Woodstock to decide select board contest on busy Town Meeting Day
Woodstock Town Hall on Friday afternoon. (Gareth Henderson Photo)
Next week on a busy Town Meeting Day, Woodstock voters will head to the polls to decide on a number of key items — including who will become the town’s newest Select Board member.
In the Select Board race, Susan Ford and Ernie Fernandez are vying for a two-year term. That position opened up when incumbent Mary Riley decided to run for the three-year seat held by longtime board member John Doten, who is retiring from public office. Riley is unopposed in her election bid.
Though the Select Board contest includes two different candidates, several issues came up as common priorities between them, including improvements for the town’s financial system, and addressing the lack of local housing.
Susan Ford has lived in Woodstock since 1988, and she and her husband Jim raised their two sons in town. She had her law practice in Woodstock for 30 years before retiring in June 2020, and has also served multiple times as a Justice of the Peace.
Ford said several local people approached her about running for the Select Board, and she eventually opted to run, since she thought it was the right thing to do for the community. She sees opportunities to use her professional expertise for the good of the town.
“As an attorney, I think I was in front of probably every single [town] board there is,” Ford said, noting her wide-ranging knowledge of Woodstock. “I’m not only familiar with all the non-profits and the community, but also the government structure.”
As for priorities, Ford said it’s important to get the town’s “financial structure in better shape.” She was encouraged by a recent audit meeting the Select Board had, where establishing a finance committee was discussed.
“We really need to step back and make sure we’re spending taxpayer dollars in a responsible manner,” Ford said.
The town’s infrastructure, including the Town Hall, roads, and the high school were also important priorities for Ford. She said the housing shortage is also a key issue to focus on.
“It breaks my heart to talk to local people in their 30s who can’t even think about buying a house here, and they work here,” Ford said.
When speaking of priorities, Fernandez also emphasized a shortage of housing and local workers.
“We obviously have a labor issue in town; there just aren’t folks here to work,” he said. “People can’t afford to live here.”
He admitted it’s not an issue the Select Board can resolve alone, but he thought the town could provide incentives and proactively partner with the business community on solutions.
Fernandez and his fiancé, Alexandra Catherine Williams, left the Boston area and moved to Taftsville in 2020, in part because of Alexandra’s deep family roots in Vermont and Hampshire. Fernandez, originally from Miami, Florida, moved to Boston 10 years ago. He works for the Harvard Business School, collaborating with the fundraising and alumni relations departments to improve business processes. Fernandez is also the president of the Cambridge Masonic Temple, a community organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a 45,000 square-foot facility and over 500 members.
Fernandez said he has always become locally involved with the community wherever he lives, and running for the Select Board seemed like a good way to do that. As a Select Board member, Fernandez said he’d like to see the town make more efficient use of the volunteer hours people provide.
“I have a special aversion to seeing good people’s gifts of talent and time being wasted. … I want to do better by our volunteers,” he said.
Like Ford, Fernandez was concerned about the town’s financial structure, but was also encouraged by the recent audit meeting.
“I was very pleased at how positive, constructive, open and mature the conversation was,” he said.
Fernandez also spoke about improving the transparency of the town’s finances, and wants to see the Select Board find new ways to communicate more clearly, and with more of the community, about how taxpayer money is being spent.
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A host of other ballot items await Woodstock voters on Town Meeting Day. For example, voters will decide whether cannabis retailers will be able to open in town, according to the Valley News. If this measure passes, retailers could open in the town as soon as October 2022.
In a separate ballot article, residents will decide whether the town will assess a 1% local option sales tax that would fund the budget for capital expenditures, the Valley News reported.
Also up for vote is the proposed $7,025,832 Woodstock town budget for the coming fiscal year. The budget plan includes $2,070,796 for the highway department, and another $1,267,134 for the ambulance department. The proposed budget includes $5,398,766 to be raised by taxes.
The town will hold an informational meeting on Zoom and in Town Hall at 31 The Green, this Saturday, Feb. 26, at 10 a.m. Voting by Australian ballot will be held at Town Hall on Tuesday, March 1, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
— Gareth Henderson
