Three Vie For Two Select Board Seats

HARWICH – Three candidates are running for two seats on the select board in the upcoming annual town election, but none of them are incumbents.

Neither Michael MacAskill nor Julie Kavanagh took out nomination papers for re-election. The deadline for taking out nomination papers was last Friday, March 28. Nomination papers needed to be submitted to the town clerk’s office by the end of the day on Tuesday for board of registrars certification. 

If everyone who took out papers returned them, there will be races for the two select board seats, for one seat on the Monomoy Regional School Committee, for one seat on the water/wastewater commission and for nine seats on the charter commission if voters endorse establishing a commission by approving a ballot question. 

“It’s time to move along,” Kavanagh said when announcing she would not seek re-election. “I’m still working full time and it’s a lot of work. 

MacAskill was out of town and could not be reached for a comment on his decision not to seek another term.  

The three candidates running for two three-year terms on the select board are Anita Doucette, Mark Kelleher and Kathryn McManus.

With Harwich’s representative to the Monomoy Regional School Committee Tina Games deciding not to seek re-election, there are three candidates running for the single three-year term on the school panel: Ryan Edwards, Bretten Fortin and Ann Marie Varella.

Incumbent water/wastewater commissioner Judith Underwood is seeking re-election and will face a challenge from Ann Frechette for the three-year term.

There are 10 candidates vying for nine positions on the charter commission. The commission would be established if voters approve a question on the election ballot calling for its creation to revise the town charter. The candidates are Herbert Bell, Leo Cakounes, Linda Cebula, Jon Chorey, Paul Doane, Sandra Hall, Antigone London, Judith Underwood, Louis Urbano and Richard Waystack. 

Town Clerk Emily Mitchell is running unopposed for re-election to a three-year term, and housing authority chair Elizabeth Harder is seeking a five-year term on the authority. Incumbent Brooks Free Library Trustees William Crowell and Bernadette Waystack are also seeking re-election to three-year terms.

There are also six questions on the May 20 ballot. They include a ballot question confirming several amendments to the town charter that were approved in the annual town meeting in 2024.  Those amendments allow for the appointment of a select board member to sign payment warrants when the town administrator is not available; establish harbormaster and assistant harbormaster appointment authority; allow the establishment of a human services position; and delete references to “selectmen” in the charter. It would also change the language on the start of the annual town meeting; the current language requires the meeting to be held on the first Monday in May, and the change would allow the annual session to be held in the first week in May. 

There are three override questions. One seeks voter permission to allow the Monomoy Regional School District to exempt from the provisions of Proposition 2½ the costs of the Monomoy Regional Middle School siding and windows replacement. Two other override questions seek approval of a debt exclusion to acquire a new fire engine and two ambulances for the fire department, and an override covering the cost of constructing sewers in the Great Sand Lakes area of town.

There is also a non-binding advisory question on the ballot asking voters to direct local government officials to communicate with state officials about the need to ensure laws are enforced requiring Holtec, owners of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, to immediately cease the discharge of radioactively and chemically contaminated industrial wastewater from the plant in Plymouth.