Two Oak Bluffs select board members, Ryan Ruley and Brian Packish, attended their last board meeting Tuesday evening.
Ruley is stepping down after three years; he’s also been board chair for the past year. He called his introduction to the board a “huge educational curve.”
“You think you probably know what goes on, but you don’t know anything,” he said. “It’s impressive to watch people run a $38 million company,” he said of the town. “There’s so much work that goes on to make this machine run.”
To the board and town staff present at Tuesday’s meeting, Ruley said, “Thank you to all of you; I appreciate what you guys do.”
Select board member Brian Packish, who is stepping down after six years, thanked those who had supported him during his two terms. “And thank you to everyone that hasn’t supported me,” he said. “At the end of the day, that’s the people that make everyone better.”
Packish wished the three new candidates good luck at next week’s town election. “I learned more about Oak Bluffs on the campaign trail than I did in six years in this seat,” he said. Campaigning is “one of the greatest parts of the process. People should run for office even if they don’t want to get elected, just because the process, for me, is really amazing.”
Packish said that he was grateful to have had the opportunity to serve on the board.
Select board member Jason Balboni thanked the two for their service. “Brian, you picked up the ball on so many projects, and moved this town forward,” he said. “You get a lot of crap for it — you get a lot of crap for everything that you do — but I don’t think that most people understand the amount of work that you’ve done for this town.”
Also on Tuesday, the select board unanimously approved using the $488,000 allotted to the town via the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to cover lost revenue from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The federal funds distributed through ARPA offer relief to eligible local and state organizations in order to assist communities that have been affected by the global public health emergency. “It is sitting in an account,” town administrator Deborah Potter said of the funds. “Now we have to decide what we’re going to do with it.”
“At this point, I would favor just replacing the lost revenue and just taking it as a standard deduction,” she said. “It’s the cleanest, simplest, and easiest way to be able to absorb the funds into the general fund.”
The relief money has restrictions on what it can be used for, Potter said, one of which is to help make up for municipal revenue loss during the pandemic. “If we just take it as replacing lost revenue, the assumption that [the federal government] is making based on the final rule [of use], is that if it’s less than $10 million, we can just take it as lost revenue, period.”
Select board member Gail Barmakian asked if the town would need to report what the lost revenue is, to which Potter replied they do not.
The funds will go into free cash, and can be allocated next year, after voter approval.
Thank you to the two outgoing OB Selectmen. It’s been a good run. You navigated OB and the island through the pandemic and well beyond and so much more. Thank you for your service.
Refreshing to see a change in leader ship on any level in town governments across-the-board. All the positions in all the towns should have regular cleansing for the health of the town. These should not be considered lifetime positions, and few people are willing to run against incumbents across-the-board, and those that do my hats off to them. If more public officials would step down, I believe it’s better for the island as a whole. People get stale in their job it’s just the nature of these positions and nothing against the individual. The officials that have been doing the same job for 12 15,20 years are not doing the island any favors. Vote for the new person.
What makes you think the new leadership will be better than the old?
The country got new leadership in 2016.
How did that work out?
Yes, the country got a new leader in 2016 which did both good and bad for the country and then we got a new leader in 2020 which has done both good and bad for the country and we will see what 2024 brings. What has been said is all politics are local, and on the local level with the many entrenched people in the same positions year after year it becomes some thing for these people to do. New ideas and fresh energy comes from new blood.
What country are you talking about? Couldn’t possibly be the U.S. The president a minority of U.S. voters elected in 2016 was an almost unmitigated disaster for all but the most privileged. I say “almost” because his election woke up hundreds of thousands of people who’d been taking democracy for granted.
It worked out beautifully. Gas prices low, stock market up, borders closed, economy buzzing well and liberals seething.
Yes — we clearly made the correct choice in 2020.
Gas is cheaper now than it was in 2008
Unemployment is at it’s lowest levels in 50 years.
Stock market was up 18.73 % in 2021. It was up 1.3 % in the first quarter of this year. (5.2% annually)– it always goes up.
GDP up 5.95 % in 2021 — highest level since 1984.
Border open to legal immigrants filling jobs to keep the economy running . Of course there are also undocumented immigrants who cut through the “impenetrable” wall with battery operated hand tools, but somebody has to pick the vegetables , and conservatives are tying themselves in knots about people living their lives the way they want, and public urination.
Riots in the streets, excrement smeared in the Capitol, make America great again.
While I have occasionally disagreed with the opinions and decisions of these 2 people, I appreciate their service to the community and wish them well.
Don, this is America, you must love or hate our politicians.
You will be hated for failing to do so.
I appreciate the work and dedication of both of them. Just stepping up to the plate is huge. There is not a human being alive that gets it right all the time. I know both of these guys and k ow that the decisions that they made had the best intentions of the town. No one agrees all the time,but if you do you’re best that is all anyone can ask for THANK YOU