Gary Mauk usually sits at the far end of the table for the Retired Old Men Eating Out meetings. Last Thursday, March 8, he was in the spotlight at the head of the table as the speaker at the ROMEO's weekly luncheon.
Running for a contested seat for Board of Selectmen, Mr. Mauk spoke for about 40 minutes about four major talking points then answered questions from his peers.
"I came to Westport in 1975. I'm what's known as a 'wash-ashore,'" he said.
Mr. Mauk is married with four grown children, two of whom have
children in Westport public schools. He said he spent most of his
career working with industrial equipment, installation, startup, heavy
construction, project design, project management, departmental
management, and manufacturing facilities.
"One of the highlights of my public career was that I was appointed to the Finance Committee. Being a wash-ashore, not a native, it made me proud. I served three terms and was elected chair of that committee six of the nine years I served."
During his watch on the Finance Committee, Mr. Mauk said his leadership helped get the town through the toughest financial times the town had seen up to that point.
Mr. Mauk said his past experience gives him the knowledge of the responsibilities of the committees, boards and commissions in town. "And most importantly, I know what they are not," he said. "Today some people on committees lose sight of what their responsibilities are. What that results in is very little forward progress. It's the responsibility of the selectmen's office to provide good leadership and direction"
Why did he decide to run? Mr. Mauk said, "If the Finance Committee is right in their projections, this town's about to go through some really bad financial times in the next two or three years."
Mr. Mauk said his past experience of working with a board to achieve a majority and his policy of being a financial conservative will help the town ride out the tough times ahead.
Mr. Mauk's major talking points were town finances, public safety planning, housing and Route 6.
"New growth is down, construction is down, foreclosures are increasing at a phenomenal rate all across the state and here in Westport I've been told by the tax collector that some of these new homes in the $400,000 to $600,000 range have changed hands four times in the past two years," Mr. Mauk said.
Mr. Mauk said raising property taxes would "put people who are in a bind in a further bind."
Mr. Mauk questioned efforts to spend $15.000 on a special election to raise taxes when the result is likely to be negative. "Leadership might be to face the reality and say don't cause another $15,000 expenditure on a special election. Let's use some common sense on this. I think I can bring that to the table," Mr. Mauk said.
Mr. Mauk advocated applying common sense to the public safety buildings issue as well. "Let's do a south end fire station. I didn't say take the police out of this but don't use a documented well-known need for a fire department to push something else that the public's not behind, that's not well documented, and not generally accepted yet," he said.
He recommends doing a good analysis to find the needs of the police department. "If it becomes a fact and well accepted that we need a new police station, we take a look at what can we do with the old building to bring it into compliance and put it where it should be. If that's a doable thing and in the taxpayers best interest we probably should do that," he said.
Mr. Mauk said that if bringing the facility into compliance wasn't achievable and a new police station is needed, then it made sense to site it farther north. "I'm told with a good deal of authority that 80 percent of the calls in this town are north of 177. It doesn't make sense to put a new police station further south than the existing one. It would make sense to put it around Route 177 someplace."
In sum, he said, "The public safety complex, the big look there is that 1,300 people voted no and the longer it goes on and the more they try to force feed that, the more it's aggravating people."
On the subject of property rights, Mr. Mauk said, "Growth can be shaped and molded but its got to be done right. You cannot stop people from using their properties. You can work with them and help them but you're not going to get far when you go in and tell them you can't do this and you can't do that. You've got to work with people."
Mr. Mauk said he agrees that there's going to be an increasing need for water and sewer on Route 6. "We're going to have to come up with ideas on what's to be done and how it's going be done and how much it's going cost and how we're going pay for it because the people of Westport are not going to afford to put $30 or $40 or $50 million into infrastructure in the northern part of town. It will go into a bond and it will never carry," Mr. Mauk said.
When asked by Ted Rich to comment on the situation that's developed with the Conservation Commission and the Board of Selectmen, Mr. Mauk said, "I think to some degree the Conservation Commission has got into an area in some cases that they're not supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be looking at existing laws and apply them but every time you turn around they're trying to legislate something and they're not an elected body to legislate, they're an appointed body to apply."
He said that he didn't see the selectmen providing leadership. "They're not looking at facts. They're doing things based on emotions and listening to their friends. I'll listen to everybody but I'm going to do what I think is right for the town," he said.
Mr. Mauk continued by saying, "When it's on TV and four members have got lawyers and the town's lawyers are involved, we're wasting our time and not facing some real issues. This should all be fixed behind the scenes and if there are some people who are there who are inappropriate then they need to get cleaned out or leave of their own volition."
In response to Jack Baughan's question about the job description of the town administrator, Mr. Mauk said, "I don't think the position should be town administrator. I think it should be administrative assistant to the board of selectmen and the selectmen ought to step up and do the job they're running for."
Bill Fanning asked about the administrative assistant. Mr. Mauk said, "If we're going to have tough financial times we can't start leading ourselves out of the problem by bolstering the selectmen's staff. We have to be lean and mean."
"What is your point of view on the escalating school budget, which of course then escalates our health and pension plan?" Mr. Baughan asked.
"There's not a lot the selectmen can do about the budget. There's very little the members of the school committee can do about the school budget, either."
After describing town demographics, which affect any vote regarding schools, Mr. Mauk said the selectmen "might be able to do something about the benefits package, which is the next biggest budget item but that's going to take several selectmen and its going to take some input from the employees and the unions to come together collaboratively to keep from getting mired deeper into the problem."
ROMEO moderator Ed Towne announced that Paul Menzies, candidate for school committee and presently its chair, would be the guest speaker on Thursday, March 15. Sean Leach, candidate for selectman, is scheduled to be speaker at the Thursday, March 22, meeting.
Hey Paul
I love the blog and the stories! So glad that you've taken this leap forward.
Best,
Brookline Erin
Posted by: Erin | March 21, 2007 at 05:40 PM