FITCHBURG — In her eight years as mayor, Lisa Wong worked hard.
She gained attention at the state level, helped the city weather the notorious ice storm of 2008, and attempted to improve the city’s schools and economy. She won a hard-fought re-election and made some controversial financial decisions.
On Monday, she leaves office, and leaves the city on what she thinks and hopes is a positive trajectory.
“I’ve done pretty much everything that I wanted to come in and do, so I’m ready for the next adventure,” she said, “but there are some people and things I’m really going to miss.”
Getting specific, Wong said one of the things she’ll miss most is working with the Fitchburg School Committee, which she has chaired for her entire time as mayor.
“I think we’ve got one of the best school committees in the state, if not the country,” she said. “I’m going to miss working with these smart, dedicated residents.”
Another of her best experiences as mayor, Wong said, has also been education-related: witnessing the change in the relationship between Fitchburg State University and the city.
“That’s been a goal of mine, wanting people from the college to want to come downtown,” she said. “Even when Main Street had more businesses years ago, students have never really done that.”
Working in collaboration with former Fitchburg State President Robert Antonucci, Wong made an effort to “move FSU downtown.”
“I think we built a foundation together that will continue,” said Antonucci, who retired last year. “My perspective is, as the university goes, so goes the city, and as the city goes, so goes the university. So it’s important to have a good partnership.”
Wong said it’s been very rewarding to see the results of her and Antonucci’s efforts to strengthen this partnership.
“During my time as mayor, we saw FSU take over some of the office space on Main Street, tear down the brick wall at their campus center and build that glass tower, and tear down some of the vacant buildings on North Street,” she said.
She and Antonucci both agreed they worked well together.
“Our working relationship was outstanding,” Antonucci said. “We respected each other and each other’s roles.”
Some of Fitchburg’s public school educators, though, had a more up-and-down relationship with Wong.
“The first time my eyebrows raised was in 2009,” said Fitchburg Education Association President Adam Cordio. “The Sentinel ran an article saying (Wong) had bought new snow-removal equipment, and when asked, she said the snow-removal money might come from Chapter 70 funds, which is for education. You wonder why we always have a hard time meeting net school spending. Well, when money is being used for snow-removal equipment and not for education, that’s part of why.”
Cordio said he did appreciate Wong’s push this year to get another $700,000 from the city to meet the net school-spending requirement, and he is apt to blame School Department leadership rather than Wong.
However, he was disappointed in other respects.
“She said her focus was going to be on education, and I guess she met the net school-spending requirement, which is good,” he said. “But beyond that, over her whole entire tenure, I can’t think of how she really, truly focused on education.”
Wong provided some examples of her education focus.
“We’ve increased the number of extracurriculars, the number of sports and art programs,” she said. “It’s been great seeing everything from reviving the annual musical, to fixing the school roofs, to increasing the number of AP courses available, to creating a local history class.”
State Rep. and Mayor-elect Stephen DiNatale added that under Wong’s leadership of the School Committee, Fitchburg went from a low-performing MCAS district to one rated “proficient.”
“In eight years of public service, there are many areas of the city where she has placed her mark,” DiNatale said.
In addition to the improvement in the school district rating, DiNatale credited Wong with “bringing us to a level of fiscal stability we were not at when she took office.”
He referenced the money she has put toward the Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) obligation, and the money she has put into the city stabilization fund.
“During the recession, I saw a lot of cities use up their stabilization fund, and we didn’t have that option, because there was so little money in ours,” said Wong. “I made the stabilization fund a priority because if and when there’s another downturn, I want the city to have a cushion.”
The economic recession was one of the hardest things about being mayor, Wong said, in part because it was unexpected. She had to modify many of her plans for the city to fit a much worse economy than she had anticipated when she ran for office.
“When the recession hit and the foreclosures, a lot of my plans had to become very severe,” she said. “Turning the streetlights off and limiting the days the library was open, I was crushed when I had to make those decisions.”
City Councilor Marcus DiNatale said he was impressed by these decisions “because she did things that mayors before her did not have the political will to do.”
On the whole, though, he was fairly critical of Wong.
“The mayor has received a lot of praise in her eight years,” he said, “and things have improved financially during her tenure, but the improvement pales in comparison to the issues still in the city.”
Councilor DiNatale said the OPEB obligation was not addressed until very recently, and the city has one of the worst-funded pension systems in the state. These were problems before Wong came into office, but she did little to address them, he said.
He said he considers her leadership “average at best,” adding that “some of what happened was within her control, and some wasn’t.”
One of the most frustrating aspects of leading the city, Wong said, was dealing with “massive” budget cuts made at the state level that were beyond her control.
“I spent a lot of time advocating in Boston with other mayors for more funds for cities and towns,” she said. “Chapter 70 (money for schools) was cut, general aid to cities was cut, and Chapter 90 (money for road infrastructure) never saw an increase.”
Despite financial limitations in these areas, Wong was able to grow other parts of the economy using grant funding.
Fitchburg Art Museum Director Nick Capasso said he appreciates Wong’s commitment to creating a downtown cultural district, which is still an ongoing effort.
Capasso added that Wong “has been a consistent supporter” of the plan to convert the B.F. Brown building into artist housing and workspace, and of the public art projects like the Immigrant sculpture and the mural on the Arc of Opportunity building.
“The city has come a long way in terms of promoting arts and culture economy,” Capasso said, “and a great deal of that has to do with Mayor Wong’s leadership.”
Wong said it’s been great to see many new businesses, such as Doughnutty’s, Eddy’s Music, and The River Raven opened by locals.
“I’ve always had a hard time convincing locals that Fitchburg can change, because they’ve seen the city’s decline, but the fact that there’s local investment now shows there’s a very bright future for the city,” she said.
Wong said she will definitely miss interacting with Fitchburg residents and business owners. It has been one of her favorite parts of the job.
“The busy day-to-day management of the city, especially hearing directly from the businesses and residents and solving problems is both challenging and rewarding,” she said.
She wants this to continue, if possible.
“If people need my help, even though I’m no longer mayor, they can always find a way to reach out to me,” she said.
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