School Committee Nominates Vince Murphy To Fill Proch's Seat

The Nantucket School Committee will be presenting the Select Board with Vince Murphy as its chosen candidate to fill the seat of committee chair Pauline Proch, who announced she was stepping down last month.

Murphy was one of four candidates vying for the opportunity to be on the committee until the next election takes place in April 2025. The four candidates were Murphy, Elise Norton, Kathy Richen, and Matt Tara.

Proch, along with School Committee members Dr. Tim Lepore and Esmeralda Martinez, were present for Tuesday’s meeting and voted unanimously in favor of Murphy. Committee member Shantaw Bloise and vice chair Laura Gallagher Byrne were not in attendance.

“The two people who stood out to me were Kathy and Vince,” Lepore said. “Kathy has a lot of experience dealing with issues. She has an interest in the schools. She has knowledge coming from the Finance Committee. Vince was the other one of my choices. Vince exudes a lot of positivity. I find it difficult to choose because I think they each bring different things to the table.”

Proch and Lepore said they liked Murphy’s acknowledgement of there being numerous ways for children to learn in school despite school coming easier to him as he grew up.

"What I liked about Vince was that he has three children,” Proch added. “One currently in our schools and then one coming into kindergarten and then the little one that will be there soon enough."

The committee originally considered presenting the members of the Select Board with both Murphy and Richen and allowing them to decide who would fill Proch’s seat for the next six months. But Proch pushed for a decision to be made on one candidate because she felt it wouldn't be fair to either of the two candidates to have the Select Board decide who would get the seat, as they did not conduct the interviews.

Lepore argued that given both candidates have or currently work for the town, he believed the Select Board had enough familiarity with them to decide.

“They are very different,” Lepore said of Murphy and Richen. “They bring very different skills and experiences to the position. Whoever is up for reelection should be sleeping uneasily. It’s like answering who is your favorite child.”

Proch said Murphy told the committee that he will seek reelection in the spring, which caught her attention. She said she did not hear the same intentions come from Richen. She said the longevity Murphy seemed willing to bring to the committee and the vacant seat was another appealing part of his candidacy.

Murphy currently works for the town's Natural Resources Department as its sustainability programs manager. He has been with the Natural Resources Department for nearly seven years. He is currently in the process of receiving his PhD from University College Cork.

Proch announced at the end of the School Committee's Sept. 3 meeting that she is stepping down from her position after 12 years. Her last meeting will be in November.

When a committee member cuts their term short, the rest of the committee has the opportunity to appoint a temporary replacement to serve until the next election year – which in this case isn’t until April of 2025. A similar situation played out in June of 2021 when the committee voted 4-0 to replace Zona Butler with Rocky Fox after Butler resigned from her seat.

“That person would be free to campaign to be elected if they choose," Proch said. "That’s why I thought if I gave five months' notice, it gives somebody an opportunity to sit on the committee and decide if they are able to spend the time for the next three years."

Proch said that the responsibilities of her role with the nonprofit Our House, which she co-founded, ultimately swayed her into making the difficult decision to step away from the committee.

“It has been 12 years that I have had the honor to be on your school committee, but I have realized with my new endeavor at Our House I can probably best serve students as the director of Our House because I am limited in some ways on working with students being a School Committee member," Proch said in September. "So it is with a heavy heart, but a happy heart, that I have talked to Dr. Hallett about this and my fellow school committee members. I think the timing is good because it allows somebody to step in and experience what the role is like for the next five or six months.

“I hear often from people that they’re nervous about running an election, or a campaign, or they don’t know if they have the time to serve on the school committee,” Proch continued. “It is a perfect time because they will be coming in at budget season and they will be able to really see and understand the work that the committee does. I think it is the right decision for everybody, and I am looking forward to seeing who is willing to step into this seat and be able to continue on to the next election period.”