Brian Phillips Running For Select Board

CHATHAM – Saying he wants to preserve the key things that make Chatham special, Brian Phillips is hoping the second time’s the charm. He’s once again throwing his hat in the ring for a seat on the select board. 

 Last year, running against incumbents Cory Metters and Dean Nicastro, Phillips was defeated but nonetheless earned around 300 votes, which he said was an achievement “against two well-liked incumbents.” This year he’s vying with incumbents Jeffrey Dykens and Michael Schell and challenger Stuart Smith, the town’s former harbormaster, for one of two seats on the board.

 Phillips, a Chatham High School graduate, said he’s running in part to encourage more young people to get involved in town government. A key plank in his platform, as it was last year, is the lack of a daily lunch program for seniors at the Center for Active Living. While Chatham offers several lunches each month, the council on aging does not have a dedicated chef and does not provide lunches every day.

 “The whole premise for me is to combat social isolation,” he said. Phillips favors creating a program modeled after Falmouth’s, which offers “high-end restaurant-quality with the nutritional needs of seniors” in mind. In addition to healthy food, the program would encourage social interaction, which can help fend off various health and emotional problems. Phillips says the initiative is important to him personally.

 “The people who helped raise me in this town are of that aging senior population,” he said.

 Phillips said he’s running to affect positive change and to help protect the things that make Chatham special. To that end, he favors strong protections for the town’s environmentally important salt marshes and waterways and also believes that the town should refocus on historic preservation efforts. His work takes Phillips regularly to Wellfleet, “and it reminds me of what Chatham used to look like,” he said.

 If elected, Phillips said he would facilitate a meeting between town officials and the owner of the former Monomoy Theatre property, with the goal of making sure that the theater returns to that site.

 “Because that theater brought a lot of people joy,” he said, and it also provided a boost to local businesses and an educational opportunity for young theater professionals. “To me, that’s one of the things that made Chatham special,” he said.

 Phillips also would advocate for the installation of sidewalks along Route 28, which he admits would not be easy because the roadway is controlled by the state. But more sidewalks would improve pedestrian access throughout town, he said. “It’s just better for everybody.” 

 On the issue of housing, Phillips said he supports creating more units, but not with large-scale rental developments like the ones planned by Pennrose, which he said are profit-driven. He favors having the town purchase deed restrictions that will keep existing housing stock available for year-round locals. 

 “To do deed restrictions on already-existing houses, it’s going to lower the cost exponentially,” he said, and won’t change community character.

 Phillips said he supports efforts to help older residents who are burdened by high property tax bills they are unable to pay, and wants to specifically help a Cedar Street resident who is currently struggling with that problem. “Whether I’m elected or not, I’m going to follow through with this,” he said.