Top Ten Saugus Stories for 2023

A campaign to change the Town Charter and the firing of School Supt. McMahon dominated the news

By Mark E. Vogler

As we approach the New Year, The Saugus Advocate took time this week to reflect and look back on what we consider the most significant stories of 2023. It is a very subjective exercise that most newspapers like to do as the centerpiece of a “Year In Review” edition. In compiling our list of “Top Ten Saugus Stories for 2023,” we perused the cover pages of this year’s editions, making note of the stories that dominated the headlines. We also reached out to town and school officials to get their opinion on what they thought the top stories were.

“There were several stories that made the headlines in 2023, but I believe the ‘City vs. Town’ discussion along with the dismissing of the School Superintendent were two of the more notable ones,” Board of Selectmen Chair Debra Panetta said.

A majority of the Board of Selectmen mentioned efforts by then-Board of Selectmen Chair Anthony Cogliano to change the charter as their top story.

In last year’s “Year In Review” edition published by The Saugus Advocate, Cogliano called it his top priority for 2023. “I would like to see Saugus work, and I will lead the charge to change our charter in 2023 and finally become a city,” Cogliano said.

“It’s time, our form of government is outdated and, in my opinion, we can and should be doing better. If all goes well, we could have a question on the November ballot to change the charter and form a charter commission,” he said. “Should everything go to plan, we could have our first election for Mayor in 2025, which also goes along with the expiration of the current Managers Contract. I believe the top official in Saugus should be elected by the people and not simply reappointed by 3 members of the Board of Selectmen. I would imagine a Mayoral race in Saugus would be quite interesting…. something I would definitely be interested in.”

Based on the headline count on the front pages of our newspaper and the significance the story played in the lives of Saugus residents, we ranked the campaign to change Saugus governance and the School Committee’s decision to fire its first woman superintendent as the top stories in Saugus during 2023. Here’s is the list of what we consider the town’s most significant news stories over the past year

1) A campaign to change Saugus governance

The town engaged in a year-long debate initiated by Board of Selectmen Chair Anthony Cogliano on whether to change the Saugus Town Charter. Cogliano initially suggested that Saugus should consider switching to a city with a mayoral form of government. He also said he could support having an elected town manager if Saugus didn’t want to turn into a city. Cogliano spearheaded a petition drive that obtained 3,305 certified voter signatures – more than enough to guarantee a ballot question would be put before voters. At the same time, voters would be asked to elect a nine-member Charter Commission. The race for a seat on the Charter Commission drew interest from 27 candidates, whose names were listed on the ballot, along with the question: “Shall a commission be elected to revise the Charter of the Town of Saugus?” In the November town election, Saugus rejected that ballot question by 193 votes.

2 A) Firing Saugus’ first woman education leader

The dismissal of Saugus Superintendent of Schools Erin McMahon over alleged misconduct involving ethical and conflict of interest-related issues drew significant attention for Saugus Public Schools – from January, when the School Committee placed her on paid administrative leave – until early November, when the members voted to fire her. McMahon, the first woman superintendent in the history of Saugus Public Schools, said she believes that the allegations that eventually led to her firing were motivated by gender discrimination. But the lengthy report that details the specific reasons for McMahon’s termination identifies the source of the initial complaints as a high-level woman administrator – Deputy Superintendent Margaret Ferrick – whom McMahon had hired to be her number two person. The allegations of wrongdoing against McMahon focused on potential conflicts of interest involving the superintendent’s working relationship with a consultant, fraudulent activity in the payment of invoices to a certain professional development provider for the School District, inappropriately used grant funds and questions about the significant amount of time she was spending out of the School District. McMahon was halfway through a five-year, million-dollar contract at the time she was placed on administrative leave in January. This marked the first time in the history of Saugus Public Schools that the School Committee approved a five-year contract to the leader of the town’s public education system. School Committee members were optimistic that McMahon could make good on her five-year mission to move the school district from the bottom 10 percent in the state to the top 10 percent. But the investment failed.

2 B) Hiring a Saugonian to replace McMahon

Committee members immediately found a silver lining in a year of turmoil when they offered the superintendent’s job to longtime Saugus educator and former High School Principal Michael Hashem, who had been serving as acting superintendent during the nine and a half months that McMahon had been on administrative leave. Hashem agreed to sign a three-year contract that will keep him as superintendent through June 30, 2027. In a year of turmoil, school officials looked upon the Saugus native as a stabilizing force who could oversee plans to turn around one of the state’s lowest performing school districts. Hashem, 56, is a Saugus native and a product of the town’s education system – a 1985 Saugus High School graduate. He has spent three decades of his professional career as a teacher and administrator in Saugus Public Schools. He started out as a high school math teacher in 1991. He was in his third year as principal of Saugus High School in 2016 when he offered to accept the role of interim superintendent and later acting superintendent back in March. He later returned to Saugus High School as principal in July of 2016. After eight years as principal of Saugus High School, Hashem gave up his administrative job for the classroom as a mathematics teacher in June of 2021. School Committee members lauded Hashem’s leadership, particularly for overseeing the school district’s move from the old Saugus High School to the new Saugus Middle-High School Complex in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3) The 2023 Town Election

The defeat of a ballot question to create a nine-member Charter Commission drew most of the attention, as voters had to simultaneously consider who to select from 27 candidates in the event that the question passed. It was a good year for newcomers to run for Town Meeting seats. Thirteen of 19 candidates who challenged incumbents running for reelection in the Town Meeting races were elected. Ten of the 47 Town Meeting members seeking reelection lost their seats. Voters decided to stick with the five selectmen for a third consecutive two-year term (Debra Panetta, Jeffrey Cicolini, Michael Serino, Anthony Cogliano and Corinne Riley). But two of the incumbent School Committee members – Leigh M. Gerow and Joseph Dennis Gould – lost their seats. Former School Committee Member Thomas Richard Whittredge and newcomer Stephanie Lauren Mastrocola replaced them. School Committee Chair Vincent Serino beat out Whittredge, a former School Committee chair, by 20 votes in the race for committee leadership. School Committee Members Ryan Fisher and John Hatch were each elected to their third consecutive two-year-term.

4) The pot business comes to Saugus

The Board of Selectmen voted to issue a special permit to only one of seven applicants seeking to locate a retail marijuana dispensary on Route 1 in Saugus. Selectmen could have issued up to three S-2 permits. But with Selectman Jeffrey Cicolini abstaining from the proceedings because of a potential conflict of interest, it was difficult to achieve a consensus vote on any of the permits. The process became a contentious and polarizing one when Board of Selectmen Chair Anthony Cogliano criticized the findings of the Marijuana Establishment Review Committee and disparaged the committee’s choice of Uma Flowers – the unanimous selection of the seven-member committee, achieving a perfect score of 140 total points based on an “exceptional” rating by each member in each of the five categories that were considered.

5) WIN Waste Innovation-related issues

  The aging trash-to-energy plant on Route 107 continued to keep its owner in the public spotlight. A bad valve at the WIN Waste Innovations plant caused a deafening noise that frightened hundreds of Saugus and Revere residents. WIN Waste issued an apology to Saugus and Revere residents and promised to take steps to avoid a future occurrence. After some bitterly divisive debate, selectmen voted 3-2 in April in support of a Host Community Agreement (HCA) with WIN Waste Innovations that won’t take effect unless the state allows the company to expand its ash landfill. Selectman Jeffrey Cicolini said he doesn’t support expansion of the ash landfill, but cast what many Town Hall observers consider the tie-breaking vote just in case state environmental officials later retreat from a decision to not allow farther expansion of the ash landfill in an environmentally sensitive area. Local environmentalists also expressed public concerns about improving air monitoring around town, particularly in areas near the plant.

6) Cliftondale Revitalization

Trying to revive Cliftondale Square as one of Saugus centers of commerce continues as a top town issue. The town received a $2.3-million federal grant to revitalize Cliftondale Square. A proposal to create an Overlay Zoning District for Cliftondale fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority needed during the Annual Town Meeting.

7) Efforts to get a third fire station

There is some progress in the decades-long quest for a third Saugus fire station, which would be located on the west end of town. Town Meeting members overwhelmingly approve an article to borrow $400,000 for a feasibility study for the station. Selectmen have already dedicated this project as one of their top priorities in the new year.

8) Continuity in government at Town Hall

The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously in January to give Town Manager Scott C. Crabtree a two-year contract extension that will keep him in charge of town government through August 2027. In November, Saugus voters decided to keep the current Board of Selectmen together for a third consecutive two-year term despite a contentious political campaign and several controversies that polarized the board during the year. Voters also expressed an interest in keeping Saugus’ form of government the way it was when they rejected a ballot question that would have created a nine-member Charter Commission to study and consider possible changes. Had the Charter Commission been approved, seven of the nine members who were elected to serve on it would not have been in favor of making any sweeping changes in Saugus government. They had been looked upon as being “anti-Charter Commission.”

9) A power shift in the Board of Selectmen

The town’s two most prolific vote-getters over the past decade squared off in this year’s Board of Selectmen’s election. Anthony Cogliano had won the most votes by large margins in the 2019 and 2021 elections. Debra Panetta was the top vote-getter in the 2015 and 2017 races, enabling her to win the chair’s seat that she later lost to Cogliano four years ago. But in this year’s election, Panetta was the favorite – receiving the most votes of any of her opponents in all 10 precincts while finishing 474 voters better than her closest opponent. Cogliano fell to fourth place in this year’s race – 759 votes behind Panetta. Cogliano’s voting popularity dipped in the midst of several controversies, which erupted into several verbal confrontations between him and other selectmen.

10) A renewed citizen interest in Town Meeting

The 50-member Town Meeting is the legislative branch and bedrock of Saugus’ local government. In early January, The Saugus Advocate, working with the Saugus Public Library, launched a series of hour-long programs titled “Saugus Over Coffee,” which were held monthly in the library’s Community Room. One of the town’s 10 precincts were featured each month, with residents of the precinct invited to come down to the library to have coffee and meet their Town Meeting members. The Town Meeting members also shared their views on issues they considered to be the most significant in their respective precincts. After hearing the presentations from Town Meeting members, the residents were allowed to ask questions. Residents who weren’t able to attend the program could view it later on Saugus TV. “Saugus Over Coffee” was designed to heighten citizen interest in the Town Meeting, which has had trouble fielding candidates in recent years. In the 2021 town election, half of the 10 precincts saw their five members elected without opposition. But in the 2023 town election, there was competition in all 10 precincts. There will be 13 new Town Meeting members this year – some who said they were inspired to run after attending a “Saugus Over Coffee” session.