Candidates for Plymouth Select Board: Frank Mand and Vedna Heywood
The Fourth and Final Part of a Series
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(PLYMOUTH) — When Plymouth goes to the polls for its Town Election on May 20th, voters will be asked to vote for two candidates for the open seats on the Select Board. This article examines two of them: Planning Board Member and Charter Commissioner Frank Mand, and School Committee Member Vedna Heywood.
There are six candidates in the race in total. In the order that I heard of their announcements, they are: Mr. Mand; Ms. Heywood; Advisory and Finance Committee Chair Kevin Canty; Precinct 15 Town Meeting Member and Charter Commissioner Wrestling Brewster; Precinct 2 Town Meeting Member Everett Malaguti; and Vice Chair of the Select Board Richard Quintal, Jr.
I covered Mr. Mand’s and Ms. Heywood campaigns last January, after they announced, here; this is an updated and current version of that article in order to give approximately equal space to all candidates. I covered Mr. Canty and Mr. Brewster’s campaigns here. I covered Mr. Malaguti’s and Mr. Quintal’s campaigns here.
The Plymouth Town Election is on May 20th.
(The view from Plymouth Town Hall; credit — J. Benjamin Cronin.)
Frank Mand
Frank Mand is running for one of the two open seats on the Plymouth Select Board. Mr. Mand currently sits on the Planning Board, to which he was elected in 2021. He was also elected that year to serve on Plymouth’s Charter Commission.
“Plymouth has a lot to do. We need to get growth under control. We need more truly affordable housing. We need to protect our water. We need to keep our trees. We need Boston South to go. We need to jump start our master plan. We have to attract the best companies with the best jobs. We have a lot to do,” said Mr. Mand at the May 4th League of Women Voters Candidate Forum.
Mr. Mand presently serves as Vice President of the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance, a conservation organization that works to preserve the globally rare pine barrens ecosystems of the region. Mr. Mand was a longtime journalist at The Old Colony Memorial, writing for that newspaper for approximately two decades. He has served as a Little League President, and on the Plymouth Task Force To End Homelessness. Mr. Mand holds an M.B.A. degree from Northeastern University, and a B.A. in English Literature from Boston College.
(Frank Mand during his interview with Julie Thompson, of PACTV; credit — PACTV. )
Mr. Mand has long been an advocate for protecting Plymouth’s unique ecosystems and resources.
“We [are] at a tipping point. You don’t have to be an elected official to know that the streets are congested, the woods are disappearing, our inexhaustible supply of water is — somehow — in short supply — and the character of the community is changing,” said Mr. Mand in his announcement of his candidacy last Fall.
As part of his campaign, Mr. Mand undertook a “whistle-stop”-style tour of the Town’s 18 precincts, centered around coffee and discussions with local residents.
“I took my campaign on the road, re-acquainting myself with the 50-plus neighborhoods, the now 18 precincts of Plymouth. I went to the local coffee shop in over a dozen areas and invited residents from those neighborhoods to drop by, share a cup and ‘shoot the breeze,’” he told The Plymouth County Observer.
Mr. Mand said the tour left a personal impression that, “as a community, [we] are too Pilgrim-centric, that too much attention and perhaps even funds, go to historic, established areas of Town,” he said.
He had also “heard from voters, that residents of that ‘other’ Plymouth feel disenfranchised. That’s a reality that we need to address. But I was also pleasantly surprised to find, in many areas of town, an expectation that the Town live up to its promise … of civic engagement, the promise of grassroots democracy, and the promise of our unique environment;” these he said, were what brought many newcomers to Plymouth in the first place.
“I was supposed to be convincing them that I had the right tools, and attitude, for the job. But I think I got the better of the bargain, came away from these coffees with new energy and conviction. In a real sense, I hope to bring that energy and idealism to the Select Board,” Mr. Mand told The Plymouth County Observer.
Enforcing existing laws and regulations is important, suggested Mr. Mand, at the League Forum.
“We have a whole series of regulations that are meant to protect our 450 ponds, and our rivers and our streams – we’re putting pollutants into them on a regular basis. We have cyanobacteria blooms on a regular basis, because we are allowing houses to be built along the ponds, and then they clear cut the land, and then their fertilizers go down into the water, and their septic systems eventually contribute nitrates. We need to enforce the regulations we have, and also to educate people about the value and the quality of the water, and how those ponds are actually an interface directly into the aquifer,” he said at the League Forum.
( Candidate Mand with supporters; credit —Frank Mand for Select Board. )
Mr. Mand has long argued for the importance of preserving the roughly 1,500 acres of the remaining Pine Hills, owned by Holtec, the company presently engaged in the decommissioning if Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. It is a significant natural feature: the summit of Manomet Hill, at 395 feet, is the highest elevation in the Town, and the highest point directly on the coast south of Maine, and north of the Mexican State of Veracruz. It became Wampanoag territory, and during the Age of Encounter, it is highly likely it was used as navigational landmark by European voyagers, including Verrazzano on his May, 1524 journey between Narragansett Bay and the coast of Maine, en route to Nova Scotia.
“Last year a conservation group that I helped facilitate came to Town with a grant application worth as much as $20 million to buy the Holtec land, and it took the Town almost five months to get back to us. This year, we came back wanting to start that process up again, this time with a potential $50 million cap, and we were told the Town doesn’t have the ‘bandwidth,’” said Mand at the League Forum.
The Town needed to be more responsive and attentive, said Mr. Mand, and to work with local, region, state, and national conservation organizations to obtain this land.
“We have a world class environment, we need a world strategy to preserve it,” he said.
In terms of affordable housing, Mr. Mand noted that accessory dwelling units, while having issues of their own, are one possibility to deal with this issue.
Ultimately, Mr. Mand argued that his candidacy was about optimism.
“I’m an optimist. I believe that most of the expertise we need to keep the Plymouth we love from being hauled away, one truckload at a time, is right here — it’s you. I believe in the many, not the few,” he said, at the League Forum.
You might call me naïve, or even worse, idealistic — but isn’t that what a leader is supposed to be?” asked Mr. Mand.
The Plymouth Town Election is on Saturday, May 20th.
Vedna Heywood
Vedna Heywood is running for one of the two open seats on the Plymouth Select Board. Ms. Heywood currently serves as a Member of the School Committee in Plymouth.
“My candidacy is about our Town, and my partnership with you that would help shape the future of Plymouth,” said Ms. Heywood, at the May 4th League of Women Voters Candidate Forum.
(Vedna Heywood being interviewed by Julie Thompson, of PACTV; credit — PACTV.)
“I am running because I believe in Plymouth. I believe in its people, its possibilities, and its progression. I’ve served the community of Plymouth and the surrounding areas on multiple boards and committees for the past thirteen years. My service has included being your twice-elected School Committee Member, and working in the areas of policy, negotiation, budgets, and safety,” she said.
Ms. Heywood, a Registered Nurse, holds a degree in Nursing from Broward College, currently works as a surgical trauma intensive care unit nurse at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. She holds a degree in Nursing from Broward College, and presently is studying for a Master’s degree in Nursing at Simmons College.
Ms. Heywood is active in a number of organizations, locally as well as nationally, and currently serves as a Member of the League’s National Board of Directors, and a National Trustee of the League of Women Voters. Prior to that, she served in a leadership capacity with the Massachusetts League of Women Voters. She has served on the Plymouth No Place For Hate Committee for the last 11 years, as Chair for the last three; she has also served on the Community Benefits Advisory Committee for Beth Israel Deaconess-Plymouth Hospital.
From immigrant roots, Ms. Heywood has lived in a number of places across the country, with a significant amount of time in South Florida, before settling in Plymouth with her family in 2008. If elected, she will be the first African American citizen of Plymouth to serve on the Select Board.
In a conversation with The Plymouth County Observer, Ms. Heywood remarked that she was always struck by the deep and enduring sense of community which her husband, who grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spoke of when describing his childhood in New England, and she wanted something similar for her own family.
In Plymouth, she found it.
“Fourteen years ago, I chose Plymouth,” Ms. Heywood said.
She and her family have sunk deep roots in the Town, and she was elected to the School Committee in the Spring of 2018, and re-elected to a second term in 2021.
She advocates a systems-based approach, that examines public things not as a series of siloes, isolated and unto themselves, but as an inter-connected, complicated whole. Issues like housing, economic development, public health, land use, safety, and sustainability, are all ultimately connected, she noted.
“We need to ensure that we are taking a systems approach to address the needs of our citizens, our businesses, and our visitors, recognizing that each decision we make affects another and that siloed work only divides and isolates. Everyone who lives here should feel a sense of belonging, whether you have just moved here or have had decades-old familial ties,” said Heywood.
Affordability is an issue that affects all Plymoutheans, noted Ms. Heywood. The Town risks losing two of its most significant resources, she said — youth who have graduated from its schools but cannot afford to live here; and the Town’s elders who are finding galloping costs of living an increasingly difficult burden, she said.
“We have a generation of Plymoutheans who have grown up in this town such as rapid responders, municipal employees, teachers, non-profit personnel, etc. who serve and or work here, and have the desire to live here but are priced out,” said Ms. Heywood.
“Meanwhile, … it [is] very difficult for those on a fixed income to stay,” she noted.
(Candidate Vedna Heywood; credit — Vedna Heywood for Plymouth Select Board.)
Ms. Heywood likewise pointed to the importance of environmental preservation and justice in Plymouth, particularly amid the looming crisis of climate change.
“All people have the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment where they live, work, and play. Plymouth is a unique community that encompasses forest[s], coastal waterways, and urban, rural, and suburban features. As a community, we should seek to protect this uniqueness,” she said.
None of these goals can be achieved without an active, engaged, and well-informed citizenry.
“Local governments exist to provide services to their citizens, but without ongoing participation from the public, it can be challenging to form a clear picture of how to best go about that. When citizens engage, it helps government leaders better identify and understand problems, build relationships within the community and establish greater trust in local government among the public,” said Ms. Heywood.
In her conversation with The Plymouth County Observer, Ms. Heywood cited the words of Lincoln in “The Gettysburg Address” — “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is a phrase which has real meaning, and for which each generation must struggle anew; so it is in Plymouth, she said.
As a Registered Nurse, Ms. Heywood said she brings the perspective of nursing to government, marked by compassion, by a humane pragmatism, and by a determination to treat each individual with fairness and dignity.
It is in significant part as an advocate that Ms. Heywood argued she can best serve the Town on the Select Board.
“I am and remain a consummate advocate, always striving to make sure that we are not only listening to the concerns of the residents, but including their voices in the solution. I will seek to unite, and not further divide. As a member of the Select Board, I will bring my 25 years of proven leadership, and measured, collaborative style. I have a track record for bringing unique perspective and insight to difficult decisions, with the goal of finding the best solutions,” she said, at the League Forum.
“Whatever the issue, I will be guided by the shared values that make Plymouth what it is. We need people who are qualified and committed to serving in a thoughtful manner. I am that person. We have a choice to make…, and I ask you for one of your two votes on May 20th,” said Ms. Heywood.
The Plymouth Town Election is on Saturday, May 20th.