The Sun (Lowell)

4 candidates seek 2 Select Board seats

TEWKSBURY >> Tewksbury’s local election is coming up fast and the race for the Select Board has four candidates looking for the support of the voters for two seats on the board.

The four candidates in the April 6 election are Eric Ryder, Jomarie Buckley, Thomas Bowley and incumbent James Mackey. Select Board Chair Todd Johnson announced in December that he would not be running for reelection after 21 years on the board.

Ryder has lived in Tewksbury for 24 years, and has worked for more than three decades in various municipal government­s in different capacities. He has been the director of the Hudson Public Works Department for eight years, and served for four years on Tewksbury’s Planning Board, from which he resigned in 2022 due to work obligation­s.

“I’ve always been involved in politics just through working for a municipali­ty,” said Ryder.

Ryder said his work as DPW director in Hudson has given him experience with municipal budgeting as well. He manages three enterprise accounts for water, wastewater and stormwater in Hudson, and he manages a similarly sized staff to Tewksbury’s Public Works Department.

“I think I can bring the perspectiv­e of the other side of the table in budgeting,” said Ryder. “Usually I am the one sitting across from the Select Board requesting funding for projects. At the end of the day, it comes back to how it can affect taxes and rates.”

While keeping water, sewer and tax rates low would be a priority for Ryder if he is elected, he said he would also like to see the town investing in more sidewalks.

“I would love to see more sidewalks. We have a tremendous number of assets in town, like parks, and I want people to feel safe walking to them,” said Ryder.

Ryder said he would also support the return of a town recreation department.

“There is movement for a full-time recreation director, and I would 100% be supportive of that,” said Ryder. “We could offer self-sufficient and self-funding programs for residents, children, adults and seniors like pickleball and day camps.”

Tewksbury is covered under the MBTA Communitie­s law requiring many cities and towns to adopt zoning for multifamil­y housing. While Ryder said he does not think the law is a good thing for Tewksbury, he would support whatever direction the residents choose to go during the upcoming Town Meeting.

“If they vote no, then we fight it,” said Ryder.

Raising three kids in Tewksbury with his wife,

Serina, Ryder said he has been heavily involved in youth sports, and he hopes to be further involved in the community through a seat on the Select Board.

“When a resident calls, I respond, and if I don’t have the answer right away I will do the research to get them the answer,” said Ryder.

Mackey is in his first term on the board. He is a fourth-generation resident of Tewksbury with family in town going back 120 years. Mackey has lived in Tewksbury his whole life, except for his time serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanista­n. He spent 13 years in military service before he faced medical retirement due to injuries, cutting his intended service short.

When he could no longer serve in the military, Mackey said he decided to continue his public service in other ways, which eventually spurred his jump into local politics.

In his time in the military, Mackey spent a lot of time learning and working in cybersecur­ity, and he has carried on with that line of work since. Until about a year ago, Mackey was working as the senior director of global security operations at an office in Andover for a medical device company based in the United Kingdom.

He left that position and has founded a “boutique cybersecur­ity firm,” that he said is doing work with large companies to “flesh out” their cybersecur­ity programs. Mackey also separately founded the Municipal Cyber Associatio­n a year ago, a nonprofit organizati­on aiming to help municipali­ties bolster their own cybersecur­ity as some communitie­s have recently come under cyberattac­k.

If reelected, Mackey said cybersecur­ity for the town would naturally continue to be one of his top priorities.

“We have made a lot of progress in cybersecur­ity in the last three years,” said Mackey. “I want to drive our cybersecur­ity forward, and I want us to be in a position to detect and respond to a cybersecur­ity incident if it happens.”

Another top priority of Mackey’s would continue to be the town’s water infrastruc­ture, which he said needs a lot of work, with 80 of the town’s 160 miles of water piping being considered past the end of its life.

“The board raised the rate of pipe replacemen­t from one mile per year to three miles per year, which is still not enough,” said Mackey.

Mackey criticized the MBTA Communitie­s law, and said it was “all stick, no carrot.” Regardless, he said it is a law, and he would support compliance, and that a significan­t part of the zoning Tewksbury is proposing is unlikely to be developed.

Mackey said he would recommend approving the zoning at the May Town Meeting, and if the town

can see a “path to victory” in opposing the zoning afterward, there could be a special Town Meeting in the fall to rescind the zoning.

Buckley has been living in Tewksbury for four years, but was born in Lawrence and raised in Burlington. She has experience in elected government close to home, having served two incomplete terms on the Wilmington Select Board. She also made an unsuccessf­ul run for the board in Tewksbury in 2022, and once served on the Wilmington Housing Authority and on the Wilmington Educationa­l Foundation.

“I have done a lot of community work. I have four kids so there was a lot of volunteeri­ng and coaching as they grew up,” said Buckley.

Buckley has a career as an attorney, working in a private practice for a decade and for the last eight years as an attorney for the state Department of Children and Families.

Currently, she serves on the Board of Trustees for Tewksbury State Hospital.

“In the last year or so we have been working on developing a better relationsh­ip between the community and the hospital,” said Buckley.

She said she would like to see Tewksbury pursue a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes program with the state, where the state guarantees funding in its budget for towns with a significan­t amount of state property. Buckley said Tewksbury has a significan­t amount of state property, including the state hospital.

On the MBTA Communitie­s law, Buckley said Tewksbury “cannot afford to ignore it,” as other communitie­s are seemingly trying to do.

“I do think we have to submit a plan. Some people reference what is happening in Milton, but I don’t think we can afford to lose state funding,” said Buckley. “My greater concern would be the attorney general recommendi­ng that the Milton Planning Board and Zoning Board be frozen in favor of their own appointees.”

Buckley is also interested in Tewksbury reestablis­hing a recreation department, and said she supports a plan that would have the Tewksbury YMCA begin more programmin­g for residents at no cost to the town while the town explores how to establish its own department.

“We need programs for youth, but also for all demographi­cs including adults and seniors,” said Buckley.

Bowley has been a lifelong resident of Tewksbury, and is the third of four generation­s in his family to have lived in town. He went through Tewksbury Public Schools but finished his high school career at the Tilton School in Tilton, New Hampshire.

Bowley has been a small business owner for his entire adult career, including in small real estate holdings and a container business that he still runs, among other businesses over the years. Bowley said that now that he is older and semi-retired, he has the time to run for elected office.

“I am invested in this town,” said Bowley. “I talk to a lot of people around town, and a lot of the residents I talk to feel like their voices are falling on deaf ears. This is the residents’ town, not any one specific group or entity, and this is what the townspeopl­e want. I want to be their voice.”

Bowley said Tewksbury’s real estate taxes are elevated, and called the water and sewer rates in town “atrocious.” He also wants the town to look closely at its infrastruc­ture needs, and decried what he said is the poor state of the town’s roadways.

“We need to get a good handle on what our expenses are, and what we are doing. I think we need to go through the department­s and look and see what is there and see how it is being spent,” said Bowley. “If it is being spent wisely, go with it. If we can streamline something or make a cut, we do that. You might even find areas that need money added.”

Bowley said he also feels that Tewksbury is lacking in business developmen­t. If elected, he said he would work to streamline the process and make it easier for the town to attract businesses.

Bowley said he is not in favor of the MBTA Communitie­s law, and thinks of it as an overreach against the town.

“It is going to be a big issue, and at the end of the day it will be the townspeopl­e that will tell us what to do with it,” said Bowley.

Regardless of how the Town Meeting vote goes, Bowley said he would support the will of the voters for the MBTA Communitie­s law.

Bowley was once the owner of Tewksbury Industries, where workers were killed by machinery in two separate incidents in 1994 and 1995. An investigat­ion by the Occupation­al Safety and Health Administra­tion found that Bowley and the company had failed to correct safety hazards that led to the two deaths, and Bowley was eventually charged with manslaught­er. He was later offered an Alford plea in 1998, where he pleaded guilty to two misdemeano­r charges instead, receiving three years of probation and 400 hours of community service.

“It’s history. It’s there. It is what it is. Anyone who knows me in town knows what has gone on,” said Bowley when asked about those incidents.

On Saturday, voters from Precincts 1, 5 and 5A will vote at the Senior Center, 175 Chandler St.; Precincts 2 and 6 at the Recreation Center, 286 Livingston St.; Precincts 3 and 7 at Town Hall, 1009 Main St.; and Precincts 4 and 8 at the Tewksbury Public Library, 300 Chandler St.

Tewksbury does not offer in-person early voting, but voters can vote with an absentee ballot at the Town Clerk’s Office if they are going to be out of town on election day, have a religious belief that will prevent them from voting on election day, or have a disability that prevents them from voting at their local polling station. Absentee ballots can be dropped off at the Town Clerk’s Office Tuesday 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. More informatio­n can be found in the voter options guide at tewksbury-ma.gov/376/election-voter-registrati­on.