Newton Mayor David Cohen announced today that he will not be seeking reelection to a fourth term next year. As discussed here just last week, Cohen has seen his popularity plummet recently in the wake of the Newton North High School construction project.
This announcement brings a number of questions to mind:
1) What effect will this have on the hotly contested override vote scheduled for May 20th? Is it more likely to pass now that people know he is not running, and thus perhaps voters feel less urgency to send him a message by voting against it?
2) Two candidates have already declared an interest in running for mayor: US Navy Intelligence Specialist Setti Warren and Alderman Ken Parker. Which one benefits more from an open seat?
3) What caused him to make this decision? Did he finally realize that his popularity was simply too low to gain a fourth term?
In any event, this is another interesting development in what is shaping up to be quite a busy year and a half in Newton politics, leading up to next year’s mayoral election.
That’s the old Chinese curse, right? Well, Newton is in the thick of interesting times, for sure.
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p>To answer your questions:
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p>1. This makes the override more likely to pass, but not by a whole lot. Prior to this announcement, there were two kinds of override opponents: 1. people who had a legitimate problem with the economics of it, and claimed Newton did not need an override, and 2. people who acknowledged we needed an override, but did not trust the mayor to administer their money wisely after the Newton North High School debacle. Now, the former crowded has been somewhat persuaded by Cohen’s annoucement. Override opponents in the former camp are now doing all they can to convince people that the override is still a bad idea, and that this was never a referendum on the mayor, even though just weeks prior, a fair amount of people were calling it exactly that.
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p>2. I think this has to help Setti. Ken Parker and the mayor were not friends, and many of the mayor’s supporters don’t like Ken. Personally, I think he’s an okay guy. But Cohen’s supporters will now be looking for another horse to back. Paul Levy has said he’s not interested in the job, but that was before the mayor said he wasn’t running.
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p>3. Who knows what caused him to make the decision now, but he’s been unpopular this past year. The high school exposed his inability to be transparent and deal with the board of aldermen, and the press, very well. It was obvious when watching him interact with either the board or the press that he just was not enjoying his job. And when your friends of 30 years start to desert you… it’s time to hang ’em up.
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p>You can check out some entertaining discussion here:
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p>http://blogs.townonline.com/ne…
Maybe he wants a better job?
The mayor of Newton is paid less than the superintendent of schools in the city, any of the principals…even less than the mayor’s assistant. The current mayor never drew the salary to which he was entitled and had been voted in for him.
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p>I think Cohen is actually trying to secure the raise for his successor.
Final Cost Prediction: $245 million. A quarter billion dollars. That’s why Cohen is not seeking re-election (in answer to your Question #3.)