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Austin Knight

    PROVINCETOWN ELECTION

    Austin Knight Wants to Serve Again

    Cautious spending and more breakwaters are two of Knight’s many ideas

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Austin Knight is running on his record — and it’s quite a record. He’s been elected to the select board three times, in 2007, 2010, and 2013. He served as chair for almost three of his seven years, he said.

    Select board candidate and former select board chair Austin Knight. (Photo by Paul Benson)

    He resigned from the board in 2014, just before a recall petition with more than 300 signatures was certified. He had lost his first election campaign in 2004, and he lost in a comeback attempt in 2020.

    That means May 9 will be the sixth time Knight, 65, has been a candidate for a seat on Provincetown’s select board. If he wins, it will be his fourth term in office. If he loses, it would be something like his fourth defeat, depending on how one scores the events of 2014.

    “I think I have a lot to offer still,” Knight said. “I think I bring a lot to the table, and we’ll see what happens.”

    Knight’s first priority is budgets. The town was in real financial danger when he was elected in 2007, he said, and he kept a close eye on finances throughout his time in office. With the town now flush with rooms tax and marijuana tax revenues, Knight said it is important to use that money on “long-term situations rather than short-term fixes.”

    Pointing to his past efforts, Knight described breaking an expensive town hall renovation project into two parts so that voters could see the success of the exterior work before they had to vote for the interior fixes. He once withheld support of the school budget in order to secure a study of whether Provincetown High School could adequately prepare its students for college.

    “Some school members were pretty upset with me, but they agreed on town meeting floor that we should have the study,” he said.

    That study recommended a gradual closure of Provincetown High School, a choice the school committee wound up supporting in 2010 — tearfully, but unanimously.

    Knight also said that the dune the town is trying to build behind Tin Pan Alley to block coastal flooding is a waste of money.

    “It’s not going to work,” he said. “The ocean is much greater than sand. Go look at Race Point if you want to see sand shift.” Knight said something with “more substance” would be needed — something more like the breakwater in Provincetown’s East End, near Snail Road.

    “I think we have to follow the example of New Jersey and put more breakwaters in,” Knight said. “You have it in the East End, you have it in the center of town — they may have to line the whole shore with a breakwater, although then you force the water to either edge and Truro is gonna get wiped out.”

    In addition to his commitment to saving money for the town, Knight said he would bring communication skills to the board. The evidence, he said, is his experience negotiating the town’s purchase of the VFW building.

    “When we purchased the VFW, I negotiated that deal,” Knight said. “We had a goal initially of a police station with housing, but housing was always part of that deal.”

    Ultimately, whether the police station should be put on the VFW site or across the street from it became a divisive question, with two town meetings in 2019 consumed by the subject.

    “When I left the board in 2014, I told the other board members, every year you wait on this police station will cost another million dollars,” Knight said. “And it was true.”

    According to news reports at the time, Knight’s resignation in 2014 stemmed from events around his reelection campaign in 2013. Then-Police Chief Jeff Jaran sent current Police Chief Jim Golden, then a lieutenant, to take campaign signs from Knight’s garage on Miller Hill Road.

    Knight had told Jaran where the signs were, he said. But he also said he did not know at the time that Golden or any other police officer had gone to fetch them.

    A formal investigation later found that Jaran had, in fact, directed his officers to vote for Knight, and Jaran was fired in December 2013. The investigation also found that Knight “knew that the signs would be distributed to Provincetown police officers.”

    His mother was diagnosed with cancer in January 2014, and Knight said he did not have the energy to both care for his mother and battle a recall. He resigned later that month. Ever-mindful of town finances, he added, he wrote his resignation to be effective on the day before town election in May — so the town would not have to pay for a separate election to fill his vacated seat.

    ELECTIONS

    4 Candidates in Running for 2 Seats on Provincetown Select Board

    Both Venden and Anthony will step down

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Four candidates have filed papers to run for the two select board seats that are up for election this May 9; Erik Borg, Austin Knight, Austin Miller, and Gordon Siegel.

    Neither of the currently serving select board members whose terms are up this year chose to run for re-election. Bobby Anthony announced last year that he had been diagnosed with cancer and would not be running again. Louise Venden took out papers to run this year but chose not to return them by the March 21 deadline.

    “I have decided to leave the Provincetown Select Board at the end of this term,” Venden said. “I will continue to work for more and diverse housing, expanded hours and broader medical and mental health services with other community organizations.”

    Voters can choose two of the four candidates who will appear on the ballot or reserve their vote for only one. The Independent will publish candidate interviews and host a candidate forum in April, closer to election day.

    Erik Borg is one of four candidates running for Provincetown Select Board this year. (Photo courtesy Erik Borg)

    Erik Borg

    Borg is a co-owner of the Provincetown Brewing Company, which opened on Bradford Street in 2019, and is also head of sales and marketing there. He moved back to Provincetown in 2019 after having lived here from 2012 to 2014, when he wrote for the Provincetown Banner and worked at the Red Inn. From 2014 to 2019 he lived in New York, where he worked for a small public relations company.

    He currently serves on the zoning board of appeals and is vice chair of the visitor services board. Borg is 38, and this is his first run for elected office.

    Austin Knight

    Austin Knight was elected to the select board in 2007, 2010, and 2013; he resigned in May 2014. He ran again in 2020 but did not win that year. (Photo by K.C. Myers)

    Knight is a self-employed remodeler and contractor, though he is “pretty much retired,” he said. He served for seven years on the Provincetown Select Board, from 2007 to 2014, and was chair of the board for about two and a half years, he said. He resigned in May 2014, one year into his third term, in a year that was tumultuous for town government and also filled with painful deaths in his family.

    Knight has also served on the water and sewer board and the historic district commission, and he was the town’s representative to the Cape Cod Commission. He ran for select board in 2020 as well, coming in third in a contest with Anthony and Venden, who were each running for re-election. He is 65.

    Austin Miller

    Austin Miller is running in his first election this year. (Photo courtesy Austin Miller)

    Miller is a compliance officer for NBT Bank, which is headquartered in New York, and works on home solar panel financing. His background is in mortgage finance, he said, and he has worked for several companies in that arena, mostly headquartered in New York or the San Francisco area, where Miller grew up.

    Miller moved to Provincetown in 2020 and joined the Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust and the community housing council in 2021. He is the only person to serve on both housing committees, he said, and he is currently the vice chair of both groups.

    Miller is 32; this is his first run for elected office.

    Gordon Siegel

    Gordon Siegel has run for select board twice before, in 2014 and 2017. (Photo courtesy Gordon Siegel)

    Siegel has held a number of jobs in town: among them real estate broker, retail store owner, guesthouse owner, and partner in a restaurant. Toys of Eros and Big Daddy’s Burritos still exist, Seigel said, while Pete’s Buoy guesthouse is now the Gaslamp Bed and Breakfast. Siegel also said he has renovated properties throughout the Cape and managed them as year-round, seasonal, and weekly rentals.

    Siegel served on the finance committee twice, once in the late 1990s and again in 2012 and 2013, he said. He has also run for select board twice, once in 2014 and once in 2017. He is 58.

    No Incumbents

    Bobby Anthony has served on the select board since 2014, taking office the same month that Austin Knight resigned. He had been a Provincetown police officer for 30 years and was police chief for the last 10 of those.

    In his time on the board, he helped shepherd the town through a series of police station votes that culminated just last year, when the station currently being built on Route 6 at Shank Painter Road was authorized by town meeting voters. Anthony had also worked as a Provincetown firefighter and has played a key role in discussions about the future needs of the fire dept.

    Louise Venden first ran for select board in 2016, when she lost to incumbents Cheryl Andrews and Tom Donegan. She won an open seat in 2017 and was re-elected in 2020.

    Venden is the select board’s appointee to the Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust, which is work she has enjoyed, she said.

    “I was one of three people on the finance committee who voted against the Harbor Hill purchase, you know, but I’m not someone who loses and just runs away,” she said. “We paid $8.4 million for that, something just outrageous when you look at the other bids that came in, and that property was in terrible condition.”

    Nonetheless, making sure the property was cared for was important, Venden said.

    “You try to make some contribution to the greater good,” she added. Harbor Hill has been challenging, “but the people who are living there are happy, and they’re by and large safe, and that’s the good news.”

    CANDIDATES

    Austin Knight Wants to Rejoin the Select Board

    He says he still believes in Provincetown

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Austin Knight is not exactly saying “I told you so,” but he did try to warn the town about the legal ramifications of firing former Police Chief Jeff Jaran, which ended up being costly. Knight is running for select board after resigning in 2014 amid the controversy surrounding Jaran’s support for him.

    The 62-year-old builder is returning to the fray, competing for one of two available seats along with incumbents Louise Venden and Bobby Anthony in the election now scheduled for June 9. Knight said he wants to help the town get its new police station built.

    “We need a new police station,” he said, adding that the exact location, size, and cost should be decided during a fall ballot election, so that every voter has a say.

    Addressing his past, which Knight himself called “the elephant in the room,” he said he resigned in 2014 for personal reasons, though his opponents had collected over 300 signatures on a petition, which, had they been certified, would have been enough to trigger a recall election.

    Austin Knight
    Austin Knight outside his home on Tremont Street. (Photo K.C. Myers)

    He was at the center of a divisive battle over Chief Jaran, who, an investigation by Frank Rudewicz of Marcum LLP found, had advised his officers at a staff meeting to support Knight in a 2013 election and directed staff to bring campaign signs to the station. That same year, Jaran was fired for interfering with the election.

    The investigation found that Knight “knew that the signs would be distributed to Provincetown police officers.” Knight still denies he knew anything about police involvement in his campaign.

    Knight and Jaran were in favor of building a new police station, which was a political powder keg at the time and remains so today.

    The investigation also found that Jaran acted in an intimidating way towards patrons of the Squealing Pig when the song “F*ck tha Police,” by the rap group N.W.A., played on the bartender’s preset playlist.

    Knight told the Independent this week that he had been privately working with the town manager, Sharon Lynn, to negotiate Jaran out of his five-year contract following Jaran’s behavior at the Squealing Pig.

    When angry citizens and the police union pushed the select board to fire Jaran, Knight argued against it, warning of legal repercussions.

    In 2015, a police arbitration process found that Jaran’s firing violated his contract. The town had to pay the former chief $512,797.

    “What I said is exactly what happened,” Knight told the Independent.

    Knight apologized for any role he played in the Jaran mess. He said he is running again because of his experience on the select board. He served seven years, from 2007 to 2014.

    “We don’t know the ramifications of the pandemic,” he said. He estimates that tax revenues will take at least a $250,000 hit, “and I have the experience as a selectman to make tough decisions.”

    During his tenure, Knight said, he worked with the Dept. of Revenue when Provincetown was put on a watch list for inconsistences in its financial records. Keith Bergman had stepped down as town manager after 16 years, and Lynn had just started.

    “In two or three years, we were taken off the watch list,” he said. “People don’t realize how close we were to going into receivership.”

    In 2009, during a recession, town hall was in such disrepair the building inspector closed part of the auditorium. The select board led a major renovation of the historic building.

    During the week of July 4 in 2009, the town’s sewers broke down, necessitating a revamping of the entire system. Additional shutoffs were added to protect zones from a system-wide collapse, Knight said.

    His board also successfully led the renovation of the library and instituted a water main and paving repair system in 2012.

    Knight came to Provincetown in 1997 and became active in the AIDS Support Group. A former member of the water and sewer board, he is also a Mason and a Shriner.

    “I wouldn’t be running again if I didn’t believe in Provincetown,” Knight said.

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