AZAR

LINCOLN — Three veteran Democrats will vie in next month’s primary for the right to run in the fall election for town administrator: five-term former state Rep. John Douglas Barr II, ex-Democratic Town Committee Chairman John J. Cullen and former Town Solicitor Louis E. Azar.

Cullen is a familiar face to Lincoln voters, having run for either state or local office in nearly every election for about 20 years. Barr, who left the General Assembly in 2002, narrowly lost the 2006 Democratic town administrator primary to Dean L. Lees Jr. Azar has been on the ballot before as well, running for town administrator in the 1970s as well in 2004 and 2006.

•John J. Cullen, 62, is campaigning on themes he has been advocating for years. If elected, he said, he would work for what he calls greater transparency in town government. Among some of the things he said he would accomplish is requiring all sales of town-owned land to be subject to public bidding and that all contracts with the town — including the teachers contract — be approved by the Town Council with a possible veto referendum by voters. He also supports abolition of the annual Financial Town Meeting, where the town budget is set by voters .

He said the current budget approval process is too prone to being dominated by a group that can get its supporters to turn out for the meeting. A better system, he said, would be for the Town Council to approve the budget with a provision for voters to petition for a referendum if they disagreed, he said.

The Town Charter should also be amended to provide for recall of elected officials, Cullen said, and to allow for a voter initiative on issues the council may not act upon.

He is also calling for the abolition of what he calls the town’s “predatory” property tax, which would be replaced by a town income tax. Cullen said the state and federal governments raise taxes based on income because that is a fairer method, taking from individuals based on their ability to pay. But he said a final decision on that switch would be left to voters in a referendum.

“I’ve been an advocate for transparency through all these administrations,” Cullen said. “I’d be a people’s administrator; a taxpayers’ administrator.”

•John Douglas Barr II, 44, said his 10 years as a state legislator have given him an understanding about government and the connections to make him the best one to lead the party’s local ticket in November.

Barr is currently recovering from what he described as a blister on his aorta which was treated by emergency surgery last month. Barr said his doctors have told him that once he finishes the recuperation period in a couple of weeks, he will be as healthy as he was before the illness.

Barr has been pressing for a reevaluation of the town’s property valuation of the Twin River gambling complex on Old Louisquisset Pike, saying that if the company is boasting $220 million worth of improvements, the appraisal of the property should be more than the current $94 million.

Boosting the value could bring in as much as $10 million more to the town in property tax revenue, Barr said. He proposed devoting a third of that amount to tax relief, another third to infrastructure improvement such as repairing the Limerock Dam, and a third to paying off town debt.

It’s a plan he has touted since last year, but town tax officials said then that the $94-million figure was produced by a revaluation process that can be substantiated and withstand a legal challenge from Twin River’s owners. Last year Twin River contested the $94-million figure as too high.

Barr was a state representative from 1990 to 1994 and from 1996 to 2002. He lost an attempt to retake the seat in 2004 and came in a close second to Dean L. Lees Jr. in the Democratic town administrator primary in 2006. He said that during those years in state government he made contact with people who are now in positions of power and gained an understanding about how local, state and federal government relations work that his two opponents don’t have.

“When you look at the way the state and federal government interplay with the town, especially the U. S. Department of Education, I know how that works,” Barr said.

•Louis E. Azar said the town needs a good lawyer as town administrator.

Azar, 78, was town solicitor under Town Administrator Burton Stallwood from 1971 to 1975. He also challenged — unsuccessfully — the longtime administrator five times, in 1977, 1979, 1989, 1991 and 1993. Azar came in third in the 2006 Democratic administrator primary. But in a run against incumbent Sue P. Sheppard in 2004, he surprised many when he came within about 500 votes of winning.

He said now, in 2008, the town needs someone with a legal background and detailed knowledge of the Town Charter as town administrator.

“I know the charter inside and out,” Azar said.

He said one thing that needs to be fixed is the Financial Town Meeting. A motion from the floor at this year’s meeting to add $517,000 to the school budget, over the objections of the town’s Budget Board, was “the kicker,” he said.

“We’ve meandered along all those years but this threatens the viability to the charter itself,” Azar said.

The motion from the floor to add the $517,000 “blindsided” everyone, who had expected the budget plan to pass as proposed, he said. One way to prevent that from happening again would be to ban motions from the floor during the meeting and require that any budget-changing proposals be submitted in advance.

Azar said as a lawyer he would want to scrutinize the town’s legal expenses, which he feels are excessive.

“I intend to investigate every niche,” he said.

Azar said he thought the School Committee could use non-lawyers in some of its proceedings and that the town should require any lawyers it hires to live in the town, so they would have to live with the property-tax consequences of any recommendations they made.

jhill@projo.com