SWAMPSCOTT — The 2026 Select Board candidates introduced themselves to voters and laid out their priorities during a pre-election debate Tuesday evening at Swampscott High School.
Four candidates are running for the two seats being vacated by current Select Board members David Grishman and Doug Thompson. The debate, hosted by the Swampscott Tides, drew a crowd of about 20 residents. The candidates: Ted Dooley, Wayne Godfrey, Charlie Patsios, and Wayne Spritz, each offered their perspective on town government, finances, and where they hope to steer Swampscott in the coming years.
From the outset, each candidate leaned on their background to explain why they’re running.
Patsios, who serves on the Board of Assessors and was appointed to the Housing Authority by former Gov. Charlie Baker, pointed to decades of involvement in town affairs. “I’ve been a town resident for 35 years … a town meeting member for well over a decade,” he said, adding that the town needs “smart and educated information provided to everyone … so we make informed decisions that impact the town both financially and in services to its residents.”
Godfrey, who described a career built around communication and advocacy, focused on how the town handles difficult conversations. He said he aims to “deliver bad news in a polite and positive way,” and emphasized the need for “an honest dialogue about what that looks like” as the town faces growing financial pressure.
Spritz emphasized his long tenure in local government, serving on various boards and committees, and his engineering background, telling voters, “I have 20 years of experience within town government … what makes this position different is the ability to lead really rational, sometimes very difficult decisions, trying to build consensus.” He added that his work has centered on weighing “cost and performance and customer satisfaction” and applying that method of thinking to public decisions.
Dooley, who has served on the Planning Board for five years, including as chair for the past three years, focused on how that experience shaped his understanding of the town’s needs. “It’s given me a great opportunity to learn how our municipal government can give back and serve the community,” he said, adding that those decisions “have a real impact on how people live and how people live their lives.”
Despite their different resumes, the candidates were largely aligned on their assessment of what lies ahead for Swampscott. All four pointed to the town’s financial outlook as the defining issue of the next several years, with rising costs and limited revenue creating what they agreed to be a difficult path forward.
“We’re going to have an incredibly difficult budget season,” Dooley said, adding that the challenge will extend beyond a single year as the town works through “competing priorities.”
Godfrey tied those pressures in part to education spending, noting that maintaining strong schools comes with increasing costs. “We want to have the best schools, we’re going to know that it’s going to cost money,” he said, adding that the town should be putting “upward pressure on our state and federal partners” to revisit funding formulas.
Spritz described the decisions ahead as unavoidable. “We’re going to have to make some really hard choices,” he said. “Any one of us who comes in here is going to be in a minefield … we need good leadership and building consensus, making the public aware so we can make the right decisions.”
Patsios pointed instead to the broader cost of living in town. “The tax burden is not made up of just a real estate tax bill,” he said. “It’s your water bill, it’s your insurance bill … if you live near the water, you’re going to have a flood insurance policy.”
When it came to solutions, the candidates again returned to many of the same ideas, pointing to a mix of new development, tighter spending, and outside funding as ways to close the gap.
“New growth is the one place that I think we can look to,” Dooley said, adding that it offers a way to bring in revenue without further burdening residents. “New growth doesn’t mean overgrowth … we have to find ways to put our underutilized economic cores in town to better support businesses and bring in that revenue.”
Spritz pointed to the limits of what the town can cut, saying the focus has to shift toward better long-term planning. “I think what we’re really looking at, in addition to economic development, is smart economic development,” he said, adding that the town also needs to look at “where we can draw back as much as possible while maintaining basic services.”
“The money’s out there,” Godfrey said. “We just need to be able to find it,” pointing to grant funding as an area where the town could do more. “We need to do a better job with grant writing … because the better the writer, the better the chances we receive that grant.”
“Our infrastructure is failing,” Patsios said, describing water and sewer systems as “aging” and warning that those costs will continue to grow if not addressed. “We’re bonding our repairs … and we only have one bucket to be able to go to the state to bond for money,” he said, suggesting alternative approaches could help reduce long-term costs.
Throughout the night, the differences between the candidates were less about the problems facing the town than how they said they would approach them — whether through experience in local government, technical expertise, or work building partnerships beyond Swampscott.
Voters will choose two candidates to fill the open seats, with early voting beginning April 21 and the town election set for April 28.
