To the editor:

To truly understand the restless political DNA of Saugus, you have to go back to the very beginning — long before the modern era, and even before The Daily Item began chronicling our local battles. The friction is actually baked into our geography. When Saugus finally split from Lynn in 1815, it wasn’t just an administrative boundary change; it was a messy, ideological divorce. For two centuries, Saugus has carried the weight of that separation, constantly fighting to define its own identity while remaining acutely sensitive to the shadows cast by its bigger neighbor.

​By the time Item established itself as the dominant voice of the North Shore in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Saugus had already earned its reputation. For more than 70 years, the Item routinely threw rocks across the town line, treating the latest Saugus political meltdown as front-page theater. To the rest of the region, we became the “crazy cousins” of North Shore politics — a community seemingly trapped in a permanent state of self-inflicted instability. Generations of notorious, ink-stained headlines painted a picture of a town that preferred bloodsport to infrastructure, and chaos to consensus. If there was a meeting to be disrupted, a charter to be challenged, or an official to be recalled, Saugus provided the spectacle, and Lynn gladly printed the papers.

​The recent sessions of the Saugus Town Meeting have once again laid bare this political tug-of-war that seems permanently woven into our community’s history. Saugus has always had its share of political hyenas — factions that circle any functioning government, restlessly waiting to tear at the bone. We saw it during the historic 2015 recall election, where defending the Crabtree Administration wasn’t just about preserving a single seat; it was a collective decision by those who understood municipal governance to choose a five-star, hallmark framework of professionalized leadership over the perpetual chaos of the old “crazy cousin” era.

​Now, as we hear whispers and talk of a “twilight” for the current administration, it is not born out of inside information, but rather that familiar, creeping restlessness. Saugus is a town that historically tires of stability and restlessly searches for its next political battleground. Will we truly allow ourselves to go back to being the regional punchline?

​Before this recent era of stabilization, Saugus was plagued for forty years by massive, long-term structural failures. We faced the embarrassment of crumbling infrastructure, the dumping of raw sewage, an outdated high school, and chronic fiscal instability. Overcoming these entrenched crises required an uncompromising executive guardrail — management that stayed the course to deliver a state-of-the-art Middle-High School complex, overhaul our environmental controls, and secure our financial standing.

​For years, those of us who fought for this modernization looked across the North Shore to our neighbors in Danvers as the ultimate blueprint. For 35 years, Danvers operated as an island of refuge under the legendary leadership of the late Town Manager Wayne Marquis. While Saugus was routinely making headlines in the North Shore news for political drama, Danvers quietly built schools, modernized utilities, and secured a triple-A environment of predictability.

​There is a powerful, ironic lesson for us in that comparison: Wayne Marquis was born right here in Saugus.

​Though he grew up to become the gold standard of professional management in Danvers, his roots were here. His career proves that stability is not a geographical accident — it is an administrative choice. Danvers thrived because they chose to insulate professional governance from political interference, allowing a manager to stay many years past their standard “expiration date” to protect the town’s long-term future.

​If Saugus were operating strictly on logic, the town would look at the cold numbers game of the Massachusetts municipal retirement system and work collaboratively to preserve the proven leadership we currently have. When an administrator reaches peak retirement eligibility, staying on becomes a choice, not a necessity. If Saugus were smart, it would give this administration a reason to stay and build upon our hard-won stabilization.

​But that would require political peace — something that history tells us may simply be impossible in Saugus.

​When an administration stays long enough to fix the foundational emergencies, a dangerous political amnesia sets in. People forget the chaos of the raw sewage era and the broken budgets, and that restless energy starts looking to tear down the very guardrails that brought them peace. A state of permanent “administrative satisfaction” is a myth in our town. Progress is incredibly hard-won, but easily dismantled by a community that grows restlessly bored of its own stability.

​As we navigate this current political landscape, let us not let restlessness erase the lessons of history. We must protect the strong administrative framework that saved us, rather than sliding back into the cyclical friction that held Saugus back for generations.

​In the end, as I look at the political horizon, it has become undeniably clear: the barbarians have breached the gates, and they are here now.

​The only question left is what will they do next? Will they see the damage of their friction and retreat, or will they do what they have always done in Saugus — tearing at the guardrails and spinning our town right back into its perpetual, historical chaos?

Al DiNardo