ROWE — Two candidates are competing for an open Selectboard seat in a special town election on Sept. 9.
Michael Phillips and Chuck Sokol are both seeking election for the unexpired term of Marilyn Wilson, who resigned this summer for health reasons.
Polls at the Town Hall will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that Saturday. The chosen selectman will serve out the eight-month term, until the annual town election in May 2018.
Phillips has owned a home in Rowe since 1977 and has been a long-time, part-time resident. About two years ago, after retiring from his 44-year career as a biology and science teacher, Phillips moved into his Rowe home full-time.
Phillips worked at Bement School in Deerfield from 1975 to 1988 and served as a volunteer firefighter in Old Deerfield.
He is currently an elected member of the Park Commission and has been actively working with the town’s Energy Committee. Although he wasn’t on the annual town election ballot, Phillips received 22 write-in votes for Selectboard in last spring’s election. After Wilson’s resignation, several residents encouraged him to run for office.
“At (annual) town meeting, I happened to speak about a few items on the agenda. And, even before I put in my (nomination) paperwork, there were rumors I was going to close the school. That’s not true,” he said.
Phillips said he was concerned, however, that Rowe Elementary School is now educating more School Choice students than Rowe children, and that the $5,000 per student that Rowe derives for each School Choice student doesn’t cover the true cost of their education. He said there are currently 25 Rowe children in the school, which costs about $1 million a year to run. He believes the town should be more frugal with its budget, because the high revenues generated through utility tax dollars (from the closed Yankee Rowe nuclear plant and the Bear Swamp hydroelectric facility) may not always be there.
Sokol, a system design engineer at Valley Communications System Inc., moved to Rowe in 2014 with his wife, Meredith. This spring, Sokol was elected to a three-year term on the town’s Finance Committee.
In an email, Sokol said he sees the Selectboard seat “to be one of business and not politics.”
“My vision for any elected town office … is (it) should be filled with the intent of serving the interests and needs of the community,” Sokol said. “I believe it is my duty to listen to the many views and concerns of those who live around me, and consider those needs and desires when weighing the options with which I am presented. My view is only one among many, and I feel it is my responsibility to focus on the needs of the community over my own desires.”
Sokol said Rowe residents are fortunate to live in a town that has both natural beauty and a strong municipal fiscal foundation. “I feel that neither should be squandered,” he said, “and that each should be prudently utilized to meet the needs, obligations and vision of our town, as determined by all of us who live here.”