ZBA Chair Potash Announces Run For Select Board

 CHATHAM – With Shareen Davis announcing that she won’t be seeking re-election, the one seat on the select board on the May 13 annual election ballot is attracting a lot of attention.

 Last week Randi Potash joined Carol Gordon and Brian Phillips in taking out nomination papers for the three-year term. 

 Potash, an attorney, is currently chair of the zoning board of appeals, a position she said she has enjoyed. Since moving to South Chatham in 2014, she’s also served on the human services committee, the bikeways committee and as the town’s delegate to the Barnstable Assembly of Delegates, where she held both the deputy speaker and speaker positions.

 “I love a challenge,” she said. 

 During COVID-19, she spent time familiarizing herself with town government by listening to “thousands” of meetings, both past and present. “It really kept me sane during the pandemic,” she said.

 Potash characterized herself as someone who likes to be “a helper in the community” and is a hard worker. She learned all about zoning before joining the ZBA, and got to know many of the political players both locally and regionally through her time on the county assembly. She’s also a trained mediator, experience that she said comes in handy when working through decisions on town boards.

 “I just enjoy trying to thread things together in a tapestry and make things flow and work,” she said.

 She would apply that diligence as a select board member, she said, looking at all available documents and studies as well as the board’s goals and objectives to help develop a vision statement that is “formidable and forward looking.” Regarding one recent issue, the residential tax exemption, she said she favors helping residents lower their costs but that there needs to be a cautious approach. 

“Things need to be thought out,” she said.

 She said she would be an advocate for townspeople and that she has new ideas to bring to the board, including getting more local students involved in town government.

 “I have the energy, the education and experience to be the right person now for Chatham,” she said. “My agenda is simple: I subscribe to the notion that there is one Chatham and I would faithfully do the right thing with the best interest of the people in the forefront of my mind.”

 Potash received her undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a master’s degree from UMass Lowell, and her law degree from the Massachusetts School of Law. Originally from Medford, she moved from West Peabody to South Chatham with her husband Paul, a retired partner in a Boston accounting firm. The couple has two children, a daughter who is an attorney and son who is a chiropractor, and two grandchildren.

 A long-time distance runner, Potash qualified for the Boston Marathon numerous times and hits the pavement every day for a seven-mile run.

March 26 is the last day for candidates to turn in signed nomination papers at the town clerk’s office.