By Seth Daniel
One of the youngest members of the City Council appears to be poised to take the reins as the next president of the Everett City Council.
Anthony DiPierro, 21, the Ward 3 councilor, has apparently lined up the votes and is now the only candidate for the post. He is expected to be voted in by his colleagues on Jan. 9 before Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s State of the City Address.
“I would say it’s definitely an honor in my first term to have my colleagues place their trust in me to be the president,” he said this week. “Within the last few months, I’ve had discussions with a lot of councilors about my intention to pursue the post and letting them know why I thought I would be a good Council President. I’m excited and looking forward to Jan. 9.”
DiPierro is said to have emerged as the favored candidate to succeed President John Hanlon in the last few weeks. He was in close competition with Councilor Peter Napolitano, but Napolitano dropped out of the race in the last week or two.
DiPierro won his seat on the Council in 2015 after a tough election with former Councilor Mike Marchese. He said it will be important for him, if elected, to maintain the positive working relationship that has flourished under the past two presidents, Hanlon and Fred Capone.
“I really want to continue the collaboration going on in the coming year,” he said. “I want the Council to continue working well with City government, municipal officials, state officials and the School Department.”
He said he has a lot of ideas, but in terms of committees, he plans to leave things mostly the same, if elected. The one exception is to bring in a new Council Committee on Utilities.
“We’re going to maintain all existing committees, but we’re going to look at putting a Utilities Committee together,” he said. “We’ve had some issues recently in the last couple of weeks with National Grid and those are the kinds of issues that this committee would address.”
Though not yet confirmed, if elected, it is believed that DiPierro would be the youngest president ever on the Council.