into his experience having served in the office during the primary, Pangallo leaned into what he considered all the accomplishments of the Driscoll administration.

"Voters were looking for somebody who had the same optimism that they have about Salem's future," Pangallo told Patch of the preliminary vote. "That was based on somebody having a real plan for continuing to move us forward with real solutions to the challenges we are facing today.

"Salem has changed enormously in the last few decades. Not only the people who are here, but in the projects and issues and challenges that we are facing."

Some of the two candidates' differences in the direction of the city were evident during the candidate forum held at Salem State on Feb. 28.

While Pangallo expressed support for new affordable housing initiatives such as the long-debated accessory-dwelling unit allowance and a proposed condo-conversion ordinance intended to protect tenants, Harrington said the condo-conversion ordinance was cumbersome and inherently unfair to new and existing property owners.

Both candidates also had a decidedly different view of the annual Halloween festivities that have grown exponentially in recent years and hit nearly 1 million visitors in 2022.

Harrington called the month "out of control" and said that it needs to be downsized to "something we can manage," while Pangallo replied: "We can't go back to the bad practice of acting like it wasn't happening. ... We have to plan for it, and manage it, and improve traffic."

Pangallo said Salem can benefit from what he called a "visitor's economy" in which an influx of tourists helps pay for city services through meals and hotel taxes, while Harrington expressed less of a desire to encourage visitation at the rate to which it has grown in recent years.

"We need to manage the people who come here," said Harrington, noting that the number of vehicles registered to residents in the city has not changed significantly over the past decade as traffic has gotten increasingly worse. "We are not in a difficult position because we're
undesirable. We're in a difficult position because we are desirable. We just have to manage it better."

The winner of the May 16 special election will serve out what would have been the remainder of Driscoll's fifth term through the end of 2024.

(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.)