Brian Phillips Makes Third Run For Select Board

CHATHAM – In his third run for select board, Brian Phillips is planning to spend a lot of time going door to door to “get out there as much as possible.”

 “So get your best questions ready for me,” he said.

 Since his first candidacy, Phillips has become more involved in town government, regularly attending select board and other meetings, spending as much as 20 to 40 hours a week immersed in municipal business.

 “My goal is to be as well informed as I possibly can be,” he said in an interview last week. “I still have a tremendous amount of growth and learning.”

 Phillips said he is focused on making sure the voices of year-round residents are heard. He supports the proposed residential property tax exemption “to restore a balance to this town.” It’s a tool that can be used in combination with others to help ease the financial burden on local residents, he said, such as expansion of the Marconi rent-to-own initiative. In that program, the town escrows a portion of the rent on four single-family homes it owns on the former Marconi property that tenants can then use as a downpayment on a house.

He is also concerned about investors turning homes into short-term rentals (STR). There is a discrepancy between the number of short-term rentals registered with the town’s health board and those registered with the state, he noted; the town lists 939 while the state registry includes more than 1,600. More enforcement is needed to ensure compliance with local STR regulations, he said.

He is sponsoring a town meeting article to provide a tax break to owners who rent to year-round residents. 

 Phillips said he was displeased with the two Pennrose affordable housing projects now in the works. Town meeting should have been allowed to weigh in on both, rather than approval coming down to one panel — the zoning board of appeals. He has many questions about the developments — including identifying the investors — and why taxpayers are being asked to subsidize a project for a for-profit company. Local workers such as teachers, police and firefighters won’t qualify for the housing, since they make too much money. He said he would have preferred to see homeownership opportunities rather than rentals.

 He supports the proposed Stepping Stone Road homeownership project, but is not in favor of using the town-owned property at 127 Old Harbor Rd. for housing, as he feels it violates the intent of the woman who donated the land to the town.

 “This sets a bad precedent,” he said. “People who give their property to the town, we have to respect their wishes.”

While he’s not totally happy with the final plans, he will support renovations to the Center For Active Living. “It’s something that needs to be done,” he said.

 A member of the airport commission, Phillips noted that landing fees were recently implemented for commercial aircraft, a weather balloon launching program is about to get underway (see story, page 1), and hangar rental rates were recently increased in line with the consumer price index to not price out locals, “even though we were totally justified in raising the rates much higher.”

Phillips grew up in Chatham, which he said gives him a unique perspective that none of the other three candidates for the one seat on the select board have. He saved up to buy a car when he was younger, and has worked a number of jobs to be able to stay in his hometown, including landscaping and teaching pickleball. Recently he’s been concentrating his time on the election.