Matt Fee And Brooke Mohr Reelected To Select Board

Select Board incumbents Matt Fee and Brooke Mohr were reelected on Tuesday, easily defeating the three challengers in the race.

Fee received 1,441 votes - by far the most of any candidate in the race - to win his fifth straight term on the Select Board and sixth overall, demonstrating his base of support remains strong. Like usual, Fee ran a subdued campaign with no signs and no advertising. As was the case three years ago on election night, Fee wasn't attending a post-election party or at the polls to hear the results. Instead, he was in his pajamas and preparing to go to bed when the Current reached him by phone Tuesday night.

"I’m thankful and I’m glad I'm back again," Fee said. "I think there were interesting points from the other candidates - the concerns with wind farms, and Cliff Williams with his focus on the roads and doing the simple things. And Brook Gibbs, who talked about keeping the money here and keeping costs down. They had really good points that I hope will be considered. I'll say it was a polite race."

Mohr, who was not only an incumbent but also spent the last year as Select Board chair, also topped 1,000 votes and was at the polls to hear the results. She called Planning Board candidate Liza Hatton, who had just lost a close race to Hillary Hedges Rayport, to console her and tell her she should remain in the political arena.

Mohr said after a difficult summer - highlighted by the Vineyard Wind blade failure and a series of contentious meetings - that she considered not running for reelection. It was former Land Bank executive director Jesse Bell who convinced Mohr to run again.

"It's much harder to run for reelection than to run for election," Mohr said. "You've made decisions that people aren't happy with. But I love the job. I think everybody knows how committed I am to the job, and I'm really looking forward to working on some stuff and digging into housing, as I've been saying in all my statements across the board...I'm relieved and excited to keep at it."

The three challengers, Clifford Williams, Mary Chalke, and Brook Gibbs, finished a distant third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.

The final results were:

• Mary Chalke: 499
• Matt Fee: 1,441
• Brook Gibbs: 285
• Brooke Mohr: 1,083
• Clifford Williams: 687