GEORGETOWN — Bronwen Tudor claimed a seat on the Georgetown Select Board over William Plummer IV in a tight 253-240 vote Tuesday.
Tudor, who grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Georgetown in 2000, has held a position on the Town-Owned Property Management Board since 2009. She said she ran for the Select Board position because “I like being involved in my community and I believe in the power and importance of government.”
“I’m honored to be entrusted with the responsibility,” said Tudor. “I’m excited to have won, but at the same time it’s a challenging prospect to take on this position in a challenging time.”
She said she’s interested in expanding access to public meetings by continuing to stream the meetings online. She said she was inspired to do so after she noticed that board meetings, which usually don’t draw an audience, were watched by 15 to 20 people when they moved to Zoom, an online telecommunications platform, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Georgetown’s public meetings weren’t previously streamed online or on a local television station, but Tudor said she’s interested in figuring out how the town could do so, making those meetings accessible to anyone who may be housebound or more likely watch a meeting online.
In the long term, Tudor said she wants to “understand what the needs of our commercial working waterfront needs in the next 5 or 10 years.”
“The lobsters seem to be moving north, so what’s coming in that could replace them?” she said. “Those are questions, not answers, but I’d like them to be questions we’re addressing.”
Tudor said her first job is to learn her various duties as a selectwoman and commit her annual deadline to memory.
“It’s one thing to have ideas about what the community wants or needs, but it’s another thing to make sure you learn your responsibilities,” she said.
Tudor will take the place of Goeffry Birdsall, who held a position on the board for 18 years but said he decided not to run for re-election so he can spend more time with his children who live out of state.
“My family has lived here since the 1860s and it is still a wonderful island community and I am grateful that my wife and I were able to serve our neighbors, with my wife on the school board for 24 years, and me 18 years on the selectboard,” Birdsall said.
He said the one piece of advice he’d give Tudor is to “listen, ask questions, then stay true to your beliefs.”
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