Q&A With Ward 3 City Council Candidate Bill Toomey

This is one of three Q&As with the candidates running for Ward 3 on the Peabody City Council. The primary election is Tuesday, Sept. 17.

• Name: William Toomey
• Age: 81
• Occupation: Retired
• Political office: City Council, 26 years (Ward 3, 1974-1977; At-Large, 1978-1999)

Peabody Patch: What is the most important issue in Ward 3 and what needs to be done about?

Bill Toomey: The most prevailing concern is summed up with TRAFFIC. Whether on Central Street or Gardner or Andover streets it's there and is ever increasing.

There are other pressing issues such as overdevelopment in the ward, which has increased, to capacity, the Carroll School population, decisions made by various boards to encroach business into residential areas such as a possible cab stand in a multi-family residential area, expansion of non-conforming uses in single-family areas, such as Andover and Pulaski streets. More importantly the dis-enfranchisement of the senior voters of Wilson Terrace who were displaced to Precinct 2 to even out the equal number of voters in each precinct by the Board of Registrars under state edict (22 of the 42 are 80 years old, the rest are either handicapped or in their mid to late 60s). The net result is that these people are 
no longer voting and I am personally working on that and will continue to do so until resolved.

The city has spent a small fortune on reconditioning Main Street with the exclusion of Walnut Street and Foster Street and I have made enough complaints about this at various meetings directed by the Community Development Department this past year where other candidates have attended or could have and did not raise a voice in this matter.

Ward Three needs a councilor who will work with our public safety people to get a handle on a daily basis with our traffic problem. I will from day one work with the other councilors, the mayor and the public safety personnel to man the major intersections of our city during peak hours to control and at times be authorized to override the control signals to maintain a smooth flow of east/west traffic.

Traffic movement is becoming an art and let us perfect it right here in Peabody.

Patch: What do you see as the most pressing issue for the City Council to address (more on a citywide basis)?

Toomey: The most pressing issue for the council is obviously budgetary oversight. The council should be the overseers of the city side budget with complete knowledge of our revenues and expenses. The School Committee should follow suit.

Our largest expense of the next 30 years  is currently a $17 million commitment to the regional voke at Essex Aggie.

Patch: Do you have a humorous or interesting anecdote to share from your campaign so far?

Toomey: The most humorous  incident I’ve experienced is  keeping up with the "sign bully." Since I was first out with my signs I guess the "bully" needed some good direction.