selectman election08

Dear Residents,

Thank you very much for all of the support and encouragement that I received during the past few months during my run for an open seat on the Westwood Board of Selectmen. I truly appreciate every vote across all four precincts cast in support of my candidacy. I was also impressed with the voter turnout, which in previous years was somewhat disappointing.

Secondly, I would like to thank every last person who sacrificed their weekends by helping me hold signs for seven straight weeks. In addition, I would like to call attention to each precinct captain who stood proud and held signs in support of me during the April 29th election, each one of you deserves more thanks than me, or anyone else could give you.

I would like to highlight all of the candidates who pulled papers and joined me in my quest to achieve the seat vacated by former Selectman Tony Antonellis.

Thank you to Doug Obey for your praises and words of encouragement during our time spent together on the campaign trail. I appreciated our conversations, our friendly attitude, and your commitment to our town. Although we may have disagreed on some policies concerning our town, I enjoyed running a clean race with you and wish you the best of luck in the future.

To Phil Shapiro: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to show your commitment to our town. Your victory was both impressive and inspiring to both me, and to the residents of Westwood. Thank you for being such a kind-hearted individual, and for your professional attitude. I look forward to working with you in the future!

Jason, thank you for showing your commitment to our town as well. Your knowledge of development and entrepreneurial ventures is quite impressive and will certainly serve the town well in the coming years. Seeing as we’re both from precinct four, I was excited to hear someone from my side of town was running for an elected position. Good luck to you in the future and thank you once again for being part of this race.

Lastly, I enjoyed my time running for office and, most importantly, had fun doing it. I was inspired to run for Selectman by three people, my grandfather, my father, and the former Governor Michael S. Dukakis. Each one of them taught me that becoming a civil servant is the best way to give back to a community that made me what I am today.

As a reminder, the State Primary Elections are set to take place on Tuesday, September 16, 2008. On this day, we will all be voting for the Democratic and Republican nominations for United States Senate, a seat currently occupied by John Kerry. Two candidates, Jim Ogonowski and Jeff Beatty will battle to receive the Republican nomination, while Ed O’Reilly and John Kerry will square off to decide who will become the Democratic nominee. Robert Underwood will run as the only Libertarian candidate. Mary Jean J. Charbonneau will run as an Independent, and William Estrada will run on the Socialist Workers Party platform. I sincerely hope we all can become interested and involved with this race. For reference, each candidate who has a website is listed below.

Edward J. O’Reilly (D-MA) http://www.edoreilly.com
John F. Kerry (D-MA) http://www.johnkerry.com

Jeffery K. Beatty (R-MA) http://www.jeffbeatty.com
James Ogonowski (R-MA) http://www.jimogonowski.com

Robert Underwood http://www.electbobunderwood.org

Best Wishes,

Greg Agnew

781-801-0779
greg@gregagnew.com

This was in the Transcript and Press earlier this month and I forgot to post it here:

Dear Westwood Voters,

Thank you very much for your support in our election. I am humbled by the confidence you showed in me. I will work with you, other elected and appointed officials and our staff to help Westwood be the best it can be. I will work hard and think clearly to help bring solutions to our problems and to improve our quality of life.

I enjoyed meeting so many of you and I am hugely impressed by how much everyone cares for this town. Please continue to let me know what you think and how I can help.

I also want to thank my three opponents. The campaign was positive, clean, lots of hard work and fun. The process was exhausting for all of us but the level of engagement of all the candidates and their supporters was great.

Phil Shapiro

I would like to thank all the voters who came out Tuesday and participated in our town election. With only one race, all others uncontested, 29% voter turnout was a relatively good showing as town elections go.

Thanks to all who supported me with not only their votes but with their personal efforts, a sign or donation, it was much appreciated.

Special thanks to the other three candidates. Until you run for office you can't understand the tremendous amount of effort, time, money and organizing it takes to mobilize supporters and run a campaign regardless of the size of the race. They should all be commended for stepping up, putting themselves on the line and working tirelessly, all so the voters of Westwood would have a choice as to who they felt would best help lead the town as we go forward.

And not to take anything away from Jason or Phil but the campaign I personally was most impressed with was that of Greg Agnew's. Working from a clear disadvantage of his youth and lack of life's experiences that can only be acquired through living a bit longer, Greg organized and ran an incredible campaign. He should be commended for trying to effect the change he felt could best help the town and not just sitting on the sidelines. Coodos!

As we go forward as a town, and continue to stay involved, it is in all our best interests to be as supportive of Phil Shapiro in his new role and to all our elected officials and them to us, the constituents they serve, in their varying roles, to help keep Westwood the town we all want it to be.

Sincerely, Doug Obey

29% of registered voters cast their ballots and elected Phil Shapiro as the next Selectman:

Full election results are available on the town website.

I'd like to thank the candidates for their participation here on this blog, especially for taking the time to conduct the podcast interviews. I hope we will be able to use this blog to continue the discussion about issues affecting the future of our town.

This election has really impressed me with the difficulty involved in winning election to town office. At the end of the day, only a few hundred votes made the difference, but every one of those votes was hard-earned by these candidates.

I am responding to several inaccuracies in Mr. Feyler’s letter. [Editor's note: link to that letter here.]

I am on the ballot for Assessor in addition to Selectman because I had already taken out papers to run for re-election as Assessor when I learned of Tony Antonellis’ intention to step down as a Selectman. I asked several people if they would be willing to take out papers to run for Assessor and no one was interested. Rather than have a blank space on the ballot I am willing to also run for that office and if I am elected Selectman I will step down as an Assessor this summer to allow a new Assessor to be appointed (it is much easier to find a volunteer if the person does not have to go through the nomination and election process).

Mr. Feyler also seems to think that it is a problem to have people who have served as volunteers on town boards holding my signs and supporting my candidacy for Selectman. I am proud to have Mr. Antonellis and so many elected and appointed officials who have served with me on the Fincom, Business Development Advisory Board and Long Range Financial Planning Subcommittee supporting me. They know my leadership abilities, independence and judgment. They agree on many things and disagree on many others as do the other 175 people on my list of supporters. The only promise I have made to any of them is to do my best for the Town of Westwood.

No one talked me into running, I believe my 20+ years of senior public finance experience will be a great asset for Westwood as we work through our financial challenges and uncertainties in the next three years.

To answer his last question I absolutely do want to be the next Selectman in Westwood, and I have worked tirelessly the last two months to prove that to my fellow voters and to earn their votes.

Phil Shapiro
Westwood

In the Transcript on Friday 4/25, our town reporter in her effort to abreviate our comments as candidates for selectman, stated my comment in a way that might be misinterpretted as suggesting that I felt I had more integrity than the other candidates which is certainly not how I feel. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to run for any town office and I don't beleive anyone does it for any other reason than to do what they feel is best for the town. Knowing the effort it takes better than anyone I can only applaud my opponents for stepping forward and getting involved. It's wonderful when the people of Westwood have choices especially with energetic, knowledgable and passionate candidates. Having said this, I thought it might be helpful if the full context of the question and answer were displayed for anyone interested.

The question that was posed was:

You are the most experienced politician in this race. How do you think this experience makes you the best candidate?

My exact answer was:

I would not label myself the most experienced “politician” in this race. Maybe the individual most experienced in running for public office, maybe the individual who has worked harder than anyone else to try and represent Westwood, but not a politician. If I were, I might have won one of my prior elections. Today’s perception of a politician is someone who does whatever is necessary to win regardless whether it’s ethical, or whether you have to make promises that you can’t keep, or whether you have to disparage your opponents or maybe run as an Independent and change affiliation after the fact. No, I’ve never acted like a “politician” and have always been honest and sincere when running for office even if my position wasn’t a popular one. I think it’s that integrity that makes me the best candidate.

I hope the full context helps provide clarity.

Doug Obey

Sunday's League of Women Voter's Meet the Candidates event will be broadcast on Comcast Local Access Channel 8 at the following times:

• 1pm, Saturday
• 1pm, Sunday

Unfortunately, the video after the initial presentations is garbled and unwatchable. I'll see if that was a flaw in the recording or just the first broadcasting of the recording. Coming soon...discussion about the creation of WestCAT, Westwood Community Access Television...

To my fellow residents of Westwood:

As the only candidate who started meeting with residents in January, I feel blessed to have seen so many signs, window stickers, and “Dear Friend Cards” circulate the town in support of my efforts to deliver Westwood back to the residents.

As you may already know, I’ve been advocating communication since the first day I announced I was running for Selectman. Now that I’ve debated the other candidates, written position papers, and participated in Westwood’s first ever “Podcast,” I feel my message has been heard.

I’ve worked hard during my campaign to restore the character and charm back to this town, which I have lived in all of my life. I’ve demonstrated a new kind of experience, and a brand of leadership that emphasizes a willingness to take responsibility for my actions and introduce new concerns that are facing our residents. I ran for Selectman because I saw a gap in communication between town boards and committees. I’m the type of person who can lead Westwood towards a common goal while giving back to the town that made me the person I am today.

As Selectman, I’m looking forward to advocating the responsible and recreational use of open space. I am also the only candidate who proposes concrete solutions such as green roofs to combat our looming environmental and economic problems. I will make sure that every commercial property is occupied, generating much needed revenue for our town. Finally, I will revitalize Islington Square and seek unity among current boards, residents, and property owners.

Finally, on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008, vote for a candidate who will Listen to you, Learn from you, and Lead with you.

Sincerely,

Gregory J. Agnew
Candidate for Selectman

34 Magaletta Drive
Westwood, MA 02090

781-326-8944

Here is the final in a series of interviews with Board of Selectman candidates. To listen to the podcast, you may

• download the MP3 directly, or
• copy and paste the URL below into iTunes via the Advanced...Subscribe to Podcast menuitem. If you have already subscribed, you should be able to simply refresh your iTunes and it will start downloading this 4th in the series automatically.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/WestwoodBlog

Here is the 3rd in a series of interviews with Board of Selectmen candidates. If you have difficulty playing the audio:

• download the MP3 directly, or
• copy and paste the feedburner url below into iTunes via the Advanced...Subscribe to Podcast menu item

http://feeds.feedburner.com/WestwoodBlog