Four candidates vie for two Oak Bluffs seats

Ahead of Oak Bluffs town election on Thursday, June 18, we reached out to incumbents Michael Santoro and Brian Packish and challengers Ryan Ruley and Richard Weiss, who are all running for the two open seats on the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen. Each candidate shared responses on three key issues. The election will be held at the Oak Bluffs Public Library meeting room (56R School St.). Polls are open from 10 am to 7 pm.

Why are you running for selectman, and what separates you from your opponent?

Brian Packish: I am running for re-election so that I may continue to perform my public service to the citizens of Oak Bluffs. As a lifelong resident of Oak Bluffs, I hold the traditions and community of our town very close to my heart. The diversity Oak Bluffs represents and stands for is one of the many beautiful aspects of our community. 

I believe my record of action and integrity speaks for itself. During my previous campaign, I prioritized a reduction in property taxes, and in the last three years as selectman, I have worked with the members of the town boards and administration to successfully reduce property taxes for three consecutive years. It is my belief that an open, transparent, and accessible government is a top priority. I have demonstrated transparent leadership not only during my time as selectman, but also as chairman of our master plan process, through extensive public outreach. 

As chairman of the board of selectmen, I have consistently released meeting minutes from our executive sessions in a timely fashion. I previously served as an elected member of our Oak Bluffs planning board for five years. I have also served in a number of other appointed capacities, such as chairman of the Downtown Streetscape Master Plan and chairman of our town master plan committee, as well as appointments to both the roads and byways committee and the Dukes County Advisory Board. I believe my life experience and history living in Oak Bluffs, my record of action, along with the proven open and transparent service to our town gives me a unique position to offer a modern perspective, while staying mindful of the deep history and traditions that are important to the residents of Oak Bluffs. 

Ryan Ruley: I am running to serve our community. I come from a family with strong work ethic and integrity. My mother served our community by working in our local courts; my father was a longtime employee at the A&P/Stop & Shop. I have served in public safety roles for the past 20 years. Over those 20 years, I have learned a valuable skill set. I have learned to be a good listener, how to be a problem solver, and how to bring people together to achieve common goals. I have been a school resource officer at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and at the Edgartown School. I have coached football and baseball at the high school, and I currently serve as the vice president of the Touchdown Club. I have been a part of several groups committed to fundraising for our Island youth. 

All of these experiences have brought me daily interactions with our community. I have seen the troubles that face us all. I have heard from many of their concerns and wants. These relationships and experiences have driven me to run for selectman. If elected, I will be the only board member with a child in our Island school system. I will seek to make our town and myself available to all families with concerns. I am pro public safety, and feel strongly about our educators in our schools being taken care of. I believe I am the only candidate who has exclusive experience in daily problem solving. This has been achieved by bringing stakeholders and experienced entities to the table to help with positive outcomes. I will lead from the front and not the top.

Michael Santoro: There is so much work that still needs to be done. Having served three terms, I am proud of the accomplishments my fellow selectmen and I have accomplished these past few years. North Bluff fishing pier and boardwalk, North Bluff beach recovery, County Road flood repair, solar array projects at Oak Bluffs School, fire station, and soon to be landfill, continued solid financial standing with a AA+ bond rating, are just a few of our continued accomplishments. In the past few years I served on the HPP (housing production plan) committee, and vice-chaired the master plan committee (one of my proudest accomplishments). I currently serve as selectmen’s rep to the Steamship Authority and fire department, as chairman of the roads and byways committee, and as vice chair of the harbor advisory committee. 

As you can see, there is great love and pride that I have for Oak Bluffs, and hope to continue working at making Oak Bluffs stand out among the rest. As far as the other candidates go, I can only say my passion, energy, and business sense and knowledge of town affairs will only continue to grow, and I will continue to put my energies, especially during these unpredictable times, to the best of my ability to lead this town. Now is not the time for change.

Richard Weiss: I have an innate desire to help make the town better. It’s the reason I’m on the Lagoon Pond Association committee, the financial committee as well, and I’m a volunteer EMT in Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. When I moved to the Vineyard in 2014 — myself and my family have been coming here since 1964 — I signed up for EMT classes. The past two or three years on the financial committee have shown me the town does not take advantage of revenue streams that are out there. Oak Bluffs gets upwards of 80 percent of their revenue from property taxes, and that’s a lot. We really need to look at the harbor as a giant source of revenue, whether that’s raising slip or mooring fees, excluding residents, or expanding it; the embarkation fee on the Steamship Authority needs to be raised. I think we should be able to collect off an $8 ticket a lot more than 50 cents, what it currently is. I do not see the current selectboard taking advantage of revenue streams. We need to look at the regional agreement, the embarkation fee, and the state tax formula. They’re not easy things, but that’s why I’m running. I think we can do a lot better from a revenue standpoint. Taxes could be reduced for seniors and veterans, which I would love to see. Depending so much on property values is too much of a problem.

Another thing that needs to be fixed is the town of Oak Bluffs website. It is so nonintuitive and so cumbersome, I don’t know where to start. Making that website more intuitive will help the public find out exactly what’s going on in finance, with planning, and with the selectboard. The key here is if you can get the public to easily understand what’s going on, you in turn have a bigger pool of people that may be interested in getting on some of these committees, instead of people doing it because they have nothing else to do.

Do you support how the town reacted to COVID-19, particularly with regard to construction?

Packish: I have been a firsthand participant in all COVID-19 conversations and responses from the town of Oak Bluffs, as well as many regional conversations. I support the actions taken by the Island boards of health, as they are the entities with jurisdiction on local orders in relation to all public health issues. As with all new and unknown threats such as COVID-19, it is best practice to move forward with extreme caution until science and data are able to provide a direction. The towns were advised by the CDC, WHO, DPH, State of Massachusetts, and local and regional governments and more to navigate the challenges. Island towns acted regionally and in real time in response to an unknown threat; this in itself shows the ability to work together under pressure, and I hope proves to be an example of expanded cooperation moving forward on a regional level. 

Ruley: I do support the town and our elected officials in regard to our COVID-19 response. The unknown has been scary, and tough decisions had to be made to protect our community. Leadership can be lonely sometimes, but I do believe we did the right thing. Having that said, our leadership needs to recognize the lasting effects it will have on our workforce, and we need to do as much as we can to help them get back to normal, as soon as possible. Our workforce is the backbone of our community. 

Santoro: These are difficult times for everyone, with COVID-19. Our local BOH stood up to challenges with the best they had to work with in an environment that was changing daily. The only criticism I have is on the state level, with a lack of communication and lead time for our local boards to react. I believe there could have been a little more leeway on allowing outdoor work environments. Though at the end of the day, when you look at the numbers on the Island, I would hold back any criticism of how local officials handled the COVID-19. Let’s hope it stays this way.

Weiss: I felt construction was singled out. I think it was a little bit unfair, but in general, everybody’s heart was in the right place. They were trying to do the right thing. For the most part, the governor was doing the best they could do with what they were dealing with. No one had dealt with this before. Hopefully next time when we have a pandemic, we will know how to deal with things. I don’t think they got good leadership from the federal level, and the states were getting mixed messages. Oak Bluffs and the Island in general did the best they could. I think it was great there was an Island-wide collaboration with it.

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing Oak Bluffs over the next three years? How will you address it?

Packish: Oak Bluffs is currently positioned very well in many areas including town finances, infrastructure, and qualified staffing throughout our departments. There is always room for improvement, and we are consistently working to make positive adjustments. If I were pressed to pick one challenge as the biggest, I would say that it is navigating regional conversations such as the regional high school funding formula. We have made considerable progress in the last two years, and the conversation is actively being had on a variety of levels, from financial committees and boards of selectmen to the school committees and more. We are one Island, made up of six towns, but our financial and environmental resources are stretched thin, and it is incumbent on all leaders to come to the table and navigate these challenges in an open-minded and constructive manner. 

Ruley: In the short term, we will need to select and hire a new fire chief. This town has an amazing group of men and women in our Fire and EMS Department. We need to work with the department members to find a good fit to lead us in the coming years. We will need to identify internal prospects to strengthen the department for long-term success. I would strongly push to be on the hiring committee, as I have many years of experience in public safety. We need to stabilize our budget over the next two years, as we hopefully recover from this pandemic. I will work tirelessly with our town boards and local businesses to find new and creative ways to gain revenue. The Town Hall is another large challenge that has been around for some time. The longer it hangs around, the lower morale will be. I will lean on our veteran selectmen for guidance, and make informed decisions about how we move forward in this area. 

I want to thank Brian Packish and Mike Santoro for their continued leadership, and Rich Weiss for his willingness to get involved. 

Santoro: We have a number of challenges facing us. Wastewater, where we are currently working on phase three of the wastewater production plan, to allow expansion of the plant to be able to clean our waterways and allow further growth in our downtown. Housing. We need to continue to work with our local housing board and Island housing authorities to help lift the challenges of creating more housing. Wastewater improvements will also help that burden. Improving our downtown. Grant money to move forward with streetscape. Replacement of sidewalks downtown. Budget shortfalls due to COVID-19. We will have to be creative in budgeting for the shortfalls from limited funding from our local estimated tax receipts. I’m confident with guidance from our town administrator and FinCom, we can create more revenue streams without raising taxes. The coming high school capital improvement will be a big challenge. We need to continue to push for a more even funding than what is on the table now. Lastly, our senior population is growing, and we need to continue to provide support for health and housing needs. Experience and continued leadership will serve this town well to meet these needs, for now and our future generations to come.

Weiss: The biggest challenge for Oak Bluffs right now is creating revenue streams where they currently have been blocked from having them. Whether it’s the regional high school agreement, the state formula for taxes, the embarkation fee, or the ambulance transports — which is another money-losing operation. We’re the only entity in the entire nation that works this way, and we don’t seem to be able to make money on it, and there’s no excuse for it. 

I get the idea that some people that are elected or volunteer for town positions are not necessarily qualified, and don’t recognize they’re not qualified. Sometimes I feel like people in these town positions think they know better than people who actually do it for a living, and I think you have to know what you don’t know. If you don’t know, you have to reach out for additional assets. If you’ve got a fire chief in there — John Rose — that has no business background, no management background, no anything regarding ambulance transports or dealing with people in the EMS and fire departments, why doesn’t the selectboard mandate that person go to classes to learn how to do it? I don’t have all the answers to the harbor or the regional agreement, but we absolutely have to bring in a consultant to help guide us.