Town Election Field Is Set With Competitive Races For Select Board, Planning Board

The field of candidates for Nantucket’s annual local election is now officially set, headlined by competitive races for Select Board and Planning Board.

The deadline to declare for the election passed on Tuesday. The election will be held on May 19th at the Nantucket High School.

The highest-profile race is for two seats on the Select Board. With incumbents Tom Dixon and Malcolm MacNab bowing out, the contest is wide open. Four candidates returned papers for the election after local political strategist Clay Evans, who initially pulled papers, opted not to run.

Finance Committee chair Jill Vieth has the most experience with Nantucket’s local government of the four. Vieth’s position on the Finance Committee gives voters an early look at where she stands on some of the major issues facing Nantucket. She voted against recommending a new Our Island Home facility and opposed a plan for new Town employee housing, but supports a plan to install a new artificial turf field at Nantucket High School's Vito Capizzo Stadium.

Amy Eldridge, who is a political newcomer, has so far largely focused her campaign on cost-of-living issues and tax rates. She has previously spoken out against the plan for a new Our Island Home and in favor of the full legalization of short-term rentals.

The third candidate is musician and artist Brad Smith. Smith, who has organized with the left-leaning political action group Indivisible Nantucket, also volunteers with the Nantucket Food Pantry. He has emphasized concerns with affordability and an openness to new ideas as central to his campaign.

The field is rounded out by perennial candidate Cliff Williams, who has run for Select Board unsuccessfully 15 times before. In his prior campaigns, Williams has focused on affordable housing and fundamentals, such as fixing potholes, the landfill, and Our Island Home. Williams has long argued that the landfill should incinerate trash, which is currently illegal under Massachusetts law.

This year’s Planning Board election is a contest between two of the island’s most outspoken political advocates of the last several years. On the one hand is incumbent Hillary Hedges Rayport, who has been at the center of a highly contentious effort to reform the Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission and has long been a sharp critic of Nantucket’s municipal planning.

On the other hand is charter boat captain Brian Borgeson, who called Nantucket’s Special Town Meeting last fall and sponsored the article seeking to legalize short-term rentals by right across the island. With Borgeson at the helm, the article ultimately secured the two-thirds needed to pass, one of the most significant Town Meeting results of the decade for Nantucket.

Four candidates will vie for two seats on the School Committee in May. Incumbents Shantaw Bloise and Tim Lepore are both running for re-election and will be challenged by Nantucket Stage Company clerk Jennie Cook and Small Friends executive director Heidi Fee. Both Cook and Fee are tightly connected to the island’s youth, setting up what could prove to be a close election.

There is one seat on the Land Bank Commission up for grabs this year, with long-time incumbent Neil Paterson facing local business owner and playing field advocate Graham Veysey. The Current previewed the race here.

Harbor and Shellfish Advisory Board vice chair Peter Brace will have to contend with two newcomers in a race for two seats. Former Nantucket Shellfish Association executive director Kevin Korn has jumped into the race, as has Matt Peel, who is likely best known on-island for his advocacy in favor of tightening restrictions on short-term rentals with the advocacy group Nantucket Neighborhoods First.

In a three-way race for two seats on the Water Commission, incumbents Curtis Barnes and Nelson Eldridge will face off against Michael Egan.

There are also three uncontested elections on the ballot: Beth Ann Meehan is the only candidate running for her seat on the Housing Authority, Sarah Alger is unopposed for Town Meeting Moderator, and incumbents Ray Pohl and Val Oliver were the only candidates to pull papers for the two available seats on the Historic District Commission.