This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on September 12, 2005.

By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer

NEW BEDFORD -- At the Westlawn public housing complex in the city's West End, Matthew A. Morrissey, candidate for mayor, conducted a voter registration drive with several Spanish-speaking volunteers.

During the drive, Mr. Morrissey sat down with Jose Lopez, an out-of-work Navy veteran living with his wife and two children in his mother's subsidized apartment. Mr. Lopez was despondent about his job prospects, despite his ability in the construction trade.

"There's nobody on these construction jobs with dark skin," Mr. Lopez said. "They see me and they say there's no openings."
Mr. Morrissey related to Mr. Lopez his experience growing up: A child of divorce, family members who struggled with alcoholism and living for a time on welfare.

"I'm running because I believe if New Bedford is going to move forward, all of us have to move forward," Mr. Morrissey said. "If we're not all in this together, I don't think any of us have a future." He left Mr. Lopez with a voter registration card.
Campaigning in a shirt and tie, dress slacks and loafers, Mr. Morrissey was as comfortable on the campaign trail talking about skateboards with a 10-year-old as he was talking about litter with an impassioned neighborhood activist. He told voters that a vote for him is an end to "politics as usual."

"We live in a 19th century political system where, if you want something done, you call the ward councilor, who calls the mayor, and the pothole gets fixed, and then you'll vote for that person," he told Irvington Street resident Marcel Despres while knocking on doors. "The system has got to go. We've got to set up a system to fix the streets that's fair, and free of politics."

Mr. Morrissey, 32, has energetically pursued people who are not usually interested in local politics. And he's made an extra effort to include young people and people of color.

He has the support of some established political constituencies. A number of professors from UMass Dartmouth, where Mr. Morrissey is an administrator on leave, have thrown their support behind him: Dr. Bruce Rose, assistant provost at UMass Dartmouth and a member of the local NAACP branch; retired UMass Dartmouth Dean of Students Donald Howard; and Carol Pimentel, director of internal audit and administrative services at UMass Dartmouth and former city auditor, among others.

Another base of support is residents from wealthy New Bedford and its suburbs, epitomized by former Mayor John Bullard and Margaret "Mardee" Xifaras, an attorney and member of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Morrissey once worked in the office of former UMass President and Senate President William Bulger, still a powerful force in state politics. But Mr. Morrissey said Mr. Bulger is not active in his campaign.

Mr. Morrissey has worked to include people from all walks of life. On his steering committee are Tony Sapienza, executive vice president of Joseph Abboud Clothing and former chairman of the Greater New Bedford Workforce Investment Board; Richard Quintin, a teacher at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School; Warren Berube, vice president of the Center for Health and Human Services; John Vasconcellos, development director for the Coalition for Buzzards Bay; Keri Goldman, a preservationist and financial director of Medium Studio; and Guillermo Gonzalez, a psychiatrist who is running for School Committee.

He has received the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 791, which represents 6,000 workers at Shaw's Supermarkets.

"We feel that you will provide the city of New Bedford with bold leadership and that you will make the tough decisions necessary to move the city forward in a positive direction," wrote Peter Derouen, the UFCW's director of political and legislative affairs, in the endorsement.

He has also received the endorsement of the Seafarers International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 328; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 2222; and the International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 4.

Mr. Morrissey has estimated that it will take between $100,000 and $150,000 to compete with incumbent Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr., and so he has held numerous fundraisers, and has launched an Internet fundraising campaign. A number of those fundraisers were held in the homes of wealthy supporters in Dartmouth and Marion.

Married and the father of three, Mr. Morrissey is one of eight challengers to Mayor Kalisz. He grew up in the North End, graduated from GNB Voc-Tech and earned a bachelor's degree from UMass Dartmouth. He lives in a house he and his wife, Kristen, own on County Street near Clasky Common.

At UMass Dartmouth, Mr. Morrissey was a student trustee who served on a presidential search committee that recommended Mr. Bulger and two other candidates for the president of the state university system.

After graduating, he worked for a time in Mr. Bulger's office, then left to found Mogall.com, and was later hired by the Public Consulting Group as a consultant. After 18 months with the consulting company, he moved from Boston back to his hometown, and was hired as an assistant to UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack. He took leave from that post to run for mayor.

Mr. Morrissey said he is running for mayor because Mayor Kalisz has lost touch with the people, and has lost his focus.
The candidate has been fond of touting the equation "4 + 17 + 33 = 54." The city has the fourth-highest unemployment in the state, 33 percent of incoming students at New Bedford High School drop out of school before graduating, and, when he began using the equation, there were 17 unsolved murders in the past four years.

The total, 54, is the percentage he says the average tax bill has gone up ($1,440 in 1997 to $2,224 in 2005) in the eight years that Mayor Kalisz has been in office.

He regularly asks people if the city's services have improved at the same rate.

"We might have brought ferries to New Bedford, and dredged the harbor for cruise ships, but to me, those things don't matter," he said to Steve Lopes, a resident of the West End. "We've got to address these core issues. We've got to focus our resources on resolving those issues."

Mr. Morrissey has consistently criticized the mayor's track record.

He has criticized the condition of the city's roads and trash collection, and has taken issue with the mayor's "ethical lapses" for buying personal insurance with campaign funds. (Mayor Kalisz admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to pay back his campaign $8,000, the cost of eight years' worth of life and auto insurance).

Mr. Morrissey has called for Mayor Kalisz to distance himself from his former city solicitor and political adviser, George Leontire, who he says confronted him during the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament.

The mayor has not taken the criticism lightly. Mayor Kalisz shot back that Mr. Morrissey does not understand Proposition 2½, the law that prevents the property tax rate from increasing more than 2½ percent per year. Mayor Kalisz has also said Mr. Morrissey purposefully glossed over the fact that Mogall.com spent $2.5 million in venture capital in eight months, then closed down.

Mr. Morrissey has responded to those charges, saying that taxpayers don't care about the tax rate, they care about how much their tax bills have gone up. And he has calculated the average residential tax bill has gone up by 54 percent over eight years.

And while he admitted that Mogall.com was a financial failure, Mr. Morrissey said it provided him with valuable business experience and contacts. The technology Mr. Morrissey created for Mogall was eventually purchased by the Public Consulting Group, one of the largest government consulting companies in the United States. The company hired him to implement the technology.

As Mr. Morrissey was campaigning for mayor on Irvington Street in his old North End neighborhood, 10-year-old Johnny Rios and 12-year-old Fabian Matias rolled past on skateboards. Mr. Morrissey approached them to tell them he's running for mayor.
Johnny asked, "What's the whole point of being mayor?"

Mr. Morrissey laughs. "Well, if you're mayor, you can implement some real change. If you're mayor, you can make a difference," he said.

"Can we get a skateboard park?" asked Fabian.

"You could if you talk to a few people, and they talk to a few people, and then all those people get together and ask for it, then you can change things," Mr. Morrissey answered, giving them each a full-color campaign brochure.

Later, a group of eight boys, egged on by Johnny and Fabian, asked Mr. Morrissey to sign a blank piece of paper. They told him it is a petition to get a new skateboard park in Brooklawn Park.

Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com

This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on September 12, 2005.