When UMass Dartmouth began renting the Star Store in 2001, the university entered into a public-private partnership that dazzled the city of New Bedford with promises of economic renewal.
With an annual earmark of $2.7 million in the state budget, the Massachusetts legislature created a new college campus for the arts in the heart of the city’s struggling downtown.
A prominent local developer, Paul Downey, would maintain ownership of the Star Store, but UMass Dartmouth’s rent would finance a complete renovation of the abandoned building, reviving a city landmark that dated back to the golden age of downtown department stores.
To round out the deal, state officials committed to paying an “additional rent” to reimburse the landlord for maintaining the campus. As part of their due diligence, they reviewed and signed a “good faith statement” where Downey outlined his anticipated annual expenses.
There, tucked within a 139-page lease, was the line that would financially benefit a New Bedford politician for decades to come.
The line itself budgeted a modest $45,000 for the “salary and fringe” of a building superintendent at the Star Store campus. But the salary rose significantly at the state’s expense after the job went to Downey’s relative, John T. Saunders, an influential New Bedford city councilor.
By 2011, UMass Dartmouth had hired Saunders directly at an $85,000 salary in what a university spokesman framed at the time as a cost reduction for the Star Store campus. Saunders also received a benefits package worth $28,050 that year, according to the spokesman, and guaranteed annual raises under a union contract that have since increased Saunders’ salary to $127,000.
The former UMass Dartmouth chancellor who oversaw the hire, Jean MacCormack, did not agree to an interview. Downey declined to answer questions, and Saunders did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Saunders’ transfer to the UMass payroll ultimately protected him when the Star Store’s public-private partnership soured and the campus closed just three weeks before the fall 2023 semester. Saunders was reassigned to coordinate repairs and maintenance at other university buildings, including an art and design studio the university set up in a strip mall to replace some of the Star Store facilities. The university stands by its decision to retain Saunders as a direct employee.
“John Saunders was instrumental in the outfitting and continued upgrading of the new Art & Design Studio, a building that he oversees because of his past experiences handling facilities issues for the Star Store,” said Ryan Merrill, a university spokesman, in an emailed statement.
Saunders’ six-figure salary is one of several examples of how the public-private partnership benefited political insiders while failing to protect the state’s $60.5 million investment in the property.
A review by the Massachusetts inspector general found the deal “wasted millions in public dollars” while generating an estimated $12 million in profit for Downey. The inspector general wrote in his 2024 report that Downey won the contract to create the campus through a “sham procurement” that excluded any other potential bidders, though the arrangement was permitted under a one-off piece of state legislation.
New Bedford State Sen. Mark Montigny, who filed that legislation in 1996, later became a critic of the other players in the public-private partnership he helped set up.
“I have never observed such an obnoxious example of the exploitation of public resources during my time as a legislator,” Montigny said in a statement shortly after the campus closed.
Family ties and political connections
Saunders and Downey come from an extended family with deep roots in New Bedford politics, though they are not blood relatives. Both of their fathers held high-ranking positions in New Bedford city government.
Prior to being hired as the Star Store’s building superintendent, Saunders had bounced between several professions. Though he’d been a New Bedford city councilor since the early 1980s, the role only paid him a $14,600 annual stipend.
Outside of politics, Saunders had worked as a fisherman, an insurance account manager, a waterfront social worker, and a property manager for an addiction treatment center. Federal agents with the National Marine Fisheries Service also charged him in 1992 with smuggling an illegal load of undersized scallops off a fishing vessel, according to an article in the New Bedford Standard-Times.
Saunders’ personal finances occasionally came up on the campaign trail. In 1994, when he ran in an unusually competitive election for a $46,000-a-year position managing the local registry of deeds, the Republican incumbent claimed he knew why a group of powerful New Bedford Democrats threw their muscle into the obscure race.
“Number one, they wanted a job for John Saunders,” James L. Henry told the Standard-Times after narrowly winning the election. “They wanted to give him some job security.”
Saunders took the job managing the Star Store after voting as a city councilor in 1999 to approve a property tax break crucial to the building’s redevelopment.
He remained in the position for more than 20 years, until the campus closed and UMass Dartmouth re-assigned him to manage other university buildings. Saunders lost re-election to the city council in 2013, but he returned to politics the following year with a successful run for Bristol County commissioner, an elected position he still holds.
‘How could they not know what was going on?’
Officials like Sen. Montigny and the inspector general have raised broad concerns that lax oversight by university administrators and state property managers left the campus ripe for financial exploitation. But Saunders has not been a focus of those discussions.
Several arts faculty members said Saunders handled his job responsibilities seriously, even if his political and family connections raised questions about how he got the job.
“I’ve never known anything that involved the town that wasn’t political,” said Eric Lintala, a professor emeritus of sculpture at UMass Dartmouth. “But he got the job and he did a good job with it… I have nothing but good comments to say.”
Lintala served as a faculty liaison during the Star Store’s renovation, working closely with Saunders to build out art studios and install equipment. He said Saunders’ political connections helped the university solve problems and “cut through a lot of the red tape” that came up during construction.
If people question Saunders’ compensation, Lintala said they should look to higher-ranking officials for accountability.
“If Downey’s paying him a lot and he’s billing the state for it, well who’s minding the purse strings?” Lintala said. “The university should’ve been watching this. I mean, good Lord, how could they not know what was going on?”
