Plymouth voters sent a clear message in Saturday’s town election: We want change. They ousted two Select Board members and elected an outspoken environmental advocate to the Planning Board.
In the closely watched Select Board race – which featured five candidates vying for two seats – Bill Keohan and newcomer Deb Iaquinto prevailed. They’ll replace John Mahoney and Charlie Bletzer.
Keohan, longtime former chair of the Community Preservation Committee and an ardent defender of affordable housing, open space, and historic preservation, won handily, sweeping all 18 precincts. He received 4,638 votes to 3,575 for Iaquinto, 2,608 for Mahoney, 2,206 for Bletzer, and 1,465 for Scott Vecchi, according to unofficial results.
Keohan took 32 percent of the votes, Iaquinto got 24.67 percent, Mahoney received 18 percent, Bletzer tallied 15.22 percent – despite collecting the most in campaign donations – and Vecchi finished last with just over 10 percent.
Veteran political observers didn’t remember the last time two Select Board incumbents lost in the same election. Laurence Pizer, who served as town clerk for 28 years, said he could not recall that ever happening.
In a brief speech before his supporters at the IndieFerm brewery Saturday night, Keohan referred to voters’ dissatisfaction with officials and how they treat the public.
“You just saw overwhelming concern with growth and development, balanced development, and seeing a better disposition between our town board and our town and its residents,” he said. “There’s a disconnect, and I think that was something that I heard quite a bit about.”
In an interview with the Independent, Keohan said his experience working with volunteer organizations in town will help the board re-engage with residents.
The contested race for Select Board was the driver in generating a 15.1 percent turnout, slightly besting last year’s 13.3 percent, when David Golden was the only candidate on the ballot. Still, the grim reality is that fewer than two of every 10 registered voters participated in the election, despite there being various ways to cast ballots, including through the mail and early in-person voting.
Keohan’s landslide victory sets up an interesting dynamic on the board, which a year ago replaced him as chair of the Community Preservation Committee. (Only Select Board Vice Chair Kevin Canty voted to reappoint Keohan.)
During his tenure on the Community Preservation Committee, Keohan was sometimes at odds with Town Manager Derek Brindisi. One point of contention between the two men was the appointment of a staff assistant for the committee. Keohan wanted to be able to interview and hire the assistant. Brindisi and the board wanted to make the hiring decision.
Now Keohan will effectively become one of Brindisi’s bosses.
And with Bletzer and Mahoney out, observers said, the balance of power has shifted on the board, which could leave Chair Dick Quintal in a minority position on contentious issues.
Keohan credited the people he worked with for 23 years on town committees and boards with his victory.
“I worked on a lot of campaigns in my life, and this was actually the funnest campaign,” Keohan said with a smile.
Iaquinto, who campaigned extensively, including through social media, described Keohan and herself as a team of like minds.
“It’s very exciting to have Bill and I accomplish what we were able to do,” Iaquinto said. She said she hopes to work towards a balance between economic development and environmental protection.
Like Keohan, she said the board must work harder to keep residents in the loop on issues.
“Bill and I have skills that will help do that, improve the engagement of the community,” Iaquinto said. “As I went around town campaigning, that’s what I heard people were missing. They want to know what’s going on, and they didn’t feel very welcomed.”
After a total of 15 years on the Select Board, Mahoney said, he noted that this time there was “a significant undercurrent of anti-incumbent sentiment.” He said the local anti-incumbent mood reflects national trends.
“It was an honor to serve this community,” he added.
Bletzer called his campaign a positive one.
“The voters spoke, and I support the boards and wish well for Plymouth,” he said. “I love the Town of Plymouth and I’m glad to call it my home.”
Vecchi showed up in person at IndieFerm to congratulate Keohan, whom he has known since childhood. In an interview with the Independent, he also congratulated Iaquinto.
“They ran good campaigns,” Vecchi said. “The turnout was actually pretty decent for a municipal election. This whole election shows that the town was ready for a drastic change.”
Voters also elected two members to the Planning Board, which makes key decisions and recommendations on what is widely considered one of the town’s top issues: development.
Incumbent Tim Grandy, running unopposed, won re-election to a five-year term.
In the other Planning Board race, for a one-year term, environmentalist Frank Mand received 3,858 votes to 2,837 for Hingham firefighter Tom Jacintho. Mand will finish out the term of Birgitta Kuehn, who resigned last year when she moved to Chicago. He has often clashed with town officials over the years and recently was wrongly named by Quintal as being connected to a lawsuit against the town aimed at halting a controversial business park development on Hedges Pond Road in Cedarville.
In a post on Facebook Sunday, Mand said “a clear majority of voters believed that I had their best interests at heart.”
In a four-way race for two three-year seats on the School Committee, chair Luis Pizano won re-election with 4,478 votes. He will be joined on the committee by newcomer Paul Samargedlis, who earned 2,976 votes. Plymouth North High School senior Michaela der Kinderen won a surprisingly high 2,803 votes, coming within fewer than 200 votes of winning a seat on the board. Hunter Young, who also ran last year, finished last with 2,322 votes.
In the race for a one-year seat on the committee, Christina Bryant defeated Deborah Dugan by a vote of 3,868 to 2,626. Bryant has been serving on the board since she was appointed in January to replace former chair Michelle Badger, who was elected as state representative in November.
In what might be viewed as rebuke of town leadership, voters said no to a binding referendum that asked whether Plymouth should abandon civil service requirements for hiring police officers.
Police Chief Dana Flynn, the town’s two police unions, Brindisi, and the Select Board all pushed for the change.
The measure failed by a vote of 4,143 to 3,424, perhaps because it was placed on the ballot by the Select Board in a rushed meeting without much opportunity for public comment – just hours before the deadline to do so. The town has been part of the state’s civil service system since 1917.
Bletzer was particularly vocal in pushing the issue as a “crisis” that required immediate action even though police department hiring has been a problem for years.
The process for putting the civil service issue on the ballot was flawed, Keohan said.
“People didn’t have enough information,” he said. “People didn’t feel comfortable leaving civil service without all the information.”
Out of 433 law enforcement agencies in the state, approximately 120 remain in civil service, according to Michael Bradley, executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.
On Sunday, Select Board Vice Chair Kevin Canty said the problem still needs to be addressed. Brindisi has said the police department is on track to be 11 officers short by the end of the year, straining the resources of a force charged with covering a growing town that is the state’s largest geographically.
“We could lose an officer in as little as two weeks and it can take as long as 18 months to replace that officer, which can create a significant drain on services in the police department because fewer officers are doing more work, which increases the rate that people leave,” Canty said. “However, the town could have done a better job explaining the problem to the residents, giving the residents more time to chew on the issue and think about it and be able to make an informed decision.”
Canty said he will recommend that the issue be put to voters in the next town election, which might not be until next May.
The other ballot question, a nonbinding resolution urging town officials to urge the state to stop Holtec International from evaporating treated radioactive wastewater from the former Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Manomet, passed overwhelmingly, by a vote of 6,938 to 638.
This was the first time that most voters who chose to vote on election day (as opposed to by mail or early in-person voting at Town Hall) had to go to new polling locations, as the town reduced the number from 14 to 5.
Voters re-elected Town Moderator Steve Triffleti, who ran unopposed. Arthur Desloges and Lisa Reilly, who both ran unopposed, won election to the Plymouth Redevelopment Authority and the Plymouth Housing Authority, respectively.
Voters also elected a third of Plymouth’s 162 Town Meeting members, three from each precinct.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org.