A diverse, experienced field

Incumbent, two former selectmen, FinCom member try for two slots on Stoughton Select Board

Mary Ellen Gambon
After a delay because of the pandemic, Stoughton voters will get their chance at voting on June. 9.

The June 9 Stoughton Annual Town Election offers voters the chance to choose two selectmen from a diverse pool of four candidates that for the first time offers three women, with one African American.

Current selectman Christine Howe is running to retain the seat she earned in December 2017 during the recall election when three members were removed from the board. Vice Chair Michael Sullivan decided not to run for reelection, leaving his seat vacant.

Two candidates, Cynthia Walsh and Peter Brown, are former Board of Selectmen members seeking to return to their positions. Debra Roberts has served on a number of town boards and committees and is making her first challenge.

Christine Howe

Board of selectmen member Christine Howe has been serving the town during a time when Stoughton is on the verge of transformation.

“A lot of the work on the board takes a few years to implement because it is the nature of municipal government,” she said. “I want to continue the work I have started.”

Bringing new life to Stoughton Center is a high priority for Howe. She has been working on the Downtown Redevelopment Task Force to revitalize the Center and recruit new businesses.

“I’ve worked with the Board of Selectmen on rezoning the business district,” she said. “This will allow us to attract better opportunities and restaurants. We want Stoughton to be a destination and not a place that people will drive through, or frankly, drive around, because of the way the traffic pattern is designed.”

In addition to the new high school building and the new library, one of the biggest achievements during her term was the town’s purchase of the former Randolph Savings Bank.

“This is one exciting way in which we controlled our own destiny,” Howe said, noting that the bank allowed the town to purchase the bank before it went on the market. “We were able to activate it immediately for parking. The Recreation Department is going to be using it for a variety of activities.”

She envisioned the recreation center offering coupons to local restaurants and attractions for adults while their children participated in cultural, arts and other activities.

A recent initiative Howe took the lead on was the creation of the Community Preservation Committee. Within six weeks, the committee, chaired by resident Mark Zamanian, worked to put together a proposal that will go on the Town Meeting Warrant to allow Stoughton to provide up to $500,000 to renters impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were able to put a proposal together in six weeks,” she said.

Repurposing the Stoughton Depot is another of Howe’s objectives, as is continuing to implement the five-year Capital Master Plan.

She praised the work of Marc Tisdelle, executive director of development services, and Economic Development Director Pam McCarthy on projects including the Park Street sewer project, streetscape design, and repurposing signage grant money to help small businesses coping with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Howe has served on the Stoughton High School Building Committee as well as the Select Board representative to the School Committee. She is also working on the Public Safety Building Committee that seeks to combine the police station and Fire Station One. Howe also previously was a Finance Committee member.

She works as a grants and procurement manager for the Town of Weymouth, so her financial skill set has given her insight into how to tackle the impending financial crisis caused by the coronavirus.

“Post-COVID, it will require quite a bit of foresight and budget management, because the state could be looking at quite a bit of revenue loss,” she said. “We could be looking at a 10 to 30 percent loss of local aid, and this could impact us not just in FY 21, but also in FY 22 and FY 23.”

“I will work with the board to make decisions that are in the best interest of all residents of Stoughton,” Howe said.

Debra Roberts

“My whole focus of running for the Board of Selectmen is to be more collaborative,” Roberts, a Stoughton resident for 32 years, said.

“We can’t be in the can’t business,” she added. “We have to be in the can business.”

Roberts and her husband, an ex-police officer, have long been engaged in the fabric of Stoughton, she said.

“I have seen what it’s like to be a first responder firsthand,” she said. “All three of my kids have benefitted from the Stoughton Public School system, have graduated from college, and now have professional careers. I felt that it was only right to volunteer my time in service to the community.”

Roberts currently serves on the Finance Committee and chairs the Stoughton Diversity and Inclusion Organization. She has served multiple terms on the Board of Assessors.

Roberts, who is African American, said she hopes to bring a “fresh energy” to the board. Many of the people on her campaign staff are younger residents, and she wants their voices to be heard in town decisions where they may not have felt engaged before.

“I decided that now is the time to take another step forward,” she said of her run. “I have a 25-year career in finance, and I want to add value to the town and a sense of fiscal responsibility and prudency, as well as a spirit of being collaborative. I want to reach out to people of all backgrounds and let them know they have a seat at the table.”

Roberts has an MBA from Northeastern University.

“I want to work across functional lines,” Roberts said. “I have experience on other boards and committees, and I want to see us all coming together to solve problems. Our focus should not be tied down to what was done in the past. Don’t go back. Go better.”

She looked to the Park Street sewer project as a “revenue generator” that will bring in new businesses during and after the pandemic.

Roberts also stressed the importance of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously with the opioid epidemic.

Stoughton can be a destination center, Roberts stressed, given its proximity to the commuter rail and major highways including Routes 24, 27, 138 and 139.

“I can see Stoughton becoming a biotech center,” Roberts said. “There are so many talented people in the town and the schools. I plan capitalize on that and to use my financial skills to grow the town in a fiscally responsible manner.”

Cynthia Walsh

Cynthia Walsh is a former three-term Board of Selectmen member who is an active participant at selectmen meetings. She said she decided to run for her fourth term because “there is a real absence of leadership on the current board.”

“You see the same thing on the agenda week after week, and nothing gets accomplished,” Walsh said. “I have the institutional knowledge where I can tell people what has been done.”

One issue where Walsh said the current board has dropped the ball was on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth, and at last count, more than 30 people in Stoughton have died,” she said. “At a recent board meeting, I called for Stoughton to have its own testing center, because we were rated ninth in COVID-19 cases. Brockton and Randolph, our neighbors, were higher, which just shows that this area is a hot spot. The suggestion was brushed aside.”

Walsh added that, while the creation of the COVID-19 task force was a good idea, she lamented that it took three months to form.

“I realize that 14 of the deaths occurred in nursing homes,” she said, noting that she is a neighbor to the facility where many of the people died. “I realize that I am a senior. But their deaths should have been noted. The mayors of Brockton and Boston recognize when people die from COVID-19. Where is the compassion? Where is the leadership?”

Walsh said that the lives of these elders are equally as important as a police officer who was stuck down in the prime of his life because they worked to build the town over generations through the service and specialty jobs that are now keeping the economy going.

“When I was last on the board, from 2009 to 2015, we mentioned the people who died,” she said. “Some people think it’s hokey. But many of these people kept our society running.”

One of the biggest issues facing Stoughton right now is how much money the town will receive in the state budget, which is increasingly late due to COVID-19.

“We already know that our sales tax, meals tax and hotel tax revenue will be down,” Walsh said. “And the House hasn’t passed its budget yet.

“We will be going into Town Meeting on June 23 without knowing what our funding will be,” she added. “And the board is talking about a special Town Meeting for September. But without a reliable crystal ball for FY 21, I don’t see how we can do that.”

Walsh said she also felt compelled to run for the Select Board because she felt a large segment of the population’s needs were not being represented. One issue where this was highlighted, she said, was on the Park Street Sewer Project.

“The process has just not been good,” she said. “The public meeting was held in December 2019, and everyone in the hall was against it. But then over the past few weeks, they held the meetings over Zoom. You couldn’t express an opinion unless you called in.

“They said they wouldn’t go ahead unless they got government help, but they wanted to have a project that was shovel ready,” she continued. “My level of trust with the current board is close to zero.”

She said that most of the people who live in that area are older residents, and that the average homeowner cost would be $14,000, plus $10,000 over 20 years for the connection.

“It’s going to cost the businesses a lot more than they bargained for,” she said. “They will decide it’s going to be cheaper to go to Canton or Brockton. Reebok had their world headquarters here, and then they followed the deal. And who gets left holding the bag? The taxpayers.”

Walsh said she believes the current board, comprised of younger people with jobs, does not appreciate the expense of older people when they ask for investments for projects like the sewer project.

“To them, a couple of thousand dollars is no big whoop,” she said. “But for the older residents, it may be sell out and get out.”

Walsh hopes to be elected, she said, to give this population a say.

“I may not be the captain of the ship, but I can steer it in the right direction,” she said. “I can help the people who are in the lifeboats. I served during the implementation of Proposition 2 ½ and the recession. I know about fiscal responsibility.”

Peter Brown

Peter Brown is a former Board of Selectmen member. After being recalled, he made a bid to get back on the board about four months later in the 2018 Annual Town Election. He placed fourth, behind current selectmen Stephen Cavey and Bob O'Regan, and third-place finisher Peter Buckley. Brown did not return calls for comment by deadline.

Christine Howe