Metters, Nicastro To Seek Re-election In May

CHATHAM – Incumbent select board members Cory Metters and Dean Nicastro will both seek fourth terms in the May 16 annual town election.

Nicastro and Metters have taken out nomination papers for the three-year terms. As of Monday there were no other candidates for the posts, according to Town Clerk Julie Smith.

When they first ran in 2015, Metters and Nicastro did not know each other. Over the past nine years they’ve developed a good working relationship, even though they sometimes do not see eye to eye.

“We hit it off pretty well,” Nicastro said. “We’ve been very collaborative, even though we sometimes vote different ways on different issues.”

“We have different backgrounds and bring different perspectives to the board,” Metters said in a separate interview. Nicastro, 76, is a retired municipal attorney while Metters, 47, is a local business owner.

While acknowledging that “nine years is a long time,” Nicastro said there are significant issues to which he can bring a “steady, unintimidated voice of reason and some diverse opinion.” He said he considers ensuring a clean, adequate supply of drinking water a top priority.

“We’re going to be facing challenges with PFAS, we will continue to have issues and concerns about iron and manganese; I see that in my own house,” he said, adding that as liaison to the water and sewer advisory committee, he has a good understanding of water-related issues.

Nicastro supports the current housing initiatives the town is engaged in, acknowledging differences of opinion among board members regarding them (see story on page 3) but saying he feels he can contribute to the conversation. The future of the town’s elementary school is also a matter of concern, he said, noting that enrollment and the condition of the building will force officials to make hard decisions.

“I don’t want to see the town lose it,” he said of the Depot Road school. “That all kind of ties in with the housing issue” as well as promoting a more year-round economy, “which is a real challenge.”

He has an interest in fostering preservation of the town’s character and promoting improvements to the town’s waterfront infrastructure. As liaison to the Eldredge Public Library board of trustees, he also hopes to facilitate the long-delayed upgrade and landscaping of the library’s front lawn. Removal of a tree whose integrity is compromised has been a sticking point.

“It would be nice to see the whole project move forward, which is a safety project as well as a landscaping project,” he said.

Nicastro, who served on the finance committee before being elected to the select board, would also like to return to a project that was shelved due to the pandemic: the establishment of an academic research facility in town. He has been a supporter of a new center for active living, and had called for investigating reuse of the present site even before plans for a senior center in West Chatham were rejected. Officials are currently waiting for an engineering report on the condition of the current structure of the Stony Hill Road building before proceeding further.

Although he came close to deciding not to run, Nicastro said he was encouraged to seek another term by a number of people “of diverse views.”

“I really do feel it is my job as a select board member to try to represent everybody in town, even people who might disagree with me on different issues,” he said. “I don’t think it’s my job to try to force my position on top of everyone else. I don’t think that’s the way to govern.”

Nicastro served as a Massachusetts assistant attorney general under Francis X. Bellotti, where he worked on utility, land takings and land-related cases. He was also city solicitor in his native Quincy, where he also served on the planning board. He worked for 18 years as general counsel, later as vice president, for the Massachusetts Medical Society in Waltham.

Metters said he has enjoyed the past three terms and still has a desire to serve on the board.

“I want to stay engaged,” he said.

A former planning board member, Metters said he would like to focus on improving the town’s waterfront infrastructure and seeing the rebuilding of the town’s transfer station through to completion. The current chair of the select board, he sees a need to nudge the board toward a compromise on its current public engagement process, which often only allows residents to comment on agenda items at the start of meetings. “I’d like to find a more consistent protocol,” he said.

Affordable housing is a major issue that will take a long time to solve, he said. “We’re going to be working on that continuously,” he said. He feels the board and the affordable housing trust can work collaboratively. “I do not want to push any type of power struggle,” he said. “I don’t want to be micromanaging the process. The affordable housing trust was put together by town meeting with a specific makeup to engage in the housing situation.”

Metters said he sees himself as helping to forge compromises that benefit the town. “I don’t want to get all bogged down in politics,” he said. The current board communicates well and while there are differences of opinion, “I don’t find that an issue. We are five individual voices from the community, sometimes we’re going to agree, sometimes we’re going to be divided. That’s part of the process.”

Metters grew up in Chatham and graduated from Chatham High School. He owns the Chatham Penny Candy Store at the corner of Main and Seaview streets and last summer opened Sweet Dreams at the Shop Ahoy Plaza in West Chatham.

As of early this week, Moderator William Litchfield was the only other candidate to take out nomination papers. Others up for re-election are Monomoy Regional School Committee member Joanne Finnegan and housing authority member Alan Mowry. March 28 is the deadline to turn in signed papers.