Welcome, dear readers, to the Gloucester Clam’s no-nonsense, all-snark voter guide for our beloved mayoral preliminary. We promise to serve it up with a side of humor, because if we don’t laugh, we might just start throwing clams. We started working on this a couple of weeks ago but got caught up in public records – so sorry we’re posting at the last minute!
Greg Verga: The Incumbent (aka Greg Burger because letting AI handle city voicemails is hysterical)
Ah, Greg Verga. Where do we even start? Maybe with the infamous teacher strike gesture that was less “peace and love” and more “talk to the hand.” Greg’s got a bit of a habit of dialing and texting everyone like a teenager grounded with a flip phone these days with trash and recycling updates, but dude, read the room – we get it, we have been managing our waste for two months now so say less. Add in the last-minute scramble on private roads—because four years wasn’t quite enough runway—and you’ve got a mayor who’s now juggling more last-minute plans than a procrastinating college student. Overall, he’s fine enough but it’s clear that voters are shopping around this time as compared to the last two races so look for him to tout his accomplishments, but we gotta hear more on vision and get communications consistent on non-election years, too. We’ve liked Greg just fine over the last four years. Did he handle the teachers strike well? Not really. Did he help us stay out of the 3A weeds? Yes, he did, though more leadership would have helped. It was really the Yes For Gloucester team who pushed us over the finish line on that one. Has he been on top of the trash strike? Ehhh, maybe not so much – though he’s adapted after a couple of months. And our DPW workers are rockstars.
Jeff Worthley: Midnight Texter Extraordinaire
Next up, Jeff Worthley. If you ever wondered who’s burning the midnight oil sending texts, well, here’s your guy. He’s managed to turn a personal legal saga into a Gloucester soap opera, and we can’t help but chuckle at the irony: a guy who has struggled with his own mortgage now wants to balance the city’s $170 million budget. That’s especially funny considering he’s taken checks from donors without actually reporting to the state OCPF who’s giving what, and where that money is actually going, until recently. Perhaps there’s a reason he took so long to report his fundraising, but the silence is deafening. We have heard many stories that are credible enough to be even more alarmed at his actions, but his legion of FB fans applauding his every move is Sefatia-esque without any of the sass and all of the pandering instead. There isn’t a good thing in town that’s happened that he won’t take credit for, and when that’s pointed out, his fans are sure to attack anyone that isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid. If he didn’t have a porn lawyer turned first amendment watchdog ready to pounce, we think there would be a lot more scandalous news for voters to digest but here’s to journalism not being quite dead: the GDT has actually done some reporting on these claims in addition to everything else they have to do. At least it’s never boring with him around, but we do worry greatly about a JW mayorship and how batshit cray cray things would most assuredly be under his administration.
Paul Lundberg: The Sweater Vest Sage
Finally, we’ve got Paul Lundberg, the guy who was basically drafted out of retirement like your favorite grandpa who suddenly becomes the town’s voice of reason. Picture Joe Biden’s sweater vest cousin, and you’ve got Paul. He’s the non-incumbent, non-elected official who’s here to give us all a dose of “let’s just be sensible, folks,” and maybe a cup of tea while we’re at it. He’s boring, he’s smart, and he’s a safe pick with very little controversy, even while serving as Council President alongside the Sefatia Administration, but perhaps that’s a bad thing in today’s never-ending-social-news-why-did-I-login-today-cycle as his biggest problem is answering, “who’s Paul Luxemburg?” and “hasn’t he ever done anything wrong?” But hey, he’s got hair (and pretty good hair, at that), so that’s something.
Two of these three will move on to the final election. We’re hoping it’s Lundberg and Verga, and a narrow majority of Team Clam are backing Lundberg – even though it’s good for our pageviews (too bad we never monetized it) we’d love a drama-free local government for a while so we can just snark about Fiesta, regret the loss of the Wendy’s Gloucester page (it was run by a Friend Of The Clam), and follow the national drama.. And we’re hoping that after this prelim we can forget the name Worthley forever.
But…but…but – WHO ARE YOU?!?!