Select Board Member Mary Ellen Fletcher has lived in Swampscott for nearly 40 years and has worn many hats in the community.

Fletcher previously served as vice chair of the Finance Committee. She has also served as a board member of the Association of Town Finance Committees, a Town Meeting Member, liaison to the Capital Improvements Committee, chair of the Recreation Department, and member of the Harbor and Waterfront Committee.

“I really didn’t understand why things were happening in town. I couldn’t understand why we didn’t’ have a capital maintenance budget, what we were really doing as far as looking at that and why things were happening,” Fletcher said. “I was really quite disappointed in how they were managing money, but that was just my opinion. I have facts on it, so I just started attending all of the meetings.”

When Michael McClung became town moderator, he asked Fletcher to join the Finance Committee. He appointed her, and she remained on the committee for about seven years.

Fletcher moved to the area after the 1988 Olympics. She was the manager of the U.S. luge team and was then offered a regional sales representative position for Trek Bicycle. 

“A friend of a friend said that they knew somebody that needed a third roommate in a house in Swampscott,” Fletcher said. “I landed in Swampscott on September 23 at 25 Puritan Road, and I didn’t leave Puritan Road. I ended up a few years later buying a house two houses down.” 

Today, Fletcher helps run her family’s business, Michael Moran’s Natural Pet Food. She also is a dog breeder; she even donated one dog to the Swampscott fire station.

She has served on the Select Board since 2022 and was chair last year.

“I ran because there were so many people that were quitting working at Town Hall,” Fletcher said. “They were very, very unhappy. There were a lot of things going on in the town that just weren’t right, so I said ‘okay, I’ll just do it myself.’”

A lot has changed in the past three years, too.

“The progress of the town is good. We’ve made good progress,” Fletcher said. “I think not having a town administrator for this amount of time has slowed us down, but I think it’s in the best interest of everyone…We’re in the process of having a new town administrator, and I think having a new director of finance will be very good for us. We’re going to have a lot of new. We have a new superintendent. That’s really exciting.”

Fletcher did acknowledge that it’s not always easy being on the Select Board.

“You have people that take shots at you,” Fletcher said. “You can sit there and you can make things up and say it and attack someone’s character. So why would you want to put yourself in that position?”

Regarding recent heated debates, Fletcher said she doesn’t like “being negative.”

“I like being respectful to Select Board members,” Fletcher said. “I have more experience in minority votes than I do in the majority votes. It’s democracy. You get things going. I think for the most part, we’re getting a lot done.”

But she said her proudest accomplishment on the Select Board so far is her integrity. 

‘I have been able to sit at that board meeting and always be respectful,” Fletcher said. “I think what’s really important is to be respectful and to listen to people, and I think I’m very responsive to residents. When they call, I always call back right away. I try to deal with things.”

Fletcher said she’s glad the town is moving “in the right direction” with the Pine Street project, saying that the affordable housing will be a “great thing” for the town.

“We’re going to be able to have affordable housing and have a neighborhood that’s not going to be fighting it,” Fletcher said. “Being able to compromise there with the neighborhood, that’s really good.”

Another potentially contentious but proud moment for her was voting to allocate the town’s remaining $2.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to ten projects, including sewage source elimination at Fisherman’s Beach. About $1.8 million of the money was approved for the sewer infrastructure by a 3-2 margin. 

“By changing that vote around and getting the money right into the sewers, by using the ARPA money, we got that project done in a year,” Fletcher said. “Whereas we would have had to wait on the State Revolving Fund (SRF) loans, and that would have been more of a tax on your sewer.”

Overall, Fletcher also noted that she’s not happy with the town’s finances, especially with “how tight the budget is.”

“It is what it is, but I also think that hindsight is 20-20. I think using the interest off of our ARPA loans, using that as operating was a mistake,” Fletcher said. “I just wish that the director of finance and the town administrator in the past had looked at that a little bit differently. That’s their job. That’s what they get paid for, but I think that everybody did a great job – the Finance Committee and the Select Board – did a really great job holding tight onto this budget. I don’t have the same feeling going forward, so that really troubles me.”

That’s why Fletcher said that the Hawthorne reuse project is so important. She has attended advisory committee meetings and noted that the group looks to be “pretty clear on what they’re going to recommend.”

“If we do buy the second parking lot from the church, then that will be a different design, and there would be different opportunities for that,” Fletcher said. “I’m in favor of that for the long term. You don’t get a chance to buy property like that. I think by doing that, we could have a good amount of revenue, and we would have open space too.”

Fletcher said she’d like residents to know that she’s approachable and “happy to discuss anything.”

“I love the town. It’s so different from one end to the other,” Fletcher said. “I’d like to see people getting involved.”