By Beth David, Editor
At its meeting on 7/28/25, the Fairhaven Select Board (SB) voted to accept the contract terms worked out with Kingston’s Keith Hickey for him to become Fairhaven’s next Town Administrator, pending final approval from Town Counsel. Mr. Hickey was set to give his formal notice to the town of Kingston this week and will then be able to give Fairhaven a start date, most likely in 1-2 months. His starting salary will be $189,369.
The board also met jointly with the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to discuss formalizing the way that full members are chosen. The ZBA has a combination of full members and associate members. Associate members do not vote, unless a full member is absent from a meeting, then an associate is chosen by the chairperson to vote on that particular petition. The ZBA is a regulatory board with the authority to grant variances, which allow homeowners to do certain things on their properties that are not allowed, such as building too close to the property line., etc.
Some ZBA members have called on the SB to rescind a vote that overlooked associate members to put a new person on the board. ZBA chairperson, Patrick Carr, has also been chastising board members on a regular basis for more than a year for not reappointing Kenneth Kendall to his full position, instead bumping him down to an associate slot. He resigned on the spot.
The issue has come up repeatedly for at least six months, with almost every public comment period including at least one comment on the subject.
At this Monday’s meeting, ZBA members each spoke, asking the SB to clarify and create a policy on how associate members get moved up to full positions. Some ZBA members wanted the board to make it a policy that they would be bound to adhere to. Others said they just wanted clarity and wanted a way for associate members to know when there was a vacancy.
When the last full member position was filled, no associate members had indicated that they were interested. SB members said they thought that meant no one wanted the slot.
After a new person was chosen (at the 5/12/25 meeting), Mr. Carr asked the board to rescind their vote, advocating for someone with more experience.
In subsequent meetings, more information came to light, with ZBA associate members noting that they had no idea an opening existed. There was some confusion as to whether or not the most senior associate member would automatically be elevated, or if they had to apply.
The issue has been brewing for some time, so the two boards met this week to work out a plan.
SB Chairperson, Charles Murphy, said the process had not changed from previous years for notifying the public about openings. He said a resignation is announced at a meeting, and then the public is given some time to apply for the position until it is on a meeting agenda, usually the next meeting. He said the board has not routinely notified individual boards when there was an opening, but he did not see any harm in having the SB office reach out to individual boards to let them know when there is an opening.
Most SB members said they did not want to lock themselves into a rigid process. They all said that Associate members should get deference, with Andrew Saunders saying they should get “strong deference,” but that it should not be a “defacto rule” that if you are an associate member you get to be a full member.
Mr. Saunders and SB member, Natalie Mello, both said they did not know that associate members had not been notified when they voted on 5/12.
SB member Andrew Romano said that when he was on the ZBA it was the building commissioner or the chair who notified the board of any full openings so associate members could apply.
SB member Keith Silvia said that in the past if you were a member of a board and your term came up for reappointment, you automatically were reappointed. Mr. Romano said maybe so, but that does not make it a good policy to continue to follow.*
In the end, the SB voted to have the SB office notify the chairperson of a board if a vacancy occurs.
During the public comment period, Erin Carr, who lives in Mattapoisett, but owns a business in Fairhaven with her father, Patrick Carr, who is a Planning Board member and member of the ZBA, spoke about the Neighb News being a bad place for the town to place its legal notices. Ms. Carr said the articles are “blatantly biased” and the editor spreads skewed reports with “toxic dialogue.”
She said the board was giving mixed messages by asking for civility among board members and the public, and then supporting the Neighb News by using it for legal notices.
The Neighb News has reported in the past on two Conflicts of Interest involving Mr. Carr. One is his support as a Planning Board member getting the 40R zoning passed, despite that his property on Middle Street is in the new overlay district. The other COI involves the company he owns with his daughter, Seaspray Container Company. Mr. Carr has been actively trying to stop the construction of a storage shed at the high school through his position on the ZBA. Seaspray currently has two containers on the high school property which will no longer be needed if the shed is completed.
The Ethics Commission advised Mr. Carr to recuse himself from all proceedings involving the shed, saying it requires permission from the appointing authority. He has twice asked the Select Board (which appointed him to the ZBA) to allow him to participate, but the measure failed both times.
*Corrects errors from previous versions, “maybe” and does “not” make….
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