ALLEN REINHARD
Candidate for Board of Selectmen
1Do you favor or oppose the idea of the selectmen appointing Planning Board, Historic District Commission and Shellfish and Harbor Advisory Board members rather than having them elected?

ALLEN REINHARD + Age: 62 + Years on Nantucket: 47 + Occupation: Middle Moors Ranger for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, 17 years; and for 12 years a part-time winter employee of Hy-Line performing various duties. + Town board memberships: Town Government Study Committee; Chairman of the Roads and Right of Way Committee; member of the Cemetery Commission Workgroup; elected Land Bank commissioner. + Family status: Single with two children and four grandchildren.

"I favor having them appointed because I feel the appointment process encourages and draws stronger candidates for those particular committees. The model that I use is the Finance Committee. It is an appointed committee and is one of the best run committees the town has. As you look at the members, I think that many probably would not be willing to go through the election process to be on that committee. First of all, the election process is very time consuming; it's gotten to the point where it is very expensive; and you want people with a particular background and they tend to be very busy in their own right.

"The selectmen already do a number of appointments, and when you look at the boards where there tend to be the most problems they tend to be the Planning Board and the HDC. SHAB (the Shellfish and Harbor Advisory Board) is an entirely different thing. SHAB is becoming the Harbor Advisory Board and you want people who have a certain expertise and wide range of knowledge. I feel you would get a better range of candidates with an appointment process rather than an elected process." 2Do you see any ways to reduce or keep tight checks on the town budget in light of growth demands on services and infrastructure?

"Boy, do I wish there was a magic bullet. We have major expenses on the horizon with the wastewater treatment plant, the landfill and inflow and infiltration [repairs to town mains]. For years, Nantucket has avoided taking care of its basic infrastructure and as a result all of this stuff is coming due now. Another difference is that in the '70s and '80s there was a lot of federal and state money available and that has dried up now.

"You can't not build a new wastewater treatment plant or the new [public safety] complex. The question is how are we going to get the money to pay for them? The only recourse the town has is collecting taxes and fees, so the challenge the town has is how are we going to pay for these expensive infrastructure items that we need? I wish I had an answer off the top of my head, but I don't." 3 Do you believe issues facing the island today warrant a need for a full-time, paid Board of Selectmen or some other form of government?

"As far as paid, full-time selectmen, the answer is no. I like the idea that we have citizen volunteers who offer their time and energy to make the town work better. As far as the 'or' part of it, do we need another type of government? We are getting to that point. The biggest part of that, that I see, is Town Meeting is our legislative body and that's where we spend all our money.

"I think that there is a need to see if we can't find a more efficient way of making these legislative decisions. That may be as a representative form of Town Meeting, but I like the idea, as an individual, to bring questions before the Town Meeting and speak before Town Meeting, so I'm not sure how to resolve that difference at this point." 4Do you believe the town should pay the Waste Options arbitration award of $1.2 million, since interest on the amount has been accruing at $12,000 a month since the decision and the town's appeal at the end of November?

"It seems as though spending 12 percent a month is a high rate to pay. I would say that on the surface of it there has been a ruling. Unless Town Counsel thinks there is a strong case we can win on appeal, we shouldn't be wasting money on penalties. This could drag on for a year or two, so I feel the selectmen should put pressure on Town Counsel to understand what the issues are and have Town Counsel explain to them why there is a convincing argument to win on appeal, and if not, they should put this behind us and move forward." 5 Do you believe Town Meeting Article 46 - prohibiting selectmen from any town job requiring 20 or more hours a week - will eliminate qualified candidates for the board?

"My thinking on this issue has evolved over the last year and a-half I've been studying the issue. I was one of the people on our committee who looked at selectmen in the past who were town employees and how that has worked. There are two points here: there is first the conflict of interest of being your boss's boss. The second problem is that a lot of the meetings you have to attend as a selectman take place during the day, so if you are a town employee how do you overcome those two hurdles?

"My feeling on this issue is that the middle ground the government study committee is taking was the best compromise we could come up with on this issue, and that is my personal view. I think the voters are intelligent enough to weigh any conflict of interest; however, I feel that a full-time town employee has such an obvious conflict in supervising their own boss and with the time off the job conflict, this proposal is a fair way to

resolve it." I