Public Education

Mayor Fiorentini is committed to top quality schools for our children and to making improving education the top priority in the city.

Under Mayor Fiorentini’s leadership, the school department brought in Dr. Raleigh Buchanan as the new Superintendent of Schools; greatly increased funding for public education; funded a bond order to totally rehabilitate the flagship school of the city, Haverhill High School; became only the second school in the State to institute mandatory summer school; and introduced a new computerized program to tutor children in MCAS testing.   When the school department proposed cutting band and music programs, Mayor Fiorentini intervened personally, added money to the budget to keep those programs running.

The days when Haverhill schools were funded at a bare minimum are long gone under Mayor Fiorentini.




Preserving Our History

Mayor Fiorentini has instituted the first ever design standards in the city

Mayor Fiorentini is a strong believer in historic preservation, especially the maintainance of Haverhill's beauty including the historic buildings in the downtown area.

Under Mayor Fiorentini, we have the first ever design standards for downtown sections of Washington and Wingate Streets.

Under the design standards instituted by the Mayor, new buildings will celebrate the historic architecture in downtown by mirroring the style and materials of the nearby brick factory buildings and Queen Ann architecture.

Mayor Fiorentini has also established a provision for design reviews by an outside architect to ensure new buildings are designed in a manner that is architecturally consistent with the historical buildings surrounding them. In fact, it was Mayor Fiorentini who saved the Armory building from being sold.



Growth

Mayor Fiorentini has significantly slowed growth in the outlying areas of the city

Mayor Fiorentini is a big proponent of smart growth policies that steer growth towards the inner city -- to old, unused factory buildings rather than to the open spaces on the outskirts of the city.  The Mayor’s policy is that we need to save the open spaces, preserve the beauty of Haverhill, and encourage growth to locate in the center of the city, close to our train stations.  Restoring abandoned buildings that had been under taxed to the tax rolls gives us more money for public education, infrastructure improvement, and benefits all of us.

Under the Mayor’s leadership, Haverhill has been a state wide leader in transit oriented development.  The city has been written up in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Banker & Tradesman and other magazines and newspapers state wide.

Under the Mayor’s leadership, old unused factory buildings are being reused as housing. On the other hand, growth in the outlying areas of the city, where there is open space, has slowed dramatically.  The number of building permits in the outlying areas of the city has dropped dramatically since Mayor Fiorentini took office.

This is in sharp contrast to the Rurak Administration, when growth was out of control.

Mayor Fiorentini has proposed a new master plan for the city and will continue to work to control and manage growth.

The Mayor has reactivated the Open Space and Recreation Committee to begin planning for the future—to set aside open space areas that should be preserved forever and maintain the beauty of our city.

For more, please read:

     Banker & Tradesman article on the Mayor’s smart growth policies

     Boston Globe story, Haverhill Is the Picture of Progress.



Population and School Increases

Over the past five years, the city has seen a very modest increase of one-half percent per year in population.

Up until recently, the school population has been falling.  This year there was a modest increase of 200 children in the school population.

The Mayor believes in planning, and has deliberately held onto several neighborhood schools such as the Cogswell, Wood, and Smiley Schools in case population begins to rise again.