The following tables highlight key answers and moments by the four candidates running for two open seats on the select board at Thursday’s Andover Service Club Candidates’ forum. You can also read a complete, AI-generated transcript of the forum, courtesy of Andover News.
“What is your assessment of…current [Andover] town manager [Andrew Flanagan]’s performance? Where do you see improvement needed?”
| Candidate | Comments |
| Kevin Coffey | “Andrew’s a very bright, very talented and very creative guy and he’s got a tough job. He’s done some really helpful things in managing our finances…and I’m appreciative of his talent in that area. I do think…there are some communications flat spots, I call them, in the way that our town government’s working, and I think we can and should and need to do a better job surfacing topics early” to gain community input and consensus. |
| Ellen Keller | “I’ve been in town for 30 years and the way I like to frame it is the first 25 of those years we spent a lot of time talking about doing things. We talked about building buildings, moving the DPW, we talked about the drama associated with the pension obligations and nothing got solved. And in the last five years, that’s all been done…That said, I do agree that there are some gaps with communication that Andrew could do a lot better with.” |
| George Thorlin | “I would give him a C-. I think that what he has to learn is to how to communicate with people, with the town residents, how to understand what our problems are and to help solve those problems.” |
| Ellen Townson | “I think he’s a very strong town manager in terms of our numbers. He’s great with numbers and the pension obligation bond idea that he brought forward has been incredibly successful for the town. He definitely finds very creative and strong employees and leaders to surround himself with, which I think is very important as well in building a team. But in terms of the communication, I agree with everybody else here that it is an area that we have to work on.” |
Thorlin was the only candidate to lean towards a “no” when the candidates were asked if they would vote to reappoint Flanagan when his current contract expires in 2025.
“The select board has taken positions on a variety of subjects concerning the budget pension programs, town debt, school expansion, and many more. What positions has the select board taken recently with which you have disagreed and why?”
| Candidate | Comments |
| Kevin Coffey | “I’m also disappointed that there’s not more tension in the budget process. The town manager comes with 400 pages of [budgets] and there’s a lot of talk about it, but at the end of the day, I don’t find much pushback that says if taxes had to go up 1% less or even a half a percent less, what would be the trade-offs? What could we give up and are we at the margin trying to be as efficient as we can?” |
| Ellen Keller | “We had a special town meeting and the residents, although the article may not have been phrased properly…I thought the spirit of the vote that the town took was pretty clear and that we needed to take a harder look at town meeting as a form of government, and whether we should consider something else…I was disappointed when the select board voted against that decision, and they…punted it to be reconsidered at a later time.” |
| George Thorlin | “I think the select board hasn’t been responsive to the residents of Andover. I think this has proven again and again with the special town meetings that have come up when everybody on the boards, everybody on the select board votes to disapprove. I found that statistically weird. Isn’t there one person that would stand up and vote for approval? You would think so, right? But they don’t.” |
| Ellen Townson | “I actually agree with the town meeting vote. I do think that the spirit wasn’t honored and I think that’s important. I think residents were very clear on that.” |
“There’s been a lot of conversation these days around taxes, debt inflation. What aspects of the town budget would you prioritize from a fiscal responsibility perspective?”
| Candidate | Comments |
| Kevin Coffey | “We’ve got to run good schools, we’ve got to maintain our public safety, we’ve got to stop delivering brown water. We’ve got to fix the sidewalks that are already broken. So we’ve got to do our maintenance and after all of the basics like that, we can probably only afford another thing or two. We need to pick it and do it, not hire consultants and make pretty pictures.” |
| Ellen Keller | “I agree with Kevin on the one or two projects that we can afford, because we’re pretty lean right now. Town services only represents about 22 percent of your average tax bill, and if you start cutting there, everything else is school budget, public safety, DPW, those things. Those are critical services…It’s relatively lean, so we need to focus and pick those two, one or two projects.” |
| George Thorlin | “I believe that we need to focus on the basics as provided in the Andover’s mission and value statements, which begins ensure the safety, education and wellbeing of the community. And I believe that these basics are improving traffic safety and speeding enforcement town wide adequately funding our schools not taking three years to negotiate a new school contract resulting in a strike and then having to lay off 34 school employees as the case is today.” |
| Ellen Townson | “I do think we’re on a very good track for moving forward with projects. We do have some other projects coming up that are meeting our town’s needs. I’d like to continue to stick to…the short term, medium term, and long-term plans that our town government has provided, because I think when we look at all those numbers, we’re heading in a very good direction.” |
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