Two of the five positions on the Select Board are being contested in the April 14 town elections. With long-term incumbent Marianne Cooley opting to step aside, there is guaranteed to be at least one new member on the board.
Incumbent Cathy Dowd is seeking a second term and is joined on the ballot by challengers Rich Adduci and Bill Dermody. Here’s a look at their respective positions on four key issues, culled from one-on-one interviews with the Observer’s Daniel Barbarisi, comments in public forums, including the League of Women Voters of Needham Candidates Night, and candidate websites.
SELECT BOARD GOVERNANCE
Under Needham’s charter, Town Manager Katie King is the town’s CEO. The Select Board is the executive branch and Town Meeting the town’s legislative body.
All three candidates agree that, in corporate terms, the Select Board is the town’s board of directors and provides policy direction for the town manager to execute.
“The Select Board is sort of an anomalous creature, because it’s an executive body with five members,” Dowd said. “So as an executive body, it is providing direction to the town manager.”
A vast majority of Select Board votes are unanimous. For decades, the board has strived for consensus. Dowd and Dermody vow to continue that practice and agreed that once a decision has been made all members should support the decision going forward.
“I think we have to go forward collectively,” said Dermody. “That does not mean that we can’t have discussions to get to that collective. But in the end, if there is a decision made in a consensus, then we should definitely work collaboratively.”
“I think it’s good for us to have vigorous debate, but then we have to come to a resolution, and we have to give our wonderful town manager one direction to go in,” said Dowd.
Adduci did not concur. “I’m not sure I fully agree with it, honestly,” he said at the March 30 League of Women Voters candidates forum.
“If you take a look at how we’ve gone the last two years, there’s a lot of ruts in the road behind us that suggest maybe we could have listened more,” he said, referring to opposition to both the MBTA zoning plan and the downtown Envision project proposals.
POLLARD PROJECT
The decision to issue debt to fund the town’s portion of the construction cost for a new Pollard Middle School will ultimately be made by Town Meeting and then by voters at a debt exclusion override election. The town could be on the hook for all but 20-25% of the $300+ million estimated cost.
The Select Board will need to vote to place the item on the fall Town Meeting warrant, a vote all three candidates seem willing to make.
“It is past time to do it,” Dowd said. “We need it to give our children — our students — the education that they deserve. People move to Needham for the education. We need to live up to that. It’s time. It is an expensive project, and it’s a big ask, and we need to be respectful of the taxpayer and try to find whatever ways we can to get the best bang for our buck and not waste money on it. But we need to do it.”
“Now that we have the site picked — which I think is great — we have to make sure that the project continues to move forward on a timely basis so we can get it done in the most fiscally responsible manner possible,” said Dermody. “So, full support and go down the path.”
Adduci agreed that “something needs to be done” at Pollard, but called for more financial analysis. “I think we should really look at the Pollard project,” he said. “No doubt it needs to be done. But are there ways we can do it more cost-effectively?”
“It’s not clear to me that we’ve applied the same sort of financial discipline any of us would apply if we were rehabbing our bathroom or our kitchen,” he said.
The town has done an in-depth analysis of the impact of a $311 million Pollard project. Town Finance Director Dave Davison prepared a 345-page analysis of the town’s long-term debt financing outlook prior to Annual Town Meeting in 2025 which provided a detailed projection of the Pollard project’s impact on residential taxes from 2028 through 2060.
DOWNTOWN ENVISION PROJECT
Dowd and Dermody support the four-lane option for the Envision Needham Center project and agree that a reset of the project is in order. Adduci cited the widespread opposition to some of the proposed design options as a prime motivation for his candidacy and wants the project stopped.
“This is my whole reason for running,” Adduci said.
“It appears that town government has misread what our town wants,” he said, referring both to Envision and the 2025 repeal of the original MBTA zoning plan.
QUIET ZONE
The town has been proceeding in fits and starts over several years to establish a Quiet Zone that would eliminate the need for the mandatory commuter rail train horns at grade crossings that begin around 4:30 in the morning and continue after midnight.
The Quiet Zone Working Group plans to present an article at Town Meeting in May to approve funding for design and construction but has yet to settle on a funding amount, though a placeholder value sits at $7 million.
All three candidates have voiced their support for the project, with Dowd placing it among her top three priorities.
“Although achieving a quiet zone is a complicated and highly regulated process, we are making progress,” she said. “I am committing to sticking with this until we have eliminated train horns at all crossings in Needham.”
While they did not rank it as high a priority as Dowd, both Adduci and Dermody support it as a “quality of life” issue.
This story was updated at 9:15 for clarifications.
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