Dorothy Kelly Gay was elected Mayor of Somerville on May 11, 1999
in a Special Election. She was then reelected in November of 1999
for a two-year term. Somerville, New England's most densely populated
city, surrounded by Boston, Cambridge, Medford, and Arlington,
elected its first homegrown Congressman in the Fall of 1998. Former
Mayor Michael Capuano's victory in the Eighth Congressional District
race afforded an open seat for the office of Mayor.
In the two years prior to this election, Dorothy was a statewide
Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Despite being outspent
by her opponent by hundreds of thousands of dollars, Dorothy's
message of progress and compassion resulted in one of the closest
races for Lieutenant Governor in recent history. After this race,
and after working to elect the Democratic ticket, Dorothy was
approached by many Somerville residents to seek the open mayoral
seat. She placed second in the Preliminary Election, and won the
General Election by over four hundred votes.
Dorothy has been a resident of Somerville for over thirty years.
She, like many others, immigrated to Somerville with her family.
Born in Ireland in 1943, she grew up in a family of nurses. At
the age of seventeen, Dorothy left her native Ireland and moved
to London to start her own nursing education and career. While
there, she met her husband, Bertram Gay. When their second child
was born, he needed critical surgery that was only available in
the United States at Boston Children's Hospital.
Dorothy and her husband arrived in Somerville in the summer of
1968. Bert, a skilled machinist, immediately found work at a company
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dorothy, who arrived here on a Thursday,
began work the following Monday at Heritage Hospital in Somerville.
While her children were in the city's public school system, Dorothy
became a parent activist, while Bert became active in his trade
union, the United Auto Workers, Local 2320. Together they volunteered
on many local political campaigns, and actively participated in
the civic life of the city. So effective was Dorothy's activism
with the schools, she was unanimously appointed to fill a vacancy
on the Somerville School Committee in 1986. The voters of Ward
3 overwhelmingly elected her to full terms in 1987, 1989 and 1991.
As a School Committee member, Dorothy's first move was to set
up a scholarship fund, financed by a voluntary check-off on tax
forms. She worked tirelessly to make lasting changes to the vocational
and special education programs at the High School, and she also
instituted an AIDS curriculum and a condom availability program.
In 1992, Dorothy was approached by people who wanted an honest
and hardworking voice on the Governor's Council. Despite being
a relative unknown, Dorothy campaigned vigorously throughout the
Sixth District, comprised of twenty cities and towns, and comfortably
beat her better-financed and well-known opponents in the election.
Dorothy wasted no time in putting her stamp on the Governor's
Council. Her pledge to open up the Council-who previously had
conducted much of its business behind closed doors-to the press
and to the public, was highlighted by the hearings Dorothy chaired
on the nomination of Charles Fried to the state Supreme Judicial
Court.
While on the Council, Dorothy also worked with her colleagues
on the highly publicized Framingham Eight case. As chair of the
Finance Committee, Dorothy saved the taxpayers of the Commonwealth
over $20 million to date, by changing the manner in which the
State Comptroller's office conducted its business.
During her three terms on the Governor's Council, Dorothy worked
to ensure that the most qualified and diverse judges were appointed
to the bench-judges that reflect the people of our Commonwealth.
The widely acknowledged legacy that Dorothy left on the Governor's
Council is that she raised the profile of the office, so that
the public was aware and actively involved in the happenings of
that elected body.
In addition to her career as a public servant, Dorothy Kelly Gay
has been a full-time working Registered Nurse and healthcare administrator
for decades. She is the former Administrative Coordinator of Nursing
at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged in Boston; a position
she held for seventeen years until she was elected Mayor.