DEAN MAZZARELLA’S day starts at 3 a.m. when he hops out of bed and promptly posts a good morning message on Facebook to his fellow “3 o’clockers.” Despite the early hour, dozens of Leominster residents, some working the third shift, greet him in the comments.

“Good morning Mr. Dean!”

“Mornin’ captain!”

Before he was elected mayor of this sleepy city in North-Central Massachusetts, Mazzarella worked nights as a Leominster police officer. Decades later, he still hasn’t been able to fix his sleep schedule. His days are long, but he doesn’t mind. The constantly-in-motion 68-year-old has plenty of energy to spare for someone who hardly sleeps five hours a night.

“I like to watch the city wake up in the morning,” he said.

Mazzarella uses the early hours to prepare for meetings, plan his schedule, or respond to residents who message him directly about potholes, parades, or taxes. He lives by a rule he calls his “sunset clause,” making sure to call back every person who reaches out to his office before the end of the day.

“People count on us,” he said. “We’re going to work hard like they do, and we’re going to be responsive.”

When he gets to his office, he will host his near-daily “morning briefing” live online, where he chats about anything he sees fit, which is most often politics, gas prices, and things going on around the city. Every Thursday, Mazzarella also hosts his public access TV show “Inside Leominster” during which he can be found doing anything from giving a budget presentation to interviewing Santa Claus.

It’s hardly surprising that after more than three decades in office, Mazzarella seems recognized by virtually everyone he passes by on Main Street as he walks through the city he’s lived in all his life. Perhaps more remarkable for the leader of a city of more than 40,000 residents is that the recognition often seems to cut both ways.

“Dean! What’s happening?” a construction worker shouted at him from across the street on a sunny afternoon in May. Mazzarella shouted his name back and stopped to talk.

There’s no gimmick that is beneath Mazzarella. On any given day, he might hand out a free coffee voucher to a resident that reports a pothole to City Hall or give someone a ride on the Flamingo Express – a free, golf cart-style shuttle service named after the city’s iconic manufacturing symbol that Mazzarella rolled out to help transport people to and from downtown businesses that have been affected by parking changes and street closures around an ongoing brook stabilization project.

In many ways, he is the quintessential mayor seen in movies – accessible to all and everywhere at once. Most people agree that he makes the city of 44,000 feel much more like a small town.

He’s even been compared to George Bailey – the ever-selfless protagonist in Frank Capra’s beloved 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life” – who sacrifices his dreams to help his community. Mazzarella doesn’t think of himself like that, although it’s one of his favorite movies, he said. But a longtime friend said the shoe fits.

“George Bailey believed in his community, and Dean believes in his,” said former state senator Bob Antonioni. “His passion is Leominster.”

That passion has fueled him through more than 32 years in office, making Mazzarella the longest-serving mayor in Massachusetts history, quietly surpassing former mayor Michael McGlynn of Medford, who served for 28 years before stepping down in 2015.

Gateway Cities like Leominster are not easy places to lead. These former industrial hubs suffered from the long-term decline in manufacturing following World War II. The hollowing out of those economic anchors and the poverty and blight that have often followed defy quick fixes. But that doesn’t keep impatient voters from voicing frustration at the polls, with Gateway City mayors thrown out of office with some regularity.

Mazzarella’s immediate predecessor, Jack Mahan, served just one term as mayor before the then-first-time candidate sent him packing. Before that, Steve Perla served just two terms. Fitchburg, a neighboring Gateway City, has seen six mayors in the time that Leominster has seen one.

Mazzarella has defied the odds, managing to transform the city, limit his list of enemies, and remain an ever-present, zealous leader on his way to completing 17 two-year terms. One key to that is his ability to be defined by his successes rather than his failures, as Leominster voters have chosen him time and time again, notwithstanding a handful of controversies in City Hall over his years in office.

“People pay a lot of money for government, especially in this state. They’re all my customers, no matter who they are. If it’s important to them, it’s important to me.”

Mayor Dean Mazzarella

Despite an electoral touch other officials would die for, Mazzarella comes off far more as affable everyman than calculating politician – a quality that some say is exactly why he has endured politically for so many years.

“I think the art of being successful at politics is not appearing to be a politician,” City Councilor Mark Bodanza said.

Local leaders and residents marvel at his staying power, but “Mayor Mazz” – known for his practical solutions, fiscal conservatism, and relentless energy – suggests the secret to it is not that complicated.

“Government is a lot simpler than people think,” he said, explaining that he runs the city like a business.

It’s a line often invoked by elected officials, but for Mazzarella, the quip is backed by plenty of first-hand experience: He owns not one, but three, local businesses in Leominster. Like any successful business owner who must keep customers satisfied while not giving away the store, he seems to have mastered the tricky balance of keeping Leominster residents happy while also keeping the city fiscally sound.

“People pay a lot of money for government, especially in this state,” he said. “They’re all my customers, no matter who they are. If it’s important to them, it’s important to me.”

Mazzarella’s campaign website says Leominster is “a city on the move,” yet its residents haven’t elected a new leader in over 30 years. Many others in city government roles, including city councilors, have been serving for years if not decades.

“There’s a little bit of a trend in Leominster,” said Peter Bovenzi, a local housing developer who grew up in the city. “If it’s not broke, we don’t fix it.”

Leominster is the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed, who was born there two years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in 1774. Its more recent identity has been shaped by its standing as a major plastics manufacturing hub. Nicknamed the “Pioneer Plastics City” and the “Comb City,” Leominster’s plastic manufacturing began in the late 19th century during the Industrial Revolution, and a handful of plastic manufacturers still remain in the city today. The ever-popular plastic pink flamingo, first produced in the city by Union Products in 1957, has become a symbol of Leominster – and American suburban kitsch.

While taking his responsibilities seriously, Mazzarella also exudes an unselfconscious goofiness that made it perhaps inevitable that he would launch an annual Pink Flamingo Day to celebrate the city’s connection to the iconic lawn ornament. Next year will be its 20th observance.

While it’s not a city of great wealth, Leominster is a stable, blue-collar community where people, for the most part, are able to get by. Its median household income sits at $84,000, a full $20,000 below the statewide figure of $104,000, but the share of Leominster residents who live below the poverty line – about 9 percent – is one point below the statewide average.

The city’s once vacant and blighted downtown is now at nearly 100 percent capacity with dozens of vibrant storefronts on Main Street, from hair salons and cafes to Allen’s Department Store. Leominster also enjoys one of the highest homeownership rates among the 26 Gateway Cities at 63 percent – mirroring the statewide homeownership rate.

“To me, this is America right here. Hard work, pride, family, whatever religion you want to believe,” Mazzarella said. “Most people here will give you a chance, because they’ve been given one.”

Mazzarella was born and raised in Leominster alongside his two brothers. His father was a factory worker while his mother worked retail at a department store. His grandparents on both sides were immigrants from Italy, and both of his parents were born in Boston. Shortly before he was born, the family moved to Leominster to settle down outside of the big city. His parents made ends meet, meaning there were no luxuries, he said, but he was “the happiest kid in the world.”

His grandfather bought a home on Leominster’s east side where many other Italian immigrants lived and later made additions to it so his children could live with him. Four generations of Mazzarellas have since moved in and out of the house, which Mazzarella owns.

“It’s like a starter home for everyone in our family,” he said. “I don’t have the heart to sell it.”

After graduating from Leominster High School, he attended Mount Wachusett Community College where he studied criminal justice before taking the civil service exam. Mazzarella always knew he wanted to be a police officer, though he mostly enjoyed taking business classes in school and briefly considered doing construction or becoming an electrician.

“We had cops that crossed us every day at school. They were the law enforcers, but also the community people,” he said. “Everybody knew their names, and I looked up to them.”

For 10 years, he worked from midnight to 8 a.m. for the Leominster Police Department. He is still a certified police officer, though he is on what he calls the “longest leave of absence in the state.”

“You have to have honest people around you. You can’t have ‘yes’ people. You need people that tell you you have broccoli stuck in your tooth and nobody wears those ties anymore.”

Dean Mazzarella

While he loved being an officer, he also possessed an entrepreneurial spirit that led him in 1984 to start a commercial flagpole company – Central Discount Flag & Flagpole – that is still in business today.

“Some people go on vacation. I go dig holes, mix concrete, and put up flagpoles,” he said, adding that he has donated and installed some of those flagpoles around the city. “There’s a beginning, middle, and end to it, which I like.”

Mazzarella also owns Main Street Gift and Cafe downtown, as well as a local shed business called He Sheds She Sheds. He previously owned real estate and worked as a DJ in nightclubs under the name “Disco Dino” in the late 1970s.

“I just like to work. I like to be busy,” he said. “I wish I could start 50 businesses – all downtown or something.”

The long days he spent in City Hall when he was first elected meant he couldn’t always be present at home. His daughter Stephanie and son Dean were 12 and nine years old when Mazzarella entered office.

“Family suffers from it. Your kids suffer from it. I made it to their games and everything, but I certainly wasn’t dad of the year,” he said. “They learned at an early age, even when I was a cop, that you didn’t celebrate your birthday on your birthday.”

Neither of his children, now adults, has any interest in city government, Mazzarella said.

But when it comes to family, nobody goes far. Mazzarella, who is divorced, lives with his partner, Tara. His 70-year-old brother, who has Parkinson’s disease, lives with them, and until she passed away in June, so did his 97-year-old mother. Their modest home is in the same neighborhood where the mayor grew up, and his daughter lives just down the street with her two children, while his son currently lives in the old house Mazzarella’s grandfather owned. His second brother also still lives in Leominster.

By 1993, Mazzarella, 36 at the time, had grown frustrated with the city’s lack of resources. The police department’s funding was limited, their equipment was dated, crime was high in some parts of the city, and the department had entered a sporadic period of hiring and firing, which was “the worst thing for morale,” he said.

“I saw people working really hard with the resources they had. We had cars that were inadequate, radios that didn’t work, mace that was handed down for generations, and drug dealers everywhere,” he said. “I was young and had some good ideas, so I thought I’d put them out there and see whether they resonated with people.”

Mazzarella, a political outsider, announced his run for mayor in February 1993 and later that year defeated Jack Mahan, a first-term incumbent, with more than 60 percent of the vote.

“Dean was definitely an underdog,” said Steve Perla, who served as mayor from 1988 to 1992 and graduated high school with Mazzarella. “He ran a very good grassroots campaign. People wanted a change, and Leominster was at a crossroads. They were looking for someone that was on the younger side that had a different approach.”

Mazzarella recalled the weeks that followed his election. As he drove back into Leominster from a meeting one night, he had a moment of reflection he said he’ll never forget.

“I realized that I’m now the mayor of that whole city, and everybody has a pamphlet or a brochure that says what I’m going to do as mayor,” he said. “They elected me, they’re counting on me, and then there’s the 40 percent that didn’t, and I have to make them believers.”

He entered a decades-long quest to do just that.

The city’s strong-mayor charter gave him plenty of running room. The mayor oversees every department, appoints most department heads and board members, builds the budget that the city council then votes on, and serves as chair of the school committee.

Mazzarella said his immediate priority was hiring a strong financial team and department heads who would keep him on his toes.

“You have to have honest people around you. You can’t have ‘yes’ people,” he said. “You need people that tell you you have broccoli stuck in your tooth and nobody wears those ties anymore.”

But coming in from the outside wasn’t easy, Mazzarella said, and the start of his tenure was tumultuous given the city’s financial state. He expected to serve just one term – maybe two.

“It wasn’t looking good for me, because the council wasn’t on my side,” he said of Leominster’s nine-person city council.

It’s a far cry from his relationship with City Council today, which he and other councilors describe as respectful and cooperative, despite occasional disagreements.

Mazzarella said he avoids the petty part of politics when he can.

“I like getting stuff done, and I think [politics] slows things down and gobbles stuff up,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what section of the city you live in, it doesn’t matter who you voted for – it doesn’t even matter if you don’t like me, because you might be my friend one day.”

Mazzarella has long described himself as an independent, although he has supported moderate Republicans like former governors Mitt Romney and Charlie Baker.

And when it comes to the city’s finances, his conservative leanings are clear.

Mazzarella is most credited for transforming the city’s budget during his tenure. As sluggish state aid growth and rising costs continue to trap many local governments between a rock and a hard place, Leominster boasts a staggering rainy-day fund totaling more than $20 million. And Mazzarella has overseen that without maxxing out the city’s ability to raise property taxes: Leominister has an excess levy capacity of nearly six percent at a time when debt exclusions and Proposition 2½ overrides are polarizing other Massachusetts communities and making headlines.

“Go find a community right now that has $20 million in a stabilization fund. Go find a community right now that isn’t having layoffs,” said David Cormier, a Leominster city councilor. “When you look at what’s going on in other communities, I don’t know what more you could ask from your local government.”

During his first year in office, Mazzarella developed a fiscal plan to fully fund the city’s pension liability. And in 2019, Leominster became the first community in the Commonwealth to reach 100 percent funding status, meaning it has enough to make all current and future retirement benefit payments.

“He transformed Leominster from a place that had some really significant financial problems to the envy of the state in terms of finances,” Bodanza said.

When Mazzarella took office in 1994, state aid had been sharply declining, and the city had just over $40,000 in “free cash” – funds not already reserved for capital and operating expenses – and nearly $190,000 in unpaid debt.

“I remember what it was like to have no money in this community, and he pulled us out of that,” said longtime city councilor Claire Freda, who was elected the same year as Mazzarella. “We were looking at how much we had to do, and we had no money to do it. I don’t ever want to go back to that.”

Mazzarella said he takes an aggressive approach to paying off the city’s debts – often clearing them early – and relies on his grant writer, who has been widely credited for securing millions for city projects and initiatives. He also initiated Leominster’s climb to a strong bond rating, which allows the city to borrow for new buildings and projects at lower costs. The city is currently building a new elementary school and recently completed a new police station downtown.

“During times of prosperity, you plan for the bad days,” Mazzarella said. “When things are good, people get carried away. They don’t put money aside. But I’ve been around long enough to see the bad days come, and we have to be ready for them.”

In September 2023, one of those bad days arrived when nearly a foot of torrential rain was dumped on the city, topping a dam and causing roads to collapse into a number of sinkholes.

In a drone video of the damage, the mayor could be seen pacing on a flooded bridge while making phone calls.

“That’s when people look to see that you’re strong,” he said. “Maybe you’re wearing the same clothes you’ve been wearing for the last four days, but you’re determined.”

The devastating 1,000-year flood caused nearly $30 million worth of damage to the city’s infrastructure, and approximately 1,400 homeowners sent claims to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The agency initially deemed that the repair costs fell below its threshold for aid, but the city, along with Gov. Maura Healey, successfully appealed the decision. That year, Mazzarella said the city dipped into its stabilization account to fund large amounts of overtime pay for firefighters and other city employees, cleanup equipment, and other operations.

It’s not easy to find Mazzarella detractors. One of the few is former city councilor David Rowlands. He said the mayor’s frugal ways have had drawbacks, particularly when it comes to school funding, which he called Mazzarella’s “Achilles heel.” The city has always funded its schools at the minimum level required by state law.

“Schools are a competitive business,” Rowlands said. “I don’t think we’ve made the investment over the years to be as competitive as we could have been.”

In 2017, school funding was at the center of the one close reelection race Mazzarella has faced. Even more remarkable, his opponent came close to toppling the mayor with a write-in campaign. In the end, Mazzarella beat Kenneth Ricker, who had been a dean at the city’s Samoset Middle School, by just over 100 votes.

Ricker, who could not be reached for comment, launched his campaign in the wake of a $5 million budget deficit facing the school district. He was one of roughly 90 employees who were laid off due to programming and staff reductions, although he and others were later rehired.

“As mayor, it’s always going to come back to you, and it came back to me,” Mazzarella said of his reelection near-miss.

Though he’s largely led a charmed life throughout his more than 30 years in office, Mazzarella hasn’t escaped controversy entirely.

In 2010, the Sentinel & Enterprise reported on his romantic relationships with the city’s former economic development coordinator, as well as his former secretary after obtaining hundreds of emails from City Hall.

At the time he claimed he hadn’t done anything wrong and told the newspaper his “typical 18-hour days leave him no time for a personal life outside of work.” But 16 years later, Mazzarella acknowledges that the relationships were inappropriate.

“It’s nothing you want to be remembered for,” he told CommonWealth Beacon. “If it meant I wasn’t reelected, then that would have been self-inflicted.”

But the following year, Mazzarella ran unopposed as he had done since 2005.

Then, in 2012, he was cited by the State Ethics Commission and paid a $4,000 fine for violating Massachusetts’s conflict of interest law by directing the city’s housing rehabilitation program coordinator at the time to use Community Development Block Grant money to renovate the dilapidated home of his elderly neighbor, Mario Cavaioli.

The program was meant to bring substandard housing into compliance with applicable codes, but the commission stated that Mazzarella violated the law by having the 81-year-old’s home renovated ahead of other waiting applicants.

Mazzarella said he wanted to appeal, but his lawyer advised him to pay the fine and move on in order to avoid an ugly, expensive court battle. He knew Cavaioli well and had taken care of him over the years because he lived alone. But he claims he never directed any city employee to put Cavaioli at the top of the list, and said he was simply prioritized for the funds because he qualified for the program and demonstrated a high level of need for the services.

Despite the ethics ruling, Mazzarella rolled to yet another reelection victory the following year.

“If people generally like you, they’ll forgive things. We’re all imperfect,” Bodanza said. “When they don’t like you, then those things are your downfall.”

The mayor’s go-getter attitude hasn’t always been met with praise. During the 2005 mayoral election, Mazzarella’s opponent, Peter Angelini – who outraised and outspent him by more than a two-to-one margin – accused him of “falling in love with every development he sees.” Though Mazzarella won that election by 30 points, some residents and city leaders still share that sentiment today.

His support for certain projects has led to citywide controversy – most recently over a plan to construct more than 300 multifamily residential units on wooded land next to a major shopping plaza.

During a planning board meeting last summer, the development drew the usual litany of opposition from residents citing the added traffic and strain on local school enrollment. But others, including Susan Chalifoux-Zephir – the only city councilor to vote against the zoning change that made the project possible – raised concerns about the affordability of the housing units, which would rent for approximately $2,500 to $3,000 a month. Chalifoux-Zephir, one of the only councilors who regularly tangles with the mayor, said “all growth isn’t the best kind of growth,” and told CommonWealth Beacon she wishes others in city government would question the 32-year incumbent more often.

Mazzarella said Leominster needs all types of housing, from high-end to low- and moderate-cost – diving into the debate over development and market-rate housing that has landed in many Gateway Cities.

“If the city doesn’t grow, it will die,” Mazzarella said.

In 2025, a proposed horse racetrack and sports gambling bar that would have been built on a capped landfill in Leominster drew intense scrutiny from local residents and leaders. They raised environmental and traffic concerns and argued that gambling would invite a host of negative activities to the family-oriented city. The city council ultimately voted 9-0 against the proposal, which Mazzarella initially supported but later took a neutral stance on.

“It’s a nice city, and people like it the way it is. They don’t want to see it change,” Mazzarella said. “But I have to look for all the revenue sources, and when somebody comes to me and says the city can get up to $3 million a year, I have to take a look.”

Leominster hosts nearly 40 annual celebrations, events, and family-friendly festivals – many of which have been championed by Mazzarella over the years. During the city’s Winter Stroll, he roasts chestnuts over a fire while dressed in a top hat and coat reminiscent of a bygone era. On Groundhog Day, he stands in the snow with a pink flamingo ornament – which replaces Punxsutawney Phil – and declares whether the city will see six more weeks of winter. And at the city’s annual Italian Festival, he can be found enjoying a cannoli or two.

“Some people tell me I spend too much time on flowers and festivals, but that’s the fabric. That’s what brings people here, and that’s what they’re proud of,” he said.

Though a Mazzarella reelection run every two years now seems like a reliable way to mark time in Leominster, the mayor insists that he goes through a deliberative decision-making process toward the end of every term. “Each time around, I do the whole self-evaluation thing. Am I holding the city back? Can I still do the job? Can I get to all these events? Am I still in touch?” Mazzarella said. “As of right now, I still think I am.”

Bodanza, the longtime city councilor, recalled a time in 2015 when he and the mayor dug up a time capsule that was buried in Leominster in 1915. When they finished, they replaced it with a new capsule to be opened in 2115.

“Dean said it was too bad we wouldn’t be around in 100 years when they open it,” Bodanza said. “I told him not to worry – he’d probably still be mayor.”