Coffey, Dennis 03.09 - University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries

D: Paul Tsongas brought him in, sure. And Paul Tsongas was a big advocate for Jim
coming in. And (--)
A: And how did that work? Do you know?
D: Well I don’t know. I think you know, I think Paul worked on Jim a little bit, but Jim
wasn’t going to change, you know, that was Jim’s philosophy. And you know, he was a
hard-driving city manager and you know, no pip squeak planner was going to tell him
how to think. (A: Sure) But he was also a shrewd politician. (A: Okay) And when he
saw the winds changing you know, he, he never got enthusiastic, but he didn’t get in the
way either, and actually he was helpful over time. I remember one of the, one of the
other little things that I did was remember Pat Malone?
A: Yup, from Rhode Island?
D: Yah. Pat wanted to do a HAER, inspection of the canals. And so I worked with him
and we got the grant, but we had to get matching money. And so I trooped over to Bobby
Healy who was Jim Sullivan’s assistant, you know. I said, “Bob, I said, we really got to
get this money.” And he said, “Where am I going to get it?” Well we came up with a
few ideas you know, and we found the matching money. So you know, we got it. And it
was a two-year program. And the second year Lowell was having a real bad budget
crunch, and we had to you know, they had an across the board cut of 5%, or some, some
such number. So all of a sudden we don’t have the full match. So I went back to Bobby,
and I said, “Bob you know, you got to restore this 5%.” “I can’t do it. I can’t do it,” you
know. We argued back and forth and everything. So I forget what I did. I think I went
back to Pat Mogan, and Pat said, “Oh I’ll find the money somewhere, you know.” He
found it, you know. So we had the match and you know, so we did the two-year HAER
Study.
A: So it’s probably what? What did you need, $3500 bucks or something?
D: Probably at the time you know. At the time it was a big crisis you know, but you’re
right, it was probably some miniscule amount of money like that. And but yah, that was,
that was when Chuck Parrot I think first came up, (A: Sure, sure) and people like that,
and got exposed. And that was kind of again the excitement of you know, people coming
in that had different perspectives. And looking at what we had here, and getting
enthusiastic about it, you know Pat Malone, what a character. What a great guy he was,
you know, and he led that team. And you know the CDA staff, what a bunch of whackos,
you know, they got long hair, or beards and you know, they don’t dress right, [Both
laugh] and they smell, and they’re out there trooping around in the canals. And that does
remind me of another thing, the power elite, the power structure we were talking about.
Mel Lesberg? (A: Sure) Mel Lesberg, while he was probably not power elite he
represented them. (A: Yah) And who he represented, [snaps fingers] and now the name
isn’t going to come to me. A lawyer.
A: Eldred Field?
24