As Islanders head to the polls on primary day on Tuesday, the only contested race on the Democratic ballot is to replace Dylan Fernandes as State House representative to the Island.
The two candidates vying for the seat — Arielle Faria, an Islander, and Thomas Moakley, of Falmouth — have been making a final push for voters leading up to the election. With no Republican in the race, Tuesday’s winner will take the seat.
Faria, a West Tisbury resident, and touted by her supporters as a dogged advocate for housing, has built an image of herself as someone who would bring a unifying voice for the Island to the State House with her experience in grassroots organizing.
Moakley, a Falmouth native and assistant district attorney in the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office, wants to continue bringing a youthful voice to the State House, where he will advocate for sustainability — both for infrastructure in the face of climate disruption and to help families sustain a living in the region, with high housing costs.
According to the latest data from the secretary of state’s office, Moakley has so far outraised Faria in funding through July. Since announcing his candidacy in December, he has raised about $62,000, while Faria has raised about $51,000.
Friday is the last day to vote early on the Island; polls will be open on Tuesday from 7 am until 8 pm.
Arielle Faria
For Vineyard voters — who represent nearly 50 percent of the vote — Faria would be the first representative from the Island since the seat was reconfigured in 1989 (The seat previously represented the Outer Cape and Islands, instead of parts of Falmouth. Terrance McCarthy was the last Islander before the change, who last served in the late 70s). According to data from the Massachusetts Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Faria would also be not only the first woman ever to serve the Island in the state house, but the first queer woman of color.
“Equity in leadership means ensuring that everyone — regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation — has a voice at the table,” Faria said. “When individuals like me take up positions of authority, we bring perspectives that have been historically excluded, which leads to more inclusive forward-thinking policies. My election would send a powerful message to future generations, especially to young black girls and queer individuals, that they, too, can step into leadership and create meaningful change.”
Faria and her supporters from the Vineyard have rallied around the fact that she does live on the Island, noting that the six towns haven’t received the attention it deserves with lawmakers representing the Vineyard from the mainland. She hopes to bring home legislation for a real estate transfer fee, which has been gaining momentum in recent years. The tool would provide a revenue stream for Island towns to develop housing through a tax on high-end real estate.
Faria’s origins on the Island began in the 1960s, when her grandparents bought a home in Oak Bluffs. Her family has been visiting the Island since then, and she moved to the Island full-time about 15 years ago. She has two sons, one a senior at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, and another enrolled at the Martha’s Vineyard Charter School. She’s a small business owner, worked as the affordable housing manager for the town of Edgartown, and is project and program development manager at the Island Housing Trust. She served as co-chair for the Coalition to Create the MV Housing Bank, a group that has lobbied state lawmakers to pass the real estate transfer fee. In the task, she helped get the transfer fee support on all six Island town meeting warrants.
“It took us two years — two years — to get everyone informed on the issue, going around to every town and every committee and every official to get on the same page so that we could be successful at town meetings,” she told The Times. “People came out because they were informed and empowered to make a difference.” With the Vineyard at the table, momentum has been building for the passage of a real-estate transfer fee option.
By helping to unify the Island’s voice, Faria says that she will be able to advocate for other Island priorities as well, such as better compliance and operations at the Steamship Authority. She said that having more state oversight of the Steamship could create performance metrics and ultimately translate to be service.
While much of the public dialogue has been about her commitment to housing, Faria’s overarching platform is infrastructure. With climate change, there have been impacts to the Island like Five Corners and Beach Road. The area in Vineyard Haven has been flooded twice in the past week due to heavy rains. She wants to advocate for state funding to come to the Island to help.
Thomas Moakley
While Faria leans into her experience in grassroots organizing, Moakley has touted his experience within the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, where he serves as assistant district attorney. While a Falmouth resident, he is a frequent commuter to the Island, and says he’s experienced firsthand the struggles with the Steamship Authority.
Moakley was raised in Falmouth, where he attended public schools. His parents met on a NOAA research vessel out of Woods Hole, where his dad worked. Moakley would go on to attend Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, looking for a career in the State Department. When Donald Trump was elected president, the administration was not not keen on hiring diplomats, so Moakley said that he eventually returned to his hometown, and then eventually began working in the local district attorney’s office.
Most recently, he said he was assigned as the sole assistant DA to the Vineyard, where they prosecute over 800 cases a year. Part of the job, Moakley noted, is maintaining relationships with local and state law enforcement on the Island. During his time, he helped create a recovery court at the Edgartown courthouse by looking at examples in Barnstable and Falmouth. The program is intended to provide an alternative to incarceration through treatment and recovery.
One of the issues he’s seen firsthand is a lack of translation services in the court system, which is leading to inequalities. Moakley said that the Portuguese interpreter he worked with in Edgartown was spread thin working for courts across the Cape and Islands and beyond. That left many in the justice system without adequate services. If elected, he would try to serve on the Joint Judiciary Committee to shepherd in changes.
Atop his platform are issues that he says are disproportionately impacting the younger generation. It ultimately comes down to sustainability: climate change, women’s reproductive rights, and affordability — which includes housing, wages and childcare.
“All those things are in one way or another existential issues that are going to be impacting this generation more than others,” Moakley said. Among the issues he has discussed is creating a first-time homeowner program to help residents purchase homes, and he is also in support of allowing towns to pass a real-estate transfer fee.
Moakley has also been a harsh critic of the Steamship Authority, calling the service disruptions this summer “unacceptable.” He said that the issue is no longer just about convenience, but a public safety concern with first responders being turned away from boats. He sees three underlying issues: employees are being forced to work 18 hours in a 24-hour period; the ferry line’s reservation system, he said, is worse than the coffee shop that he sat for this interview with The Times, and there is no dedicated planner that works with the host communities to figure out long-term solutions. As state rep., he would use the leverage of the state to advocate for change when the Steamship came to them for bonding.
When it comes to representing the Island at the state level, Moakley said that he has gotten to know the Island well during his time in the DA’s office and built relationships with the community. “Ultimately, what’s most important is not the address where you lay your head at night, it’s how effective you are as a state representative, how communicative you are with your constituents and the depth of understanding you have of the issues that are facing your community,” Moakley said. “I know that I can be an effective representative for the Island.”
