GLOCESTER – Four of the five present Glocester Town Council members were reelected in an election on Tuesday, Nov. 5, adding a newcomer, Stephanie Lynn Calise.
Walter Steere came in as the top vote getter with 3,420 votes, along with Jonathan Burlingame with 3,278 votes, Cheryl Greathouse with 3,102 votes and current President William Worthy with 3,067 votes. Calise garnered 2,822 votes. All are Republicans.
Independents Gregory Gabel and Mark Howard did not make the cut for the five member board, receiving 2,713 and 1,967 votes respectively.
“I enjoy election day,” said Steere. “It’s kind of like the Super Bowl.”
If it were the Super Bowl, Steere might be the all-time champion, having come in first for the last three years. He has been a member of the council for 15 years in all.
“Every year, you never know how things are going to play out,” Steere said. “You just go out and do your work, meet people and hope people respect what you have done. I’m definitely honored. People saw enough in me to vote for me, and I appreciate that.”
Steere, a native of Glocester, added he had never intended to run this long, but once involved found it hard to walk away.
Major issues the town has to face in the future, he said, were keeping the budget under control, the needed renovations at the police station and the possibility of adding a town manager, something the council has talked about for a number of years.
“The budget is the number one priority,” Steere said. “We need to do the best we can to make the town affordable and keep taxes down while providing the most services we can.”
The bond for renovations at the police station did not pass, but the work still has to be done, Steere added, to get it up to date and functional. Some of that work has already been done, partly by the Department of Public Works.
“There is still work that needs to be done there, and we only have a limited amount of capital every year which has to be used for all our services,” said Steere. “That has to be balanced over the next few years. It is not a one year fix. There’s a lot of work to do there.”
The role of the town manager is also an important consideration. The role has to be clearly defined and changes would have to be made to the Town Charter in order to address the change. A town manager would help alleviate delays and handle problems and/or concerns more quickly, rather than waiting for a council meeting.
“We need a town manager,” Steere said.
“I want to take a good look at the feasibility of a town manager,” agreed Burlingame following his election win this week. “This has been brought up in the past, and although it did not gain traction, I believe now is the time. We would have been prepared with a plan for FM Global going off [of a PILOT agreement] if we had a town manager in place. This has had a major impact on the local taxpayers the past few years.”
Burlingame also placed the police station renovations as a priority.
“With the bond not being passed for the police station and the loss of the federal money, we will need to target the critical repairs/improvements that Chief Joseph Delprete has identified and work to get them rectified,” he said.
Another issue to consider, said Burlingame, was senior exemptions, possibly scaling them due to inflation so they retain the same value in10-20 years.
“I will need to crunch some numbers and see what the impact would be on the rest of the tax base,” he added.
Burlingame thanked the voters for their confidence in choosing him and said he looks forward to having a productive two years with the rest of the excellent council members.
Greathouse saw taxes and economic development as major issues. Some B2 areas, she said, could be developed commercially, helping to take the burden off homeowners. As far as adding a new face to the council in Calise, she thought it might bring another perspective to the table.
“I think it’s going to be helpful for the constituents of this town to have a new council person that may have a different perspective,” she said.
Current Council Vice President Stephen Arnold chose not to run for another term. Greathouse said he had been a great mentor for her when she first joined the council.
“I certainly appreciate all the effort he put into our town,” she added. “I am sure he will continue to be an intricate part of our community.”
