Clam Voter Guide, Tombstone Edition

TLDR: On Tuesday, November 7 vote for Paul Lundberg and Jen Holmgren and Melissa Cox for the At-Large seats on the City Council. If you feel the need to add a fourth, go with Joe Ciolino.  

We think Joe Giacalone is the better choice for Ward 2.

Just vote the incumbents on the school council. The one other guy running, Scotadam J. Chernov, we’re told hasn’t been to a single meeting and that’s just…no.

There’s a whole lot of “no” in this piece, btw. It’s sort of a theme. 

For those of you who feel the pressing need to read another 1,300 odd   more words on this feel free to keep going, but you’re busy people, we know that.  

As is traditional, we begin by reminding everyone we are not journalists even though we get quoted in the fucking Washington Post for some reason. This whole blog, started on a literal dare, in its infancy was dedicated mostly to coming up with amusing names for non-existent gay strip clubs on Cape Ann. Remember “Man-Chest by the Sea?” Of course you don’t.

So the local races are coming up in November. We’re a little more than a week out.

“Hey The Clam, tell us who we should vote for because I have no idea about any of these people and I live in a literal cave and wear clothes made out of moss and spend my days making teeny tiny little top hats for the pillbugs I keep in an old Altoids tin.” This is a thing we are hearing now. Ok, fine. Here’s our take. Oh, and remember we sort of don’t care if you don’t agree with us. Feel free to go have your own angry freak out about how horrible and wrong we are on your corner of the Internet.

Mayor:

This is easy. Sefatia, Sefatia, Sefatia. (If you say her name three times fast, she shows up at your house with sugo, I’ve been told).

The other guy is bats. Sefatia will beat him in the saddest landslide that Stevie Nicks hasn’t sang.

City Council, At Large:

Clamsplainer: What the eff is that? The City Council is like the Congress: they vote on stuff like the ban on polystyrene cups, dog ordinances, and most importantly, the budget. They have committees and this is where a lot of the local laws affecting our day-to-day lives in Gloucester come from. The At-Large Councilors are not from any particular “ward” or section of the city (helpful map), but serve the whole city and have to be elected by voters from the entire city, rather than just that district. There are four slots on the City Council for At Large councilors.

At Large is where the real game is this year. Currently the seats are held by Paul Lundberg, Joe Ciolino, Jamie Ohara (sic) and Joe Orlando Jr., all of whom are running for reelection. New folks running: Jen Holmgren, Melissa Cox (Ward 2 Councilor going for At-Large), and Robert D. Whynott Sr.  So, in the TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) at the top of this piece, we’re suggesting you ditch two of the existing councilors who are running again and replace them. “Why, The Clam? Why should we make such a bold move?” you ask, rattling your tin at us menacingly. Shall we solve in listiclce? Yes, let’s shall!

Reasons you should do what the Clam Says for the At Large Race:

THESE PEEPS SHOULD GET YOUR VOTE:

1. Paul Lundberg and Joe Ciolino: Two dudes who’ve been doing this pretty effectively for a long time. Paul is a retired operations guy for a major railroad and Joe is a successful Gloucester small businessman. Full disclosure we hear Joe is hard to work with and honestly, particularly the way he speaks to people, particularly a few of our female readers have mentioned this, needs work. STOP TALKING TO WOMEN LIKE THEY ARE PETS/CHILDREN AMERICA/WORLD. But that’s still our recommendation, based on the choices at hand.
2. OUR BIG CLAMDORSEMENT THIS YEAR: Jen Holmgren: Jen is a nurse and young person who’s involved in, like, everything. She goes to all the meetings (reports say she’s been to more sub- committee meetings and full council meetings than most councilors), talks to folks in that way good nurses do to find out what the addressable parts of the problem are, and comes up with working solutions based on the resources at hand. She went to the High School and has a kid at West Parish and was supportive to other parents and community members during that ongoing nightmare, so she has major cred. To be honest, The Clam has disagreed with her on several important issues, like Sanctuary Cities which she claims may do more harm than good for everyone. But, even further full disclosure, The Clam is somewhat radical on most fronts and is pretty much in favor of establishing a post-scarcity, technology-driven utopian anarchy in Gloucester, which may be beyond the immediate reach of the City Council (until the Singularity, that is). She’s our big endorsement this time around. We need someone like her, bad.  YOU ARE CLAMANDED TO VOTE JEN. 
3. Melissa Cox: Another person with whom we sometimes disagree, but critically (unlike ourselves) she is not an ideologue. She’s pragmatic and budget-minded. The most important thing to know about Melissa is that she takes on every issue and thinks about it objectively, and fights for what’s right. You can talk to Melissa, and she does respond – quickly. She singlehandedly saved KT’s wedding earlier this summer by helping unlock the city hall on Saturday because KT AND JOEY FORGOT TO PICK UP THEIR MARRIAGE LICENSE.  She’s a good choice. We’re not going to wax on about Melissa because she’s the kind of person you don’t really need to explain that hard… she just gets shit done. Worth your vote.

Gender: key note, electing these two means the gender balance of the Council goes from its current 2/9 (Cox and Gillman from Ward 4) to 3/9. Progress, folks.

THESE PEEPS, NO:

1. Joe Orlando Jr: Positions himself as the “young” and a “fiscally responsible, pro-business” voice for for Gloucester. After the past two weeks, just no. His family are unabashedly pro-Trump. His campaign chair single-handedly caused the West Parish debacle and now the principal has to be escorted around for her safety because his campaign unapologetically brought the attention of ultra-right-wing paranoid lunatics to our town over a tiny matter that was being handled internally. They are, in our opinion, truly responsible for thousands of dollars in direct costs like police details and time spent opening angry emails and letters and interviews and who knows how much in indirect costs due to hits on our reputation. THIS IS VERY BAD AND WRONG. Also, for a young voice, he voted in favor of keeping polystyrene cups around, which to us is just… odd. Most young people are hipper to the increasingly threatened environment as they are going to be living in it longer.
2. Jamie OHARA or Ohara or O’hara or O’Hara or OHaha (we’re not clear): He’s your “police and fire” candidate who supports all things public safety. The main reason we don’t support him is when he was knocking on doors during his successful run last round, we mentioned to him his stump speech was somewhat heavy on… how do we say it… fear mongering? Yes, public safety is important. But you have to have stuff to defend, like schools and roads and a community and so on. We respect and fully support the necessary and often risky work of public safety, but are squicked out by “cop groupies” and Ohara pushed that button hard for us during that meeting. So no to him.
3. Bob Whynott Sr.: For real? The world’s crankiest candidate is running on the issue of keeping all plastic bags and styrofoam cups, and reopening the morass that is the Fuller School deal on which we’ve finally made some progress (though obviously there are still issues to be worked out). Great. A throwback candidate. Fuller again? FFS. I think I’d rather have a candidate focused on “Reading into the public record the poetry produced by Jim Dowd in the week immediately following his painful sophomore-year breakup with Molly Brackman”, than a reopening of the Fuller debate. Bob feels like he’s running to win a campaign in the 80’s, but due to current constraints in physics and engineering, campaigns cannot run to win elections in the past. So nopey nope nope on Bob. Also, last time he was on the council, he voted to keep the dangerous parking on lower Prospect across from the DES club because… drumroll… he uses that to park for church. When the public safety aspect was brought up by our men in uniform (you can’t get an ambulance through with a car coming the other way when there’s parking on both sides), he helpfully pointed out “isn’t that what your lights and sirens are for?” So much no.
   

   Onboard the Trump Truck

Ward 2: Joe Giacalone v. Ken Hecht. This is actually a place where we know and like both candidates. But Joe here is the better choice, in our opinion, simply because we’ve known him for years and he grew up in 2, knows everyone there, and every issue down to the bricks in the sidewalk. That’s the kind of representation we want to see there, because in our opinion it’s the tightest ward in town both by density and community, is in a lot of ways the most vulnerable, and definitely the one most under threat from gentrification and Ken is a developer which we’re not sure we’re super cool with having on the council. Developers are necessary and we get it (we also really like his latest project of artist spaces above Jalapenos), but should they be in government? It’s… a grey line for us. Lots of conflicts.  So we think Joe has a grip on this and the ward will benefit from his representation. 

Ok, that’s it. Commence freaking out and unfriending us or whatever. We’re used to it. Also, let those pillbugs go, they’ll die in there, you freak.

Clam, out.