Elections 2012: Selectman Candidate Ken Tavares

Office: Selectman

Name: Kenneth Tavares

Age: 66

Address: 7 Winter St.

Family:  I am married to the former Margaret Savery, a retired elementary school teacher. We have one son, Matthew, who is married and living in Virginia with our two grandchildren. 

Military: Veteran of the United States Navy (active duty 1967-1971) with an honorable discharge.

Background: I was born at Jordan Hospital in Plymouth and have always resided in our community, aside from the four years that I attended school in Boston and the four years that I served in the United States Navy.

General manager of a local landscape company; former banker (33 years), experienced in commercial and consumer finance lending; graduate of the Plymouth school system; attended Bentley College; and a graduate of the School of Banking at Williams College.

For more than four decades, I have had the opportunity to serve our community in both elected and appointed positions. I have served on the Plymouth Advisory and Finance Committee, been a Town Meeting member at various times (currently holding a seat from Precinct 4), a member and past chairman of the Plymouth Board of Selectmen and have served on a number of town appointed committees, including a charter review committee. On the county level, I represented Plymouth on the Plymouth County Advisory Board for eight years. Other community service has included serving on the boards of directors of the Plymouth Public Library, the Old Colony Boy Scout Council, the Old Colony United Way, the Plymouth Antiquarian Society, the Plymouth Art Guild, the local chapter of the American Red Cross, the Pilgrim Society, the Jordan Hospital Advisory Board, Plymouth 400 Inc. and the Jordan Hospital Advisory Board. For the past 31 years I have had the privilege to chair our Fourth of July Committee through July 4 Plymouth Inc. Service as an elected official and involvement on the nonprofit boards has given me a unique perspective on the needs, challenges and accomplishments of our town. 

Why I am Running: In my opinion, three of the biggest issues facing Plymouth are as follows:

• Maintaining the quality of life that we have come to appreciate in our town. The financial crisis of the past few years has proven, once again, how fragile this balance is. From providing for our senior citizens to assisting our young families to prosper will continue to take the efforts and energy of all of us collectively.
• Controlling our fixed and variable costs as we undertake our annual budget. Looking for new revenue sources is paramount to the success of our community in the long term. We need to be creative in looking for opportunities that will create new jobs and sustain the Plymouth economy. We need to step up our efforts to promote tourism in a town that is second to no other in this country. Our rich history needs to be fully used to create more jobs and opportunities for our residents.
• Maintain our services and infrastructure in a sensible, fiscally prudent manner. We have or should have learned lessons from what happens when we neglect our buildings, roads and other significant public projects. Ignoring the call for increased services in a systematic fashion is unreasonable if left to chance. Community input and debate is essential to meeting our improvements and services.

Maintaining our infrastructure and services impacts every facet of how we live our daily lives, promote ourselves as a community and control our annual expenses. As the largest land community in the commonwealth, we have become accustomed to being challenged both physically and fiscally to provide quality services that our residents both new and old expect from their local government. As we have grown, the demand for new schools, roads, fire, police and DPW services has increased to the point that only a well thought out annual plan can make order out of the call for increased expenditures. In the ‘70s and ‘80s we learned the hard way that the demand for services and infrastructure improvements could not be accomplished all at once. Over time we implemented programs and systems that graded improvements and brought order to what was once a chaotic problem. We only have to look to the negligence of Plymouth North (opened in 1963) to realize that steady improvements over a period of time will save taxpayer dollars. Services and infrastructure improvements cannot all be met in any one year but we do owe it to our taxpayers to lay out a plan that makes sense both service-wise and financially. I advocate for managed programs that never put us so far behind that we strap taxpayers or give future town meetings little choice as to what programs we can or cannot afford. 

The main reason I am seeking this office is that I would like to see more transparency and accountability in the governing of our community. I hold the belief that most office holders want to do the right thing for the right reasons. Sometimes we veer off course and need to reset the compass. In the last few months, I have seen some movement in the wrong direction. My experience serving in local government has given me a keen insight into what works and what doesn't. I freely admit that I have made mistakes, but learning from them has aided me in understanding differing views. Civility needs to present on all levels of government and at this time less attention is being paid to working together and compromising. Town residents must never feel intimidated to come before their government officials to air their concerns and opinions. Public officials must be very conscious of how and where they make their decisions. Our charter and the laws of the commonwealth hold officials to a high level of decision making. As children, we were taught to stop, look and listen before crossing streets and railways. This basic life lesson can and should be applied to our governing. Common sense, courtesy and the ability to stop, look and listen will serve us all well. 

After reviewing my record of government and community service, I hope that my fellow citizens will determine that I have the necessary skill sets to hold the office of selectman at this election. I want to bring to the table commonsense and the ability to make decisions in a fair manner. My governing skills have been forged over years of tested service in the government, business and social arenas. I have the ability to adjust to changing circumstances and pride myself in my ability to look at all sides of an issue. This is one old dog that is not set in his ways and can learn new ways. Over the past four decades, I have had the opportunity to work with countless local officials, as well as those on the state and national levels. I have been a strong advocate for Plymouth and have the experience necessary to pass programs that can and will benefit our community. My prior experience provides me with a working knowledge of government that will allow me to hit the deck running on day one. My financial experience and training will serve the community in negotiating fairly and presenting to our local government fair budgets. I look forward to advancing an environment that can do the work of government in an open transparent manner. Civility is in short order in many facets of our daily lives today it need not be that way in governing. We are neighbors and friends and I believe that we can work together for the common good.