TRURO — Nancy Medoff and Susan Girard-Irwin were elected to the select board on May 29. The election drew 950 voters — a 41 percent turnout, well above last year’s 27 percent.

According to the town’s official results, Medoff received 543 votes and Girard-Irwin got 535. The two other select board hopefuls were Kevin Grunwald and Tim Hickey. Grunwald got 340 votes; Hickey, 316.

Medoff and Girard-Irwin will replace chair Kristen Reed and clerk John Dundas, neither of whom sought reelection.

“I was so excited to see so many voters come out and continue the positive momentum from town meeting,” Medoff said after the election. “It’s an exciting time for Truro.”

Medoff is chair of the charter review committee and a member of the zoning board of appeals. At a candidates’ forum on May 7, she advocated a “master plan” for the town. She told the Independent that she would coordinate the efforts of the town’s various committees, “pulling together the work that’s been done as it relates to housing, water, wastewater management, infrastructure, and traffic.” The committees work separately, and “we need something or someone to thread that all together,” Medoff said.

Another idea Medoff wants to implement: “Community forums run by the community.” She said meetings unfettered by municipal formality could be effective and was something that “got a lot of traction” during her campaign outreach.

Getting more people involved in town government, filling vacancies on board and committees, is another priority, Medoff said. “One thing I learned on the campaign trail is there are a lot of very smart people, a lot of people who care a lot about Truro,” she said.

Girard-Irwin, who is vice chair of the council on aging’s board, campaigned on the idea of balancing housing and water concerns and bolstering intergenerational interaction.

“I think the turnout was great for the town,” she said the day after the election. “It’s a new path forward for everyone.” She was already “rolling up my sleeves,” she said. “I’m a doer, so let’s start doing something.”

Girard-Irwin told the Independent that her priority was to get the new Walsh advisory committee appointed and working on the recommendations of the previous Walsh committee that were recently approved at town meeting. “I think it’s really important that we bring the right people in,” she said, to handle infrastructure, traffic, and water concerns. “We really need housing,” she said, “for people to come work here, to come live and play here, and for seniors to downsize.”

She also said she’d be working on forward movement on the DPW facility and closing the funding shortfall on the Cloverleaf housing development.

“The learning curve is going to be steep,” Girard-Irwin said, so she’ll be focused on “finding the appropriate people and some mentors to work with.”

For Grunwald, chair of the housing authority, this was a first-time campaign. “It was certainly a learning experience for me,” he said. “One of the things I was really impressed by was how hard Nancy and Sue worked to connect with people and reach out to the community.”

Grunwald has three years left on his housing authority term, and he plans to use that position to carry out the vision for housing and year-round viability he championed on the campaign trail. “The sustainability of the community is still really critical,” he said.

Grunwald thanked the voters of Truro: “I appreciate the fact that people got engaged the way that they did,” he said.

Hickey, vice chair of the concert committee, campaigned for lower taxes and more town government transparency.

“I’m very happy to have participated in this election,” he wrote in an email. “I’m also relieved that the election is over. I do feel that we are in a much better place as a Town with Susan and Nancy as select board members and I am really pleased with the outcome.”

Hickey said he will not reapply to the concert committee when his term expires at the end of June. But he will stay involved in town concerts in a volunteer capacity, he said. He said he also plans to continue to volunteer with the council on aging and food access programs in town.

Vida Richter was reelected to the school committee with 612 votes. Ken Oxtoby and Amy Smith Costa were elected as write-ins, garnering 169 and 168 votes respectively.
The one question on the May 29 ballot — a charter amendment requiring that library trustees be consulted in the hiring of a new library director — passed with a resounding yes: 793 voters supported it; 117 were opposed; 40 left their ballots blank on the question.

In uncontested elections, Keith Althaus and Kaitlin Blehm were reelected as library trustees; Robert Masson will serve again on the cemetery commission; and Anne Greenbaum was reelected to the planning board.

Debt Exclusion Votes Ahead

A special election is scheduled for June 27 to vote on four financial questions that passed at annual town meeting.

The time crunch between the town meeting and the election meant these could not be placed on the ballot for May 29. According to the Mass. Dept. of Revenue’s Division of Local Services, “The municipal clerk must receive written notice of the question being placed on the ballot at least 35 days before the date of the election.” With only 24 days between the day the last of the financial articles passed on May 5 and the May 29 town election, a follow-up election was needed.

Questions 1, 2, and 4 ask voters to approve debt exclusions. The first would authorize borrowing the $1.5 million approved at town meeting to fund HVAC work at Truro Central School. It would “pay costs of engineering services, construction, and repairs related to the HVAC system and roof repairs” there.

The second question would allow the town to finance engineering of a new DPW facility to be placed “predominately at the Town Hall Hill site (excluding the 340 Route 6 site).” Voters approved $2.8 million for that purpose at town meeting.

Question 3 would allow the town to use real estate and personal property taxes to spend $113,158 for the hiring of a full-time human resources coordinator beginning in July at the start of fiscal 2025.

The last question seeks a debt exclusion so the town can finance the $1.5 million voters approved at town meeting to remove and replace the damaged 36-inch culvert on Mill Pond Road.