ROCKINGHAM — Three of the five candidates for Selectboard squared off Monday over a range of issues, from their background and experience, to the Bartonsville Bridge, to the perennial question of a merger between the Village of Bellows Falls and the Town of Rockingham.
Incumbents Tom MacPhee and Susan Hammond, and challenger Deb Wright participated in the forum, held by Citizens for Participation in Rockingham and streamed online by FACT-TV, which took place Monday.
The three candidates will vie for two of the one-year seats along with Stefan Golec, who was absent due a scheduling conflict.
Peter Golec, running unopposed for the single two-year seat, could not be present.
Candidates' backgrounds
Both Hammond and MacPhee told Michael Smith of FACT, who moderated questions from the audience, both present and from online, that they are local residents, attending local schools, with many fond memories of using the recreational center and attending the newly renovated Opera House's movie theater.
Wright said that while she is not from the area, she and her husband, “who grew up around here, chose to live here.”
A former village trustee and current vice president of the Rockingham Free Public Library board of trustees, as well as a business- and home-owner in the village, she said she has had the experience to engage in “hard work through tough times.”
Wright said she felt she was better qualified than her opposition to lead the town through the issues “facing 21st-century municipalities.”
MacPhee and Hammond said they were interested in staying on the board to shepherd the town through issues they were engaged in as incumbents, such as negotiations with TransCanada over tax revenue and getting the Vilas Bridge, closed since 2009, open and functioning for the businesses and community of Bellows Falls. Wright also cited the Vilas Bridge as one the issues facing the town and village she cares very much about.
Wright also said that she is familiar with union negotiations and would like to see the discussion of a municipal merger - “because that is going to come up again” - have a fair and open discussion.
Bartonsville bridge: price versus value?
The candidates were asked about the Bartonsville bridge and the decision of the Selectboard to go with a covered bridge that cost $20,000 more than the other option, a concrete bridge.
The bridge replaced the historic covered bridge that was swept away during Tropical Storm Irene. Hammond and MacPhee, both involved in that decision, defended their support for the project.
MacPhee said he supported going with the covered bridge because of the difference in longevity the town would realize by spending the extra money.
“The covered bridge would last a couple of hundred years, and we would only be getting about 50 [years] out of the cement” structure, he said.
Hammond said she had been involved in rebuilding the bridge “since Irene” and that she was in touch with a lot of people who wanted the covered bridge rebuilt. She said the new covered bridge has already brought tourists from all over the world to see it. She agreed as well with McPhee on the choice of the covered bridge design because of its longer anticipated lifespan.
Wright said she probably would have wanted to save the town the money and would have voted against the more expensive bridge.
Town/village merger proposal
Hammond and MacPhee were asked to defend their votes against warning a merger article brought by a petition put before the board last fall that would have deferred any discussion of merger until 2016.
Hammond said she felt it would be “tying the hands” of any future board should the question of merger come up again from the community. She said she supported a community-wide discussion “which is part of the merger process” to arrive at any merger between the two municipal entities.
MacPhee said he was advised by “three lawyers” for varying reasons not to put it on the warning, so he voted against it.
Wright said the conversation needed to be part of a much longer process, and she probably would have voted to have it on the warning.
The candidates were also asked to itemize the pros and cons of a merger. All agreed that efficiency would be a favorable outcome of a merger.
But in listing the cons, Wright said a merger would take away the villagers' rights that had been in place for hundreds of years, and that the backbone of the Bellows Falls Village Corporation was the charter, which as a trustee she had worked on. She also said the merger would take away the ability of villagers to correct and fix issues themselves.
Hammond said, “Until you see what the merger looks like, its a little hard to know what those cons would be.” She said some people wanted town-wide policing and others did not, but whether that would be a pro or a con “would depend on how the merger was actually formed.”
MacPhee said a con was that the municipal manger “has two bosses,” and attributed the heavy turnover in managers in part to that complication.
MacPhee spearheaded the movement toward merger that came before the board last fall, and he did not have more to say.
Voice of the people
Hammond and McPhee agreed that the merits of limiting public comment to one comment per person in public meetings would depend on the individual board's agenda.
Wright said she would not limit the comments and would increase a person's comment time to five minutes. She said she would be sure to take note of the questions and get back to the person who asked with an answer in a reasonable time period.
Video of the forum can be streamed from FACT's website, fact8.com.