2022 Wayland Candidate Profile: Thomas Fay, Select Board

WAYLAND, MA — Voters in Wayland will have a between three candidates for select board in the May 10 town election.

Select Board Chair Tom Fay is running to keep his seat against two challengers: Board of Public Works chair Clifford Lewis, and Human Rights, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee member Dovie King, who would be the first person of color to serve on the Wayland Select Board.

Wayland Patch sent each candidate a questionnaire ahead of the election to help voters get to know them better. Here's how Thomas Fay responded:

Age: 60
Occupation: Father of four; husband, and a partner at a local law firm
Experience as an elected official: Current Chair of the Select Board; service on multiple town boards over 13 years, including prior service on the Select Board, Chair of the of the Library Planning Committee, and Chair of the Wayland to Waveland Hurricane Relief Steering Committee.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing the town and what would you do about it?

The town has a host of important capital needs in Wayland, from a Council on Aging / Community Center to new grass playing fields. We need to make sure we maintain our current assets, such as our town building and schools, as well as to ensure we continue to attract first-rate staff. Our town budget is constantly being stretched to the last dime. There are a host of competing priorities, and it is critical we continue to bring our community together to determine how we spend our money. While there are no easy answers, the fact is Wayland continues to be one of the most sought-after communities in Massachusetts, and we continue to maintain our Aaa bond rating. In order to remain a first-rate community, we must continue to work together to determine how we can appropriately manage our nearly $92 million budget to meet our varied needs.

I will continue to ensure we host community discussions to seek input from residents on a range of topics that impact all of us. During the last year, I have led such discussions concerning the construction of new playing fields, the Council on Aging / Community Center, and school bus parking. These decisions are not easy, but I firmly believe we can find consensus on issues about which we all care.

A developer has proposed a new 40B project at the site of the former Whole Foods. What's your view on the proposal?

Given that River’s Edge/Alta Oxbow is 218 units on eight acres, and the proposed scale for the Wayland Village site is 200 units on three acres, it certainly appears too large for this location. Another key concern is that I would like to see the Route 20 commercial corridor be supported with new retail uses, and not have all retail extinguished there as we have very limited commercially-zoned space in town. Therefore, I have fundamental concerns with the current proposed scale and use.

That being said, Mill Creek is proposing a friendly 40B (they cannot pursue a typical unfriendly 40B at this time.) We have the ability to say no, and with a friendly 40B, anything they propose would need Town approval to proceed, so it’s certainly worth further discussion. Currently, the prior Whole Foods store has been leased to Fresh Market, in a 15-year lease that still has over a decade to run where the tenant has elected not to open up a store. It seems the plaza will continue to remain empty unless a creative solution can be found, which is why it’s worth discussing mixed use development of commercial space and residential units to help local businesses, boost our tax base, and make our downtown a more appealing place to live and shop. But, I would not support any project that fails to properly recognize the nearby river, and the project’s impact on our Pelham Island residents.

Like many towns, Wayland has been dealing with high PFAS levels. The town has been working to install a filter system, but it's not online yet (as of this writing). What's the Select Board's role in reducing contamination, and how would you approach the problem? If you're an incumbent, what would you have changed or done differently?

The Select Board is involved with all public health emergencies impacting the town. The Select Board along with the Town Manager ensures that the right staff and board members are involved. The prior Town Administrator created a working group, upon which I served, to forge a resolution as information was received. Of the many towns found to be above the newly prescribed PFAS levels, the installed system was the first one of this type, in the entire state, to be approved by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for the removal of PFAS6 from a municipality’s water supply.

The working group collaborated especially well together under tight deadlines and a challenging environment during the pandemic, which was an ongoing public health crisis itself. We are very close to placing this system online. But, in the meantime, the PFAS levels during the past several weeks at the Happy Hollow wells have, fortunately, been within the regulatory limit, which is especially encouraging.

The state is planning a Route 20 repaving project this year. What upgrades do you think the road should get? Should Route 20 be made more friendly for pedestrians and bicyclists, or stay relatively the same?

Sidewalks along Route 20 in this corridor have been high on our community’s wish list for years. Right now, it is not possible to safely walk from Russell’s to Route 27 as the sidewalks are inconsistent, broken, and disconnected. Accessible, consistent sidewalks on both sides of Route 20 will help tailor the street edge of the entire district and more importantly, provide a much more walkable Wayland Center area. We have been informed that the Commonwealth will provide these sidewalks as they repave Route 20 next year, and the Town is currently working on a sidewalk plan with BETA Engineering to confirm the configuration.

The BETA plan will also explore decorative street lighting and plantings to help make the entire district more walkable and pedestrian scaled, and we will see if we can secure state funds or otherwise make these happen at reasonable cost to the town. There has been a question whether we could bury our utility lines, which was just successfully done in Weston Center; while this would clean up the district tremendously, it would likely be very expensive, but it is worth exploring the idea.

If you could snap your fingers and make it happen, what's one thing you would change or fix in Wayland?

Wayland, like so many other cities and towns, constantly grapple with the challenge of providing excellent services without burdening taxpayers. I have always been committed to reducing the residential taxpayer burden by working to improve the relatively small commercial areas in town. So, if I could snap my fingers and see a change, it would be to have our commercial areas thrive — which would, in turn, reduce our residential tax burden.