Swampscott Select Board Candidates Talk Development, Taxes, Hawthorne, Board Dissension

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — The four candidates for two open seats on the Swampscott Select Board shared their thoughts on the town's fiscal bind, development, future of the Hawthorne property, and often-publicly-visible dissension within the Board in recent years during a candidates' forum three weeks before the annual town election.

Housing Authority Board member Charlie Patsios, Planning Board Chair Ted Dooley, Water and Sewer Advisory Board member Wayne Spritz and town meeting member Wayne Godfrey are running for the two open seats with current Select Board members Doug Thompson and David Grishman not seeking re-election.

The Select Board seats are the only townwide contested races on this year's ballot.

Patsios said he believes "Swampscott can do better" than it has in recent years and that "Swampscott cannot cut our way out of our (financial) problems."

He advocated expanding the Building Inspector's office to create revenue for the town and for the creation of a Water and Sewer Commission to help curb rate increases and pay for needed infrastructure improvements, as well as a renewed focus on senior housing.

Dooley said economic development — like the current Vinnin Square project — is essential to maintaining services without putting an undue burden on taxpayers. He said the Select Board has given residents reason to believe that members do not respect each other in recent years, and said he would shun "labels" that suggest that certain positions are anti-schools or anti-development simply because aspects of those issues are questioned.

Spritz said he will focus on the long-term financial needs of the town and declared that town officials must "rebuild trust in the community" — especially when it comes to the Hawthorne property development.

Godfrey stressed his listening skills and ability to build consensus that involves "all 15,000 souls in Swampscott, their children and pets."

While all four candidates supported the Rail Trail project, they differed on how much taxpayer money should be spent on eminent domain taken of personal property.

They echoed similar sentiments on the Glover House, with the goals to save the house while finding a financially viable use for it in the future.

Some of the sharpest commentary came on the subjects of the Select Board's ability to work together and the state of the town's $7 million purchase of the Hawthorne property nearly four years ago.

"Discussion is a means to a decision," Dooley said of the Hawthorne. "It has felt like for the past four years that we've had the same conversations in circles about what we're going to do with the Hawthorne.

"Nobody has a conclusion on that yet. And it's been how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in opportunity cost that we're giving up so we can continue to discuss something?"

"We know that the funding for a park (at the Hawthorne) is undefined," Patsios said. "We don't even know what it looks like. But we do know that we have debt service on that property. ... $400,000 that we are losing while we hold a property that we don't know what we're going to do with.

"That affects our schools, that affects our seniors, that affects our library, that affects the Glover, that affects the Rail Trail, that affects everything."

Spritz said community trust in the Hawthorne project was broken during years of committee work, public meetings and competing visions — including a proposed waterfront library — that were ultimately dismissed.

"I think we all agree that we can't afford to sustain the current structure while doing nothing," he said. "We've had a tremendous amount of input from the multiple meetings that many of us have been to ... this Select Board in the next couple of months is going to have to figure out what to do."

He said his ultimate solution includes open space, mixed-use retail, and an anchoring business that works with the hotel at the former Hadley School.

Godrey called the current state of the property "the most expensive municipal parking lot in the history of municipal parking lots."

"We are about to make a generational error," he said. "The priority would be to come to a consensus and to develop an actual actionable plan so that we can move forward, so we do not have another Glover (House) sitting at the entrance of Swampscott.

"We need to get it together, folks, and make a decision."

The annual town election is set for April 28, with early, in-person voting to begin on April 17.