Candidates lay out accomplishments, vision for 1st Barnstable District.
State Rep. Timothy Whelan has held the 1st Barnstable District seat on Beacon Hill for three terms after succeeding Cleon Turner in 2015, but the Republican from Brewster will have to fend off Dennis Democrat Joshua Mason if he wants to return for a fourth.
Mason ran in the 2018 primary and but lost to Brewster resident Steven Leibowitz.
After the loss, the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School graduate promised that the Cape hadn’t seen the last of him, and he has returned with a progressive, online-driven campaign, garnering endorsements from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey.
Mason says he has put in the work to learn about his community and is ready to challenge Whelan. a former state trooper who is running on his accomplishments during his tenure as state representative, including the passage of a bill to fight against the trafficking of fentanyl.
Whelan puts a priority on fixing the Cape’s wastewater woes and said he can work on both sides of the aisle. He is pitching his experience as a major factor, saying that the residents of Brewster, Dennis, Yarmouth and Barnstable can’t afford to have someone who is learning the ropes during a pandemic.
These interviews were edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Joshua Mason
Age: 39
Residence: Dennis
Education: bachelor’s degree in film production from Hofstra University
Employment: bartender
Political experience: Ran for state representative in 2018, chairman of the Dennis Democratic Town Committee, co-chair of the Dennis Affordable Housing Trust, Dennis Planning Board member.
Other community service: Community Partnership Committee member, Dennis Police Department crisis intervention task force member
Why are you running? What most motivates you?
I’m running to build the year-round economy in a tourist-based economy. We’ve got a quarter-million people that live here on Cape Cod and right now, as it stands, the economy is set up to favor people four months out of the year, and it’s just not acceptable and it certainly doesn’t serve the people of Cape Cod at all. So, I’m working to craft a year-round economy that provides sustainability and opportunity and affordability for all Cape Cod residents who choose to live on the Cape, and also focus on youth retention and curtail the decline of enrollment in our public school systems and provide our public school systems with the resources, the teachers, the funding.
We’ve got climate issues here that we’re coping with. Healthcare is a big one. Our maternity wards and pediatric care have been closed up and marginalized. Those are very concerning to me and if we are trying to keep young people around, if we want people around to take care of those who are aging in place well, then we need to work on providing better opportunities and more affordability for them.
What is the most pressing issue in your district and how would you address it?
It’s the economy. I’m looking to take two of our constants, which are education and health care — those are two critical areas that are functioning throughout the year, no matter what — I’m looking to expand Cape Cod Hospital, their partnership with the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, make it a teaching hospital, which is more attractive and (would provide) more opportunities for young people, young doctors. Building out some of those services to make it more friendly and accessible, and provide a lot of the benefits and things that some of the Boston health care provides people. Because we’re in the health care capital of the world here in Massachusetts, so we should be a part of that, too.
In addition to that, taking our community college and partnering up with a university up in the Boston area over the bridge somewhere and expanding it into a university-level school and focusing on bringing in people from all around the world to come here and be more inclusive — plug the education system into our economy and expand that way and use a lot of the natural resources and things that we have here in Cape Cod. The great news is that with an additional 15,000 or 20,000 people here on the Cape going to school, it will allow hospitality services and things that seem to shutter in the winter time to stay open, because now we have a supply and demand routine going on where you got an uptick in population, the demand is there for the business and in a circular economy you’ve got a vetted workforce through the education system.
How do you differ from the other candidate? What sets you apart?
My opponent — for many years — he always talks about how you do what you’re good at. And he’s prioritized law enforcement. The majority of the bills he’s filed are law enforcement based. I understand how important law enforcement is. I work with my local police department here in Dennis. I am 110% supportive of people in our public safety sector and yes, it is important to provide them with the resources, the funding and the protections necessary. They put themselves on front lines every day and I have the utmost respect for them and I know a lot of the people who work in the public safety area. However, there are other critical needs within the district. One in five of our kids who are going to our schools don’t have enough food. They rely on our public school food programs. Housing is unaffordable and unattainable. That’s a critical issue. The environment has not been addressed. He signed on to the 2050 road map. I’m looking at pushing a green new deal for Massachusetts, which fast-forwards it to 2030 because we don’t have time here on Cape Cod to wait till 2050. Incrementalism does not work for our environment here on Cape Cod.
What other information would you like voters to know about you or policy positions?
I’ve got a lot of experience. I’m from Cape Cod. I grew up here. I swim in these oceans. I drink this water, went to the public school system. I know it better than anyone else. And with that said, being involved with the community, in respect to different committees, positions, different boards and things, educating myself within areas of the community that I was unaware of or I didn’t know about before has certainly molded me for this moment and sort of set me up for this run. I feel very confident in saying that I am the best person for this job, to address building a year-round economy, addressing our health care needs here on the Cape so it serves everybody, passing the ROE Act, something that’s been sitting there on the committee floor up in Boston for some time, so that we can protect and provide for the women and children of the community.
I’m looking at repealing the rent control zoning act of 1994 to make housing more accessible and affordable here, and also recrafting our zoning laws, passing a green new deal to create hundreds of new jobs, lowering our carbon footprint by 2030, not 2050, constructing future proof green infrastructure. These are all critical issues that I look to address on day one as the next state representative for 1st Barnstable.
Timothy Whelan
Age: 52
Residence: Brewster
Education: associate degree in science in law enforcement from Western New England College, Marine Corps veteran
Employment: retired state trooper, Marine and sitting state reresentative
Political experience: three terms as state representative
Other community service: Brewster Council on Aging, former girls basketball coach at Nauset Regional High School
Why are you running? What most motivates you?
I think that over the past six years I’ve been able to get an awful lot done for the district. I’ve brought an awful lot of money home to the district, returning our local taxpayers funds to handle our projects down here instead of continually sending all of our money over the bridge for projects up in the Boston area.
I’m running for another term because I want to keep doing that. We’ve got a lot of money toward affordable housing projects, toward transportation improvements, toward environmental projects here around the district. I’ve worked closely with the Massachusetts School Building Authority to bring $44 million down here toward the construction of a new middle school in Yarmouth. I’ve been very successful with that and I just want to keep doing that. We’ve got some incredible pieces of legislation passed, including the bill that criminalizes the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, and I know that that bill is saving lives right now. So, with these accomplishments behind me, I’m thirsting for more, and as long as I can keep doing good for the people in our district, then I want to stay there doing that good because we need the help down here.
What is the most pressing issue in your district and how would you address it?
I think it’s hard to pick one pressing issue out of the pile, because obviously we have — addiction continues to be a terrible issue. Building a year-round economy down here, as well as environmental sustainability, are incredibly important. But I think the key to a lot of this rests with fixing the wastewater issue that we have here. The reasoning behind that is because when the Dakota Partners built the Yarmouth Commons project — 69 units of affordable housing — they spent, I believe it was somewhere in the ballpark of $1 million just for the wastewater system. So that’s $1 million gone to dig a hole in the ground, before you even put the first front door up. I’ve been trying for six years to recruit year-round employers down here on the Cape so we can build a stronger year-round economy and I continually hear the complaint that we don’t have municipal sewer. Because companies don’t want to come down here and conduct their business with a Title 5 system. I believe that for the development of affordable housing and for recruitment of year-round employers and building a better, stronger year-round economy down here, everything hinges on us solving the wastewater crisis.
Now what have I done? So, I filed the bill that establishes the Dennis-Harwich-Yarmouth clean waters community partnership that was signed into law by Governor Baker. It now enables voters in the towns of Dennis, Harwich and Yarmouth at their spring town meetings to debate and discuss joining this intermunicipal clean water partnership. The idea behind it, the municipal fathers put together, was that it would save tens and tens of millions of dollars to the local ratepayers by combining their services and doing it on a regional rather than a town by town approach. So that as well as I have a $1 million bond authorization floating out there that will be delivered shortly after, assuming that there’s a ratification in all three towns to join this.
How do you differ from the other candidate? What sets you apart?
I’m never comfortable campaigning against someone as much as I’m comfortable campaigning on my achievements. So rather than talk about my opponent, the only thing that I will offer is that I believe he is billing himself as a progressive Democrat and a champion of progressive Democrat causes. I refer to myself as more of a centrist. I’m a Republican, but I’m very much a centrist. I’m a moderate and I believe that my views mirror that. About 5% to 8% of the job is policy and positions on political issues. About 90% to 95% of the job, as I’ve learned over these six years, is it’s just a grind. It’s hard work. It’s constituent service. It’s going to events. It’s sitting down listening to people. It’s building the relationships and it’s making the phone calls with people whom you built those relationships with in order to get benefits for the people in the towns in the district.
What other information would you like voters to know about you or policy positions?
What I would want people to know about me is that I’m a father. I want people to know that I’m a husband of 30 years and married to my high school sweetheart. I’ve been in public service, working hard for others since I was 19 years old, and it’s a passion. It’s a passion for me to work for others and to help people. I’m a high school basketball coach. I’m an avid runner. I’m a proud military veteran. I work with several veterans organizations here and I’m just proud of the work that we’ve been able to do. I’m proud of my bipartisan record and I’m proud of the friendships that I’ve built on both sides of the aisle up in Boston. And those are critical, particularly right now in a pandemic. Those relationships are going to be critical to the ultimate benefit of folks here in our district, because right now, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with all the problems going on, it’s no time for on-the-job training. It takes six months to a year to learn the job of being a state representative … I don’t think right now is the time for us to bring in a new state representative to represent the 1st Barnstable District because it’s going to take six months to a year before that person would really get to know the job.
Follow Ethan Genter on Twitter: @EthanGenterCCT.
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