CHELSEA – Jan Isbell wants to see “new blood” on the Board of Selectmen.

Isbell and other residents will go to the polls June 28 to replace Carole Swan, who served as a selectman for 19 years and faces charges she received kickbacks from a Whitefield plowing contractor.

Her last day as a selectman is June 28. Her next court date is at July 26.

Swan’s felony case may still be heard by a grand jury. If she is indicted, Swan’s attorney, Leonard Sharon, has said she would plead not guilty.

Swan will be replaced by either Benjamin Smith or Tim Coitrone, the two candidates vying for her seat.

Smith, who lost to Linda Leotsakos in a special election March 29 to fill a vacant seat on the board, is a Public Utilities Commission lawyer.

Coitrone is an independent businessman and chairman of the Planning Board.

Smith, 32, moved to Chelsea three years ago. Coitrone, 50, grew up in Chelsea.

Smith said he believes he can be of service with his legal background and his experience in the private and public sectors.

Coitrone said he put in his bid for the three-year term because the town needs help.

“I’m probably leaning toward Ben Smith,” Isbell said Thursday. “He’s young, has a good background and is well educated. I just think we need some fresh new people on the board with a new outlook who will work hard and turn this town around. We have an awful lot of problems and need strong people to look at things in a different light.”

Sharon Morang, a former selectman who served with Swan, said she wants the new selectman to be honest, open with the public and have a good rapport with residents.

“We need someone who is truly interested in helping the town,” she said. “If you’re going in there for the money and position, it really isn’t helping.”

“It’s a tough job and you have to make tough choices. Under these different circumstances, now, I think it would be very rewarding,” Morang said.

Resident Shirl James said she likes some of the former Town Office employees but wants to see new faces.

“I think Mr. Smith is a breath of fresh air and he has the knowledge,” James said.

But not everyone wants to see “the new guy” in office.

Another resident, Jim Brown, said Smith is too young and lacks municipal experience. He would like to see Smith serve on a committee and then run for selectman.

“He needs to get his feet wet in town, maybe get involved in working on the town charter, which we seriously need,” Brown said.

As for Smith’s opponent, Brown said he has known his family for years and has “a vast amount of respect” for Coitrone.

Coitrone said he has spent the past three weeks knocking on doors. So far, Coitrone said, he has stopped at 75 percent of the homes in Chelsea.

He also has spoken to people who served on the Board of Selectmen with his father in the 1970s. Coitrone wanted to see how they handled similar situations when residents were upset with how officials were governing the town.

“I’ve been asking them what we can do to get the spirit back in the town,” Coitrone said.

Smith said one of the first things he would do is start the process to adopt a municipal charter to govern the process by which town business is conducted. Town charters include language relating to the powers and responsibilities of selectmen and town manager, their removal, as well as an explanation of the budget process, he said.

Smith said there is a statutory process for establishing a charter, but one of the first steps would be to schedule an election on whether residents wish to establish a charter commission.

He said it would have been helpful to have a provision on removal of a selectman so the town wouldn’t have been “held hostage” when Swan refused to quit the board after her arrest.

Both candidates said they want to re-establish a municipal government that serves the interests of citizens rather than select individuals. They said residents deserve to know where their tax dollars are going and that town business should be more transparent.

Coitrone agrees with Smith that the town needs a charter.

“It’s something we need to look at right away,” Coitrone said. “What we do with a lot of what we deal with on the Planning Board is look at other towns and basically use their written ordinances as a guide.”

 

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