Medfield Selectman Candidates Weigh in on Town Issues at LWV Event

Editor’s note: Medfield’s Town Election is Monday, March 26 from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Center at Medfield on Ice House Road. to view Medfield Patch's voter's guide.

The old saying “democracy is a participatory sport” rang true Wednesday during the Medfield League of Women Voters’ Candidates’ Evening event at .

LWV, a volunteer group in town, hosted a public forum featuring several candidates on this year’s town election ballot, including both candidates running for selectman – the town’s only contested race this year.

Medfield resident Nikolaos “Nick” Athanasiadis surprised some with his appearance at the event after he was rumored not to be in attendance Wednesday due to other commitments.

Athanasiadis helped his campaign and proved democracy is in fact a participatory sport by attending. The first-year runner is challenging Osler “Pete” Peterson, a Medfield selectman for the past 12 years, who is up for reelection Monday and in attendance Wednesday.

The evening, run exceptionally well by LWV moderator Bonnie Wren-Burgess, offered candidates the opportunity to make an opening statement, followed by a question and answer period.

In his opening statement, Athanasiadis explained why he is running for selectman.

“Over the years, I have been very relaxed about getting involved,” he said. “Trying to get your business going and trying to raise a family is very difficult, as I’m sure anybody knows. So while I kept an eye on the things going on [in town], I never really took the time to do anything. … [My wife and I] did some volunteering on different school trips, some parades, Medfield Day. … When we opened up , we became involved [in the town] by sponsoring different events and donating services for auction so that was the extent of our involvement.”

To read more on why Athanasiadis is running, .

Peterson followed with his opening remarks, explaining what the role of a selectman is and outlining his qualifications for the job.

“[The Board of Selectmen] is technically the chief executive officer of the town,” Peterson said. “That means we are charged legally with running the town. … Medfield is about a $52 million per year business ... [and being a selectman means making] a myriad of decisions from signs, to mailboxes to personnel decisions to big decisions on infrastructure and building of facilities.”

As for his qualifications, Peterson said before his 12 years as selectman he was involved in other forms of town government.

“I chaired a study committee in town, I had seven years on the Zoning Board of Appeals, I was active in the effort to save the Dwight-Derby House, I ran Medfield Day four times and I actively went to town meeting and participated,” Peterson said.

To read more on why Peterson is running for reelection, .

Both candidates ran out of their allotted time and were promptly stopped by Wren-Burgess.

Following the opening statements was a question and answer period involving the audience. There were about 20 people present at the event and the LWV invited anyone with a question to write it on a 3x5 note card and submit it to the moderator.

The selectman candidates were asked six questions, which are seen below, along with each candidate's response.

Question 1: Why do you want to be a selectman now?

Nikolaos Athanasiadis (NA): “As I said before, raising a family was the priority in my life. Right now, I know I have the time and I want to start giving back. I saw some voids and some needs on the board and I believe I can help address those. My job is very flexible and I think I have the time to do it. I just want to give back.”

Osler Peterson (OP): “I was very interested as a selectman of making the business of the town transparent to citizens so they would easily know what’s going on at the Townhouse. When I first became a selectman, the only way you could find out what was on a selectmen’s agenda was calling the Townhouse. Now, at my urging and initiative, you can see the agendas online before the meeting and the minutes are online after the meeting. When I found out that Medfield.TV has a [digital] hard drive, I immediately asked them ‘can we put the meetings of the selectmen up online so people could watch them whenever they had time?’ There’s [also] a lot happening. The Lyme disease effort [and] the energy committee has saved this town 31.7 percent of energy costs.”

Moderator signaled Peterson’s one minute was reached.

Question 2: What creative approaches would you take to strengthen the current tax base?

OP: “This came up a lot of when we were studying the Medfield State Hospital and what the options are up there because it is really zoned for business and agricultural use up there. I think you get one house for every 10 acres. I think the reality is you find there aren’t a lot of businesses that want to locate in Medfield and so that the way I think Medfield can strengthen its tax base is by selling what people really like about Medfield, which is the residential community. If you build the right type of residences, you will not end up impacting the municipal services as much and so you can build housing and actually increase the tax base without increasing your municipal costs.”

Moderator signaled Peterson’s one minute was reached.

NA: “To tell the truth, I really haven’t thought about this much, but I definitely know the taxes are a big concern. I’ve talked to people in the community and the seniors, who are very concerned by it. That population [the seniors] is probably most impacted by it because we have some of these people being driven out of their homes. What would I do different? It would be nice to see if it is possible to maybe have a different tax rate for the seniors to at least help that population to keep them in the homes they raised their kids in. As far as bringing businesses in here, which is typically how a lot of towns make [money]. Obviously, Medfield is in the middle of nowhere and it is very hard to access highways.”

Moderator signaled Athanasiadis’ one minute was reached.

Question 3: At times, selectmen have abstained from taking a position on important issues at Town Meeting. Do you think that is a reasonable practice? If so, under what circumstances and can you also comment on your town meeting attendance and voting?

NA: “Selectmen abstaining from taking a position at town meeting is probably … if there is a conflict, I know people volunteer for many things here and so if there is a conflict in some ways, I think the selectmen should do the right thing and abstain. As far as my Town Meeting record, by now everybody knows and it is something that I have not hidden from anyone, is that I have not attended as much as I have wanted to. I have been to one [Town Meeting]. I didn’t quite register. I got in and it was a mob scene – a two-day Town Meeting – so I ended up watching it on TV so that was pretty good. But yes, I have not attended [Town Meetings] in person. I have watched them on TV and I could say probably about 90 percent of Medfield does not attend those.”

OP: “I think it is incumbent upon the selectmen to take a position on issues at town meeting because that’s really what you are – you are a spokesman for the town. The selectmen review all the warrant articles before town meeting and take positions on them. We don’t always speak at town meeting but we have voted and taken positions on all the warrant articles prior to town meetings. My concept of being the selectmen is being the eyes, bodies and ears of the people. I’m the one that goes to all the meetings it takes to run the town and I take that information in and synthesize it and come up with opinions, which I think is my job to give and report back to the town. I think it is important to have opinions and I think it is important to go to Town Meeting too.”

Question 4: What can you tell us about the state hospital property and what would you like to see happen to the property?

OP: "The state hospital project has changed dramatically in the past two weeks. I met with the commissioner of DCAM a week ago Friday and she offered to sell it to the town. That’s the new wrinkle that’s on the table. The town can actually take over ownership of the hospital. In the past, the prior DCAM commissioner had refused to sell it to the town. So I specifically asked when we started this process with DCAM about 10 years ago, DCAM expected to get about $3 million from the state for the property and when I saw it was $3 million I said we will give you the $3 million and they said ‘no you can’t do that.’ You have to bid with the other developers and build the housing. That’s off the table now and we can buy it and do whatever we want with it. The details aren’t there yet. We don’t know how much it will cost.”

NA: “I know what I hear and see at the meetings. This development of the town being able to buy the property is a very interesting option. We would definitely have to do some type of study to determine what it would cost us to make it usable. I would hate for the town to purchase something and then spend millions of dollars to clean it up. If it is something that would come at the cost of the developer then maybe we could work something out and share the cost. There’s no reason to kill the taxpayers with something that can be very costly.”

Question: 5: 40B is a recent hot topic in town. How come the Board of Selectmen and Affordable Housing Committee have not been working on this issue for the past decade? What can be done for the future by the Board of Selectmen?

NA: “Well, you will have to ask the board about that one because I’m not part of it. As a candidate, why haven’t we been working on it? I guess we got caught with our pants down. There was the state hospital, which was going to help us out, but that didn’t happen and there was a period of time that we did nothing. We need to be proactive and need to come up with a plan to produce more affordable units in town. I think it would be very beneficial to the town if we could produce housing units that are directed towards the seniors.”

OP: “The Board of Selectmen’s official position on affordable housing was basically summed up in the fact that we were going to get 256 units of affordable housing at the Medfield State Hospital project. Only 79 of which were actually going to be affordable units. We were taking advantage of the multiplier effect. The reality was the state hospital development never got built and that was something that was down the road and we never got close enough to it to be able to put in place the affordable housing production plan, which gives the town protection from 40B developers from coming in and doing what is happening on West Street. What I’ve done since I’ve been a selectman is I came back from an MMA meeting and saw Falmouth actually had a program where they actually were buying up existing housing and trading it in to affordable housing and I thought this was perfect and we should be buying up housing and turning into affordable.”

Moderator signaled Peterson’s one minute was reached.

Question 6: What would you change about how town business is conducted, given the opportunity, and how could you keep the public informed about it?

OP: “Well, what I would like to see happen is greater systemization and greater organization of the processes of the town government in Medfield so the people have a better understanding on how things are done, when they’re done. This past year, I got the BOS to adopt an annual calendar to publish for public record. Once we get that done then people will see how the year progresses for the town. I get huge amounts of information when I’m a selectman so what I do is publish it on my blog.”

Moderator signaled Peterson’s one minute was reached.

NA: “Anything that the town wants to do should be something that is known to people. Town meetings have to be published better and people have to know what is happening. You can’t just put it up on a blog or put it on the website, it has to be something like perhaps an electronic reminder that there’s a meeting happening. One thing that I’ve noticed through talking to some of my students at tutoring school is kids have no idea about the administration in Medfield. We need to do something to teach the kids how Medfield is run.”

Moderator signaled Athanasiadis’ one minute was reached.

The selectman candidates were followed by the following individuals running for town offices – all uncontested races:

• Tom Caragliano; running for Park Commissioner (3-year term)
• Thomas Sweeney, Jr.; running for Board of Assessors (3-year term)
• Maryanne Sullivan; running for School Committee (3-year term)
• Steven Pelosi; running for Library Trustee (3-year term)

The candidates each issued an opening statement and participated in a similar question and answer period. Log on to Medfield Patch Friday for more on these candidates.