Updated at 9:00 pm
Chilmark town clerk Jennifer Christy swore in Jeremy Bradshaw as fire chief Tuesday night before Chilmark selectmen and several members of the Chilmark Fire Department. Bradshaw had already received the selectmen’s blessing for the position, but among other stipulations, he was required to undergo medical tests before his contract could be signed. He passed them.
“We already knew he was fit to serve, but now even the doctor agrees that he is fit to serve,” selectmen chairman Warren Doty said. In light of the positive medical evaluation, the board voted unanimously to appoint Bradshaw and unanimously to sign his contract.
“I just want to thank everybody — especially my wife,” Bradshaw said.
Annie Bradshaw, secretary of the Chilmark Firefighters Association, was among those in the audience who applauded his appointment.
“So proud of him,” she later told The Times.
Tri-Town Ambulance Chief Ben Retmier and Fire Chief David Norton, who recently retired, were among the well-wishers in the audience. On his way out the door, Norton, grinning, handed over a set of keys to Bradshaw.
In other business, the board discussed an attempt by Oak Bluffs to foment voter unrest and bypass town government in Chilmark and Edgartown.
Selectman Jim Malkin said some discussions in the past two all-Island finance committee meetings, particularly the most recent one, involved one town, Oak Bluffs, expressing a belief “the current regional funding formula is unfair to them.” Moreover, Malkin said, “The rest of the meeting was a discussion of how to shame Edgartown into participating, and how to go around various select boards and rile up the voters instead.”
Malkin later told The Times that Oak Bluffs, the only town not to support a feasibility study for a new or renovated high school, lends the impression it’s using its lack of support for that study, which appears to be holding up funding prospects for a decaying school, as a bargaining chip for use in getting a funding formula more to its liking. He said he also took particular issue with any attempt to sideline town government.
At the meeting, he said committee ideas put forth included employing MVTV and the press to move the idea of a formula change.
“As a selectman for the town of Chilmark, I don’t feel that our voters need to be riled up,” he said. “I think they need to know facts, and the facts are the town of Chilmark and at least four of the other towns voted to support the feasibility studies …”
Malkin later told The Times notes taken by a Chilmark finance committee member indicate Edgartown and Chilmark were singled out as bad actors because they won’t play ball in recalibrating the funding formula, and need to be shamed into doing so.
“We happen to be comfortable with the current formula, but we’re certainly open to continuing to talk, but in an open manner, without the need to rile up or go around our town and its appointed officials,” Malkin said at the meeting.
Selectmen Bill Rossi said he attended one of those all-Island finance committee meetings. “There’s just one or two towns that don’t understand how their tax rate can be so much higher than ours, and they think it’s unfair, and to me it’s a shallow argument and it’s unfortunate.”
Rossi said he was “very comfortable with our current formula.” He went on to say that the current formula “is more aligned with, if not all, most of the regions in the state. So in terms of fairness, it’s an accepted form …”
At the finance committee meeting, he told the committee, he “felt comfortable that our board of selectmen would not have any trouble convincing the voters in our town that our position is a fair position for Chilmark and the Island in general.”
Rates notwithstanding, Malkin said, certain tax bills appear uniform in Chilmark, Edgartown, and Oak Bluffs.
“One of the things our finance committee chairman pointed out at this meeting is that the average single-family tax bill in Chilmark is $5,260, in Edgartown it’s $5,450, in Oak Bluffs it’s $5,311, and that’s from the latest MVC statistical profile,” he said.
Chairman Warren Doty said friction regularly arises whenever regional cost issues come up.
“The only way to have a different formula is if the towns agree unanimously,” he said. “And it’s not going to be a unanimous thing if we have towns yelling at each other.”
They discussed the matter further, but took no action.
Updated to clarify what all-Island committee was relative to the selectmen’s discussion.
Of course Chilmark is comfortable with the formula, they are the cheapest rich town in Mass. Edgartown skates too. The school funding formula needs to be adjusted.