Wellfleet 2024 election: Hear from the four candidates competing for Select Board seats

Wellfleet has its town election before its town meeting this year.

With town leadership changes, an interim Town Administrator coming late to the process, and late information about Wellfleet's share of Nauset Regional School District costs, the Select Board thought it wise to push the Town Meeting back. The town election could not be pushed back, however.

The Select Board race is the only contested race in Wellfleet. Four individuals are vying for two open seats that hold three-year terms. John Wolf and Tim Sayre are running for re-election. Steven Kopits and Sheila Lyons are the two other candidates running.

When is the 2024 Wellfleet election?

Voting will take place at the Wellfleet Adult Community Center on April 29 from noon to 7 p.m. Ballots can be found at https://www.wellfleet-ma.gov/town-clerk/news/2024-annual-town-election-annual-town-meeting-information

Steven Kopits

Three things motivated Kopits to run: contentious Select Board meetings, a letter from town department heads complaining about lack of support from the board, and the resignation of Town Administrator Rich Waldo.

His top priorities are the stabilization of town administration, a reduction in the stress levels in senior management and at board meetings and getting past a 10-year period of instability. He calls affordable housing a challenge because of high construction costs, interest rates and real estate valuation. He is determined to get all the units at Maurice’s Campground for affordable housing, not just 20%. He’d like to see the town start orienting activities more towards an active, but aging, population.

Kopits has a corporate finance background, and has served on a half-dozen corporate boards, he said. He is currently on the Cable Internet and Cellular Service Advisory Committee working on getting internet to Wellfleet’s Atlantic beaches.

“I understand what it is to be on a board and the expectations, the role of a board, but I also understand how an organization operates,” he said during an April 10 phone call.

Sheila Lyons

Lyons wants the Select Board to get back to its true function: set policy, let town staff do their jobs, work with staff to achieve goals, and help the public understand what and why things are being done.

Dredging, determining the most economical and efficient ways to solve water quality and wastewater problems and being compliant with the Environmental Protection Agency are her top priorities.

“Our job is to understand what is in the best interests of the town, make sure the town is functioning properly and that we are taking advantage of opportunities through grants, federal and state measures, and being able to access that money to support the administrator in carrying out those tasks,” she said on April 12.

Finishing off Maurice's Campground and the 95 Lawrence Road affordable housing project are crucial. Encouraging people to participate in town boards, and getting people to trust town government again is important.

Lyons has a master's degree in social work. She is currently a Barnstable county commissioner. The experience has given her an understanding of the Cape's big issues, she said. She is the president of the Wellfleet Community Forum and on the board of directors for WOMR and Forward, a Cape Cod nonprofit for autism.

Tim Sayre

Sayre was elected to the Select Board last September in a special election. Sayre said he’s been attending Select Board meetings for three years, Shellfish Advisory Board meetings for a year, and has been to multiple Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals meetings.

“I have pretty good knowledge of what’s going on in town and I think I‘m clued in to what’s happening and what needs to happen moving forward and what the concerns are,” he said on April 10.

For Sayre, the top issues facing Wellfleet are affordable housing, meeting state regulations regarding water quality and septic systems, maintaining a level-funded town budget, infrastructure and figuring out how to come up with the money to fund dredging projects.

The town must start looking at sewage, alternate septic systems and how they will impact water quality in town, he said. Also, this year the Town Meeting warrant will not have a Proposition 2 ½ override for the first time in years.

He was a proponent of and helped pass a rule allowing members of the public to speak for three minutes, rather than two during public comment periods. The new rule allows members of the public to speak a second and third time for three minutes each time.

Sayre boasts that he takes calls from anyone about issues facing the town, and that he listens to what people have to say,

“I’m on the phone constantly with people who live in this town about different things they want to sound off about, ask questions about, or give their opinions,” he said. “And I listen to what everybody has to say.”

John Wolf

Wolf was elected to the board in June 2021 and currently serves as the vice chairman and clerk. He was on the Marina Advisory Committee for eight years and said his town government experience has driven home the acute need for affordable housing, one of Wellfleet’s biggest issues.

The town’s ability to hire and keep personnel, pay them enough that they can afford to live on the Cape and having them within commuting distance, particularly for police and fire personnel, are problems.

He called the shellfish industry, one of the state's strongest, key to having young families call Wellfleet their home. The town’s median age is 60; getting younger people to live in town is going to be a challenge because of housing, earnings and bylaws requiring harvesters to be domiciled in town.

Wolf said he’s been pressing for setting aside a significant portion of Maurice’s for affordable housing ownership, not just rentals, so people have a stake in the town.

Wolf wants the town to do a better job planning for vehicle replacement and capital planning. Dredging needs to be on the front burner; he’d like state legislators to help push back against a mitigation plan for the South Harbor, calling the rationale behind that requirement flawed.

Wolf served eight years on the Marina Advisory Committee. He’s been on the Select Board for three years, has worked in the HVAC field, owned his own business, and is a licensed captain running charters out of Wellfleet.

Denise Coffey writes about business, tourism and issues impacting Cape Cod’s residents and visitors. Contact her atdcoffey@capecodonline.com.

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