WHATELY — 12-year veteran Selectman Paul Newlin is resigning, and there’s a contested race to fill his Selectboard seat in this year’s election.
The election is scheduled for Tuesday, June 13, between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Voting takes place at the town offices, 4 Sandy Lane.
“Whately, in my opinion, is very fortunate to have an excellent administrative staff. I can’t say enough about the commitment and competence of the staff I’ve witnessed in my dozen years on the board,” Newlin said in an email about his retirement.
“It’s not a glamorous job, and you don’t really have all that much power. It’s like most jobs, you don’t make a big difference, but sometimes you can make a small difference,” he continued. “And the accumulation of small differences add up to be all the difference. I encourage anybody to seriously consider public service in whatever capacity you feel appropriate. I’m glad I took my turn and hope I made a small difference.”
Running in his stead are electrical engineer Joyce Palmer-Fortune, a former Selectwoman, and Marine veteran Justin Davis, who’ve both thrown their caps into the ring vying for a majority vote at Whately’s June 13 annual election.
Palmer-Fortune, a 22-year Westbrook Road resident and experienced electrical engineer who now works as an educator at Smith College teaching physics, said she’s again running for a seat on the board to bring more green energy into town — an endeavor she helped spearhead as a Selectwoman from 2009 to 2015.
Over the years, she has “worked in research laboratories in Japan, I have worked as a private consultant for a long time — and researched whatever everyone else in the office couldn’t figure out.”
“I’ve always brought a viewpoint of a scientist and engineer to the table. A few years back we negotiated the first pilot agreement for solar farms in Massachusetts,” Palmer-Fortune said, referring to a 2-megawatt solar project behind the town’s transfer station. Since then, “things have just gotten better.”
“As an electrical engineer I understand about solar, I’m also good with numbers,” she continued.
Her race is supported by husband, Matt Fortune, who served on the School Committee for 12 years, and children Matthew and Alex Fortune. Palmer-Fortune holds a master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
On Memorial Day in 2011, Davis was deployed as a Homeland Security intelligence contractor embedded in an Army Infantry Brigade in the Middle East.
“I got hit by a 107 rocket. Some shrapnel went through my arm, and some more went through my hip,” Davis said recently inside his Grey Oak Lane home, where he’s lived for three years with his wife, Jessica, and daughters, Addison, 4, and Braelyn, 1.
Before becoming a contractor, Davis served in the Marines. He had a few deployments and served as a firefighter and intelligence officer. These days, he holds a master’s degree in business management and works at Community Enterprises in Greenfield helping people with disabilities find jobs.
For years after the rocket attack, Davis said he “went through a lot of stuff.” Then, he found God. He added, “I feel like God was taking me through this journey to get to this point.”
Now, Davis is turning his attention to public service.
“I’m interested in helping figure out long-range capital planning and asset management principals to figure out how we can better use our assets,” Davis said.
To that end, he’s interested in helping the local school system —“which takes up about 60 percent of the budget”— run more efficiently by planning ahead. Davis noted there’s “a limited amount of time” to review and put into action the school’s complex budget.
Another project he’d like to tackle is the installation of a new manganese removal filtration system for the water district.
Most of all, though, Davis wants to “capture the voice of the people. That’s something I have a vision for.”