Prior to Tuesday's preliminary election in the city of New Bedford, based on my many conversations with residents, the term "dangerous gross incompetence" was popular but was best understood when referring to the mayor, Frederick M. Kalisz Jr.

This idea was confirmed when the citizens of New Bedford intelligently decided to vote for a better future by giving one of the many of Mr. Kalisz's extremely qualified opponents, attorney Scott W. Lang, 37 percent of the votes cast, and the mayor 27 percent of the electoral opinions expressed.

Surely, an overwhelming vote for Mr. Lang on Nov. 8, suggesting a quasi-complete rejection of Mayor Kalisz, will permit the residents of New Bedford to dream of a better future.

A mayor who measures success as a 33 percent public school dropout rate, crushing poverty and a prolonged, unacceptable high unemployment rate by United States' standards will most likely be consigned to the archives of history.

The Southeastern Massachusetts city with an approximate population of 90,000 (most of them honest and hardworking) - which Mayor Kalisz has long permitted to be sadly equated to a sinkhole of carnage and a place of dangerous bandits, as is evidenced by many   unsolved brutal murders, most of them in broad daylight - will, it is hoped, cease to endure the ridicule by my Boston's friends and acquaintances.

New Bedford must begin to journey into the world of hopefulness, by way of an improved quality of life.

Yves A. Isidor, Cambridge

Editor's note: Mr. Isidor teaches economics at UMass Dartmouth and is executive editor of wehaitians.com

Published in the Standard Times, the city of New Bedford daily newspaper, on Saturday, October 8, 2005.

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