Four in race for two seats on Springfield board

A pair of real estate agents, a semi-retired pharmacist/pilot, and a retired public works director from California all want to be elected to the Springfield Select Board, but only two will be chosen next Tuesday during town meeting.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150227/NEWS02/702279908

Select Board candidate Carol Cole Published February 27, 2015 in the Rutland Herald 2 in race for two seats on Springfield board By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — A pair of real estate agents, a semi-retired pharmacist/pilot, and a retired public works director from California all want to be elected to the Springfield Select Board, but only two will be chosen next Tuesday during town meeting. Peter MacGillivray, 71, and David Yesman, 73, are the two incumbents running for re-election to the three-year terms, and both men had served on the Select Board earlier — MacGillivray in the 1970s and Yesman in the 1980s. They are being challenged by Carol Cole, 68, and Walter Martone, 62, who both said that they wanted to help Springfield recover from the economic body blows that started more than 30 years ago when the machine tool industry started its local collapse, putting thousands of people out of work. Martone moved to Springfield seven years ago from San Mateo County in Northern California. He said that he searched all over Vermont when he decided to return to the East Coast to be closer to his elderly parents as well as friends after he retired from more than 30 years of government experience. He chose Springfield. “Springfield was the exact, right spot,” he said, praising its beauty and the fact that it was a “real town, not a tourist town.” Martone, who served on the Springfield Budget Committee this winter, is unique among the four candidates — he is the only candidate who isn’t a lifelong resident of Springfield. And that’s why he’s mounted an energetic campaign with about a dozen volunteers to get his name and ideas out to the town. “I have the least name recognition of all the candidates,” said Martone, who nonetheless has been endorsed via letters to local newspapers by people who have met and worked with him in Springfield on the budget committee. Martone has gone door-to-door campaigning, as well as campaigning at the town’s transfer station. And his campaign crew have started honk-and-wave events as well. Martone, like all the other candidates, say their number one priority is bringing new business to Springfield, to help revitalize the town and lessen the property tax burden on the town of 9,600. Martone, citing his years of experience in a California county with the same population as the entire state of Vermont, said there should be new ways of looking at things, and new efficiencies in delivering services. Neighboring towns might be able to collaborate or share services, he said. MacGillivray was the top vote getter three years ago when he decided to return to town politics after a 30-year hiatus. For years, his family owned and ran Wheeler’s Pharmacy in town; now MacGillivray works part time for an out-of-town pharmacy. He’s also a longtime pilot and member of the Springfield Airport Commission, and is a sometimes flight instructor. MacGillivray said the town’s priority has to be increasing the grand list, the list of taxable property in town. “I’d like to see more development,” MacGillivray said. He said the past couple of years has seen progress in town with the expansion of Black River Produce, the completed redevelopment of One Hundred River Street, the founding of the Beer Shapers, a local group that will start brewing Trout River Brewing Co. beers in the old Fellows Gear Shaper building later this year. “There are some good things that are going to happen in Springfield,” he said. “We’re getting to the point that we can start redeveloping J&L and Bryant’s. I see those are in the near future,” he said, referring to two former machine tool plants that need to undergo brownfields environmental cleanup. Cole, a local real estate agent, is also well known in town for her two stints as executive director of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce. She is president of the local Rotary Club and has served on the boards of Gallery at the VAULT, the Springfield Hospital and Springfield Regional Development Corp. Her business background includes working in banking and running her own business, and working in a family business. “High taxes are obviously an issue,” she said, saying that the town needed to “think outside the box” to redevelop and revitalize the town. The only ways don’t work anymore, she said. “Growing the grand list is the concern of everyone running,” she said. Cole said she would need more information before endorsing a plan by fellow candidate Yesman to tear down the oldest section of Park Street School (where three of the four candidates went to high school) as a ways to cut costs, but preserve what’s good and still useful about the historic building. Cole said that Springfield never had an opera house, unlike many Connecticut River Valley towns, and the auditorium at Park Street School could be used as an arts center. She said she supported the proposed $10 million town budget, and said that the town had to find a way to start putting more money into infrastructure, such as roads and sidewalks. “We can’t cut much more,” she said. Yesman, who is a real estate agent, spent close to 40 years in the machine tool industry at all three of the major shops, now all closed. He worked in engineering and sales, eventually becoming an international salesman, traveling all over the world promoting Springfield’s industrial machines. He’s the longtime president of the Springfield Area Habitat for Humanity. Yesman, who is often a lone “nay” vote on many issues before the Select Board , said this year he is supporting the town budget, and he supports the town entering into contracts for solar power to fill the town’s electrical needs. He opposes the creation and $100,000 in funding for the town’s dilapidated-building fund, saying the town needs to work within its existing ordinances. Yesman worked against the town’s proposed rental registry ordinance, organizing town landlords against it and spearheading a petition drive against its ratification. He’s put in a lot of time on finding a new use of Park Street School and recently proposed its partial demolition as a means to cut its operational costs. Yesman said if re-elected he would want to continue his efforts to make the town more energy efficient, particularly Town Hall and the town library, as well as including negotiating contracts with solar developers in North Springfield. Solar and the town is a good match, since the town will save between $20,000 and $40,000 a year on its electric bill, and the solar arrays will remain taxable, owned by private developers. Yesman said if re-elected would support a $4 million bond issue next year to “repave all the roads in Springfield.” He said the bond issue at $400,000 would not raise taxes, since the town spends that amount yearly on paving and road work. If the cost goes higher than $4 million, he said, he would have to reconsider.