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A Broader Lens

Representation for all of Tisbury residents...

Increased Representation: Expanding the Board can better reflect and represent our changing and diversifying population.
Diverse Expertise: Additional members can bring new ideas, professional competencies, life experiences, and perspectives to address complex challenges. Members can focus on matters coming before the board in their area of expertise, creating a natural “leader”on particular projects.
Improved Productivity: Due to Open Meeting Laws (OML), a five-member Board can enhance the ability to work between meetings and advance discussions on important issues. No organization can effectively tackle critical and complex issues if its executives can’t talk with one another outside of a biweekly meeting. With only three members on the board, any discussion between two members forms a quorum and must be held in an open meeting to ensure transparency and comply with Open Meeting Law.
Reduced Workload: More members can decrease the workload of individual members and make serving on the Select Board more attractive.
Stronger Deliberation & Decision-Making: A larger board allows for more diverse perspectives, encourages open debate, and reduces the risk of a “go along to get along” culture—leading to more thoughtful and effective governance.

Tisbury Election Process...

Representation for all of Tisbury residents...

Uncontested elections are common in Tisbury, leading to concerns about whether positions can be filled with qualified candidates.
Broader Lens: Tisbury’s election experience mirrors that of many similar towns that have successfully moved to five-member Select Boards without difficulty attracting qualified candidates.
Broader Lens: While the law sets clear expectations for Open Meeting Law compliance, a three-member board increases the likelihood that any conversation between two members could inadvertently constitute a quorum—raising legitimate concerns about transparency. Expanding to five members makes it easier to avoid accidental violations, allowing for more collaborative discussion without triggering OML restrictions.
One benefit of a three-member board is the ease of rotating the Chair position, ensuring equal leadership opportunities over time.
Broader Lens: Not every board member may want to serve as chair. In fact, with five members it's often easier to rotate leadership fairly. Towns like Oak Bluffs, which have successfully moved to five-member Select Boards, have adopted clear protocols for rotation. What truly matters is having an intentional process—not the size of the board.

The Tisbury Master Plan...

Representation for all of Tisbury residents...

The Tisbury Master Plan...

Its all in the Plan...In the Tisbury Master Plan...

The 2024 Tisbury Master Plan, adopted in April 2024, is a 20-month, consultant-led initiative aimed at guiding the town's development for the next 10–15 years. It focuses on seven key goals: One of which is enhancing town governance.

p.197 Tisbury Masterplan LINK

"Local Government Trends State law requires small towns like Tisbury to have Open Town Meeting as the legislative body. The varieties found in town government today involve the locus of administrative and financial management authority. In 2022, 90 percent of the towns in Massachusetts have some sort of professional manager or administrator, and 60 percent use the title “Town Administrator,” like Tisbury. However, at least 20 towns have moved to a Select Board/Town Manager arrangement in the last 15 years, largely responding to the increasing complexity of running local government. The composition of Select Boards has changed over time, too, with growth in the number of five-member boards.

Today, about the same number of towns has a three-member board or a five-member board. To some extent, the movement toward five-member boards has happened concurrently with elevating the responsibilities and authority of an executive secretary to town administrator or town administrator to a town manager, but not always. Table 12.4 presents a sample of Massachusetts towns with a year round population like Tisbury’s".

Broader Lens: Other elected boards —like the School Committee and Planning Board—each have five members, while appointed committees range from five to nine. These groups have not reported attendance issues. In fact, larger boards often promote shared responsibility, sustained engagement, and make it easier to reach quorum and hold meetings.

Next Steps....

Tisbury Risk Management for the future...

The Tisbury Master Plan...

Next Steps for Tisbury to Transition to a Five-Member Select Board

Attend Town Meeting on April 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM and vote to support the expansion.

Please vote YES on the five-member board.

If passed by a simple majority at Town Meeting this April, the Select Board will file for a Special Act of the Massachusetts legislature with Representative Thomas Moakley https://malegislature.gov/Legislators/Profile/TWM1and State Senator Julian Cyr https://malegislature.gov/Legislators/Profile/JAC0/District
By the end of 2026, we anticipate approval of the Special Act by the State Legislature as there is no precedent to deny.
In Winter 2027 (Jan/Feb), Tisbury to hold a special election (including mail-in voting options) with a ballot question to confirm resident support for the approved Special Act to expand our Select Board to five.
In April/May 2027, Tisbury to hold elections to fill three Select Board seats, officially expanding the board to five members.

Where to go from here...

Tisbury Risk Management for the future...

In 2026 and the near future, the Town of Tisbury is facing overwhelming decisions:

concerning major infrastructure needs,
building projects, and
limited resources.
The Town needs to continue moving towards a more progressive and cohesive governmental structure that is accountable and responsible to all constituents. With the support of your elected and appointed boards.
Reorganizing the structure of the Board of Selectmen from three members to five members is one way to add additional strength to the efforts to improve management and communication.
A 5-member board would lead to more continuity in leadership, broader base representation of Tisbury residents, and more carefully considered decisions.

We know this is controversial, with strong opinions on both sides of the discussion. That’s good and will lead to a healthy debate.

Tisbury Risk Management for the future...

It can be deduced that there is a genuine need for Tisbury to adopt as a culture, and persistently execute, risk and opportunity management. I believe it's the Select Board who needs to orchestrate this valuable service. Successful risk management can never be done with just one person. And with just two or three, the risk management job – which requires constant diligent discipline – becomes too overwhelming and can too easily get derailed with political agendas. With five, we would have a healthy diversity of opinions regarding probabilities, consequence severities, and mitigation options. Moreover, we would have built-in facilitation to ensure that the members are well coordinated, mutually respected, and highly principled.
If a select person is absent from a meeting or must recuse themselves from participation in a specific matter or meeting due to a potential conflict of interest or bias. It narrows the input of the decision. A 5-member board allows for a broader input of information and aids in the decision-making process. It also eases the possible violation of open meeting law and improves better decision making.