Candidates running for two seats on the Westport Select Board met with Westport Point residents Saturday morning, spending just over an hour talking about Westport’s finances, the town’s changing face, environmental and other pressures, how to keep the elderly in their homes as the cost of living here rises, and their hopes for the town’s future.

Westport’s local elections will be held Tuesday, April 8, and candidates Weston Thurston II and Jake McGuigan are running for a one-year term, while incumbent Shana Teas is being challenged by Keith Dias for her three-year seat. Though there are other positions on the ballot, only the select board races are contested.

Saturday’s Westport Point Neighborhood Association forum was held at the Westport Point United Methodist Church’s Howland Hall, and drew about 40 people.

“I felt like instead of complaining about everything I see in town, I thought about being part of the change,” Thurston, a firefighter/paramedic in the Westport Fire Department and a lifelong resident, said in his opening statement.

Teas, a three-term select board veteran, spoke of her record, the reasons she moved here 23 years ago, what she sees from the inside, and why her experience counts:

“Since the first time I asked for your vote, I have been committed to leadership through collaboration and communication,” she said. “These guys can say that, but I have actually done it — these are the values I have brought to the job every day.”

Dias, a north end resident who owns a spiritual shop in the south end of town, said his talents lie in collaboration and bringing people of disparate backgrounds together. That will serve the town well, he said, as “there is a huge divide here and I feel like we need to unite our town.”

“While I hate to be running against Shana (and) I respect her, I had to do what was right for me, and right for the community.”

And while McGuigan said in his opening statement that he was happy to see faces in the crowd, the fact that more people aren’t involved, or take the time to study the issues, is troubling, he said, as Westport faces escalating challenges that must be dealt with. That takes education, he said:

“It’s very important to have this kind of face to face,” he said. “I think this whole room should be filled — we have a lot of issues in town. That takes more engagement (but) people don’t want to get involved as they used to; it’s a very toxic political environment, both on the national scene and here on the local scene.”

The forum was broken into two parts, with candidates for the one-year seat answering audience questions while those for the full term answered others. Some of the audience’s questions, and candidates’ responses, include:

On Westport’s structural deficit

The first audience question dealt with improving Westport’s finances, the structural deficit that plagues the town each year, and the role of Proposition 2 1/2, which limits levy increases to 2.5 percent per year.

“Every year we’re about $1 million short,” Thurston said. “In Westport we do a great job making it work year after work — we somehow find the cash.”

While he has supported overrides in the past, he said, the solution is not “to keep raising taxes every time we need to do stuff. My concern ... is the older population in town who are on fixed incomes.”

“I don’t want to continue to raise taxes (on) people who want to stay in this town,” McGuigan added. Still, “the town runs on a tight budget” and with nothing else changing, “it’s going to have to make some difficult decisions.”

On aging Westport, and balance

Point resident Betty Slade posed the next question, referring to a planning board survey that found that one of the most important issues in town is keeping Westport rural. However, she asked, when people talk about not raising taxes and keeping the town’s rural nature intact, “how do you balance” that with the fact that Westport does not have enough low income housing, and that Wesport’s population is growing older and many have significant trouble keeping their homes?

“Your question is probably one that I can’t answer today because I don’t believe the resources are in place,” McGuigan said, adding that a key funding component — a commercial tax base — is almost non-existent here, and the town is “constrained by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” through tax levy limits under Proposition 2 1/2.

He said he wants to see open dialog about affordable housing and infrastructure in the north end, as “it is a very complicated situation.”

“The town has grown exponentially over the last 20 years, but the town has not kept up with the growth,” Thurston said. Regarding the failure of the water and sewer project in the north end, he said, “if we just did little bites 20 years ago” the town’s infrastructure would be in a much better place.

“But now we’re the cat chasing the tail,” adding that he wants to see more affordable housing for Westport residents.

“Once again, it’s not fair to our townspeople who have been here for years to get pushed out.”

Water and sewer

Audience member Maury May, a long-time advocate of the Greater Route 6 water and sewer infrastructure project defeated twice by voters, suggested that the project’s first phase (of three) is really an economic development project, in that it would make the north end more attractive to business and could spur the development of more affordable housing and could increase the tax base. He asked candidates that if the town can find grants to fund it, would candidates support it?

“If it was explained a little better,” Thurston said, “perhaps it might have been more successful. I’m in support of (the project). Essentially, that’s going to help the town develop in a way that would be better.”

McGuigan said that while north end infrastructure work has been touted as a way to increase development in that area of town, “I think there needs to be more thorough analysis on this.”

“What commercial base can we expect to bring in?”

And if better north end services attract affordable housing, “what’s the impact on the school system?”

“I think there needs to be more analysis (but) I don’t think that putting in large apartment buildings which will stress the town and the town budget more, is the solution to our issues here.”

‘Pennywise and pound-foolish’

Audience member Tanja Ryden asked the next question, to candidates for the three-year term. She said that she sees the town’s financial difficulties firsthand.

“We save money (but) we end up band-aiding things.”

On the public health front, “I’m afraid ... we’re just one crisis away from a huge disaster because we don’t have the town management structure to support planning and being prepared.”

What’s to be done?

“There are no easy solutions,” Dias said. “I don’t support the 2 1/2 override. I don’t want to price anybody out of Westport.”

Apart from raising taxes, though, he suggested alternatives, including the hiring of a grant writer, and the establishment of a local chamber of commerce that can help bring the business community together.

“I know we don’t have a lot of fat” in the budget. “But there’s always fat.”

“There is no fat in our budget,” Teas responded, saying such “pennywise, pound foolish” management has manifested itself in the chronic school budget shortage, or for example the understaffing of crucial offices like animal control, which sees 900 complaints per year but is woefully understaffed.

“The reason that we’ve been able to make the budgets work is that we’ve been in a good economic state. That’s fine as long as the economy’s good. It’s not going to work when we have an economic downturn which I’m afraid we are about to have. I agree that there’s no easy answer — I think it’s very optimistic to think that we’re going to be able to (fund the town properly) without an override.

On meeting, and listening

One resident asked candidates if they are open to having town discussions, outside of select board meetings, on where they stand on cutting certain services, when and if the need arises?

“Yes, absolutely,” Dias said. “I am not saying that I want to cut services. But I don’t want to push people out of their homes.”

“I’d participate in any forum, on any day,” Teas said.

Property tax measure?

Resident David Cole noted that while Westport has one of the lowest tax rates in the state, the town has also rejected override votes 17 times in the 30 years since Proposition 2 1/2 became law. He asked if candidates would support a vote for a residential tax exemption for year-round residents whose properties are valued at less than the mean value in town?

“I have come around to believe that it’s important and necessary for Westport,” Teas said. “But I think we have to have a conversation about how that works.”

“I would want to research it a little more myself,” Dias said.