By Ray Lamont
Editor
—
For more than a decade, the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction had been a hub of commerce for Gloucester's fishing industry and its working harbor.
And for at least the last three years, the auction and its president, Larry Ciulla, had been at the forefront of fishing industry resistance to the now well-documented excessive enforcement on the part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's police force.
But this past summer, the auction faced a new legal challenge seeking $1 million in damages. It came not from the government, but from fishermen themselves, who alleged a systematic and wrongful skimming of revenues by the auction from fish sales. Within weeks, the auction business was sold, the Ciullas sought bankruptcy protection, and a new full-service auction — called Base Gloucester — opened in December on Fisherman's Wharf.
That stunning saga and the sea change it has already brought along Gloucester's waterfront has been chosen by members of the Times' staff as the No. 1 local news story in what can, in many ways, be termed a "year of reckoning."
Confronting heroin
It was, after all, a year in which Gloucester residents and officials came face to face as perhaps never before with the city's scourge of heroin and other drug abuse.
That issue, voted by Times staffers as the No. 2 story of the year, first took center stage in January, when a known dealer from Haverhill died after ingesting two packets of heroin during a routine traffic stop by Gloucester police on Washington Street. Then it hit the community hard with the overdose deaths of two local men in their 20s within four days in February.
Yet, beyond the grief of the families, the cases also spurred practical responses both on the part of the city and by the community at large.
On the city side, Gloucester Police have taken new steps forward with the addition of a nasal application of Narcan — a drug that can temporarily reverse the effects of a heroin overdose, making Gloucester the first city in Massachusetts in which both police and the Fire Department's ambulance crews carry Narcan to be used in emergency responses to overdose.
But perhaps more importantly, a grassroots vigil held on Stacy Boulevard in August brought together a number of residents and families touched by overdose deaths and brought a raised level of awareness to a community problem many have thought had been hidden for far too long.
There were other cases of reckoning as well.
In the early-morning hours of March 4, a fire in an historic building at 14 Pleasant St,. at first seemed to be put down quickly by Gloucester firefighters.
But the fire flared again moments later — after firefighters had been called back from the scene. When it did, it ravaged the Schlichte-Johnstone building and heavily damaged the adjacent building at 16 Pleasant St. And it prompted Mayor Carolyn Kirk to call for a full after-action report — a report from a New Hampshire-based consulting firm that delivered scathing reviews of the way the department handled the blaze. That story was voted No. 4 in the poll of Times' staffers.
The hospital deal
While it may not be reckoning, at least one of the other top 10 stories has come with storm clouds that carry over into the new year.
No. 3 on the top-10 list — and a story that will take new steps forward in the first week of the new year — is the agreement announced July 16 by the Lahey Clinic and Northeast Health System, parent company of Gloucester's Addison Gilbert Hospital, to join forces in a new nonprofit corporation to be called Lahey Health System.
Despite assurances from both CEOs — Ken Hanover of Northeast and Howard Grant of Lahey — that they plan to maintain current services at AGH, local activists from Peg O'Malley of Partners for AGH to Gloucester City Councilor Joe Ciolino have pushed for a written guarantee that the new company retain a working emergency room and the eight core services that requires. But the health care partners have resisted doing so.
The next step in the virtual merger comes up quickly. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health will hold a public hearing on the agreement next Thursday at 6 p.m. in Beverly.
Conomo complexities
The final story of reckoning — the story voted No, 6 for Cape Ann — comes from Essex, where, in theory, one of our area's most complex issues actually comes to a head today.
That's when the long-term leases for the mostly seasonal residents of Conomo Point officially expire — beginning a new chapter for the residents and the properties.
The vast majority of residents have signed onto short-term "bridge" leases, which enable them to remain in the houses and on the properties while the town sorts out final plans for what do with the sites. But with legal fees mounting — many disputes remain over the houses, for which residents have long paid both lease fees and property taxes, and with the new bridge leases hiking their rent by, in some cases, more than 100 percent.
If there is a common theme among this year's top 10 local news stories, it is that virtually all will carry well into 2012.
Looking ahead, legal challenges will, one way or another, set the tone for the future of the fishing industry, and new steps are almost certain regarding the hospital merger, the Birdseye site, and Gloucester's I-4, C-2 site.
Like the developments regarding the I-4, C-2 site, for which the city is or formally seeking proposals, there were many 2011 stories worth noting beyond the Times' top-10 list.
Saying goodbye
For one thing, this was a hard year for losses in our community, as we said goodbye to a number of longtime advocates and friends.
They included the likes of author, war veteran, columnist and activist Joseph Garland; Harriet Webster, the driving force behind the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center, now Maritime Gloucester; Jim Munn, the legendary Gloucester High School track and running coach who also turned his "My View" contributions to the Times into significant pieces of community advocacy; and Peter Prybot, the local lobsterman who literally wrote two books on lobstering and the Cape Ann fishing industry, and both educated and entertained readers for decades through his "Ebb & Flow" column in the Saturday morning Gloucester Daily Times.
There were happier moments of transition — topped by the Gloucester School Committee's naming of West Gloucester resident and former Billerica administrator Richard Safier as the city's new superintendent of schools.
And there were cases of residents stepping up and taking lead roles on important community issues involving their local governments — like the Town Meeting vote in Manchester that created a new full-time position of harbormaster, and the Rockport petition drive led by neighbor Marie Larsen that has led to the formation of a committee to decide how to deal with the former Cape Ann Tool Company property.
And through it all were the stories of our communities pulling together — from the relief efforts for families and businesses alike displaced by the Sept. 14 fire at Mansfield and Washington streets, the ongoing Gloucester Fishermen's Athletic Association effort to rebuild Newell Stadium, and the immediate, positive response to our final top-10 story, the replacement of The Greasy Pole after it was topped in the September high tides in Gloucester's Outer Harbor.
So before moving onto 2012 — through tonight's New Year's Rockport Eve and Sunday's city inauguration and swearing-in ceremonies — take a last look back at these and other local news stories from 2011.
They're well worth remembering.
Times Editor Ray Lamont can be reached at 978-283-0700, x3438, or at rlamont@gloucestertimes.com.
