Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty was elected to a historic seventh term Tuesday with nearly double the votes of the second-place contender. He said he and his team worked hard to run a good campaign and his win shows the people of Worcester trust him.
WORCESTER — Voters choosing to keep the incumbents running for City Council and mayor in office Tuesday is a sign the council should stay on the course it’s on, Mayor Joseph Petty told the Worcester Guardian Wednesday.
“They don’t want to see a change in that and they just want to keep moving the city forward,” he said. “I think that’s the message that was sent.”
Petty won a seventh term as Worcester mayor with a commanding victory, earning 10,687 votes compared to second-place finisher Khrystian King’s 5,877.
He said he and his team worked hard to run a good campaign and his win shows the people of Worcester trust him.
The mayor said he didn’t take it for granted that he’s the city’s longest-serving mayor and campaigned hard over the spring and summer, knocking on thousands of doors. He tried to stay above the fray and run a campaign where he didn’t attack anyone, Petty added.
“I didn’t take anything for granted; I’ve learned that lesson,” Petty said. “People want to make sure you still want to do the job.”
Last year, Petty made an unsuccessful run for the state senate’s First Worcester District seat, losing in the preliminary to Robyn Kennedy who went on to win the race.
Petty said he was relieved when he won a seventh term, joking that he thinks his wife was even more relieved than he was.
“There was a sense that you never know where the election’s going to go,” Petty said.
While there wasn’t much change on the City Council, the School Committee’s new district-based voting system led to five new faces on the committee, including former Superintendent Maureen Binienda.
In his role as mayor, Petty also chairs the School Committee and was chairing the committee when it voted not to renew Binienda’s contract for superintendent in 2022.
When asked how he planned to work with her on the committee after that, Petty said he treats everyone the same, respects all the people who have been elected, and plans to work with her as he would anybody else.
“I’ve known Maureen for a long time, so I think we’ll have some pretty good discussions,” Petty said. “We’re all on the same page…I think all the elected officials…their hearts are in the right place and they want to make the city better for everybody.”
In his role as School Committee chair, Petty said he would continue the work started when they hired Superintendent Rachel Monárrez of developing leaders within Worcester Public Schools, making sure staff get the resources they need to educate the students, and working to address its infrastructure issues. Petty specifically mentioned Burncoat High School and Worcester East Middle School.
As for his focus on city council, Petty said it’s mostly going to be housing, mental health, pushing the Worcester Green Plan, and some of the safety issues he’s been talking about over the past few months. He went on to specify that he would be working to find some more bond money to make streets and sidewalks safer and better.
He also plans to work with developers who want to come to the city, he said.
In remarks following the campaign, King accused Petty of focusing on the needs of developers while King says he brought the discussion of affordability for residents into the campaign.
Petty called the accusation ridiculous, stating that the council has been talking about affordable housing for years and that he asked for a report from the Housing and Neighborhood Development detailing all the programs the city is working on to increase the availability of affordable housing, including the affordable housing trust fund and the affordable housing preservation program, among others.
In his new term, Petty said he will continue to look at preserving naturally occurring affordable housing in the city and work with the state legislature to get bills passed that would provide more funding for housing creation.
“I just look forward to working cooperatively with people and showing people that we just have to work together as a team on both sides and respect each other both inside and outside the chamber as we move forward,” Petty said of his new term.
Kiernan Dunlop is an award-winning journalist who has spent the past five years reporting in Worcester, New Bedford and Antigua and Barbuda. She’s been published in Bloomberg, USA Today, Canary Media, MassLive, and the New Bedford Standard Times, among other outlets. She can be contacted at kdunlop@theworcesterguardian.org
