Swampscott Candidate’s Forum — April 7, 2026

Section 1: Agenda

The forum was jointly organized by Glenn Kessler, Steve Iaconi, The Daily Item, and Swampscott Tides as a resident-question forum after the candidates learned that no other candidates night with audience-submitted questions would be held. Sophia Harris, Editorial Director of The Daily Item, moderated. Two candidate panels:

School Committee panel 00:00:22

00:01:43 Welcome and framing by Glenn Kessler
00:03:20 Sophia Harris introduces candidates Martha Cesarz and John Giantis
00:05:12 Candidate opening statements
00:08:28 Q1 — Perspective/skills missing from the committee
00:10:53 Q2 — Balancing school reserve funds with municipal budget needs
00:14:07 Q3 — Student concerns about racism at Swampscott High School
00:17:33 Q4 — Cost-control strategies given budget pressure
00:20:34 Q5 — Rebuilding trust after the previous SC chair’s resignation
00:23:33 Closing statements

Recess 00:27:15 – 00:50:00

Select Board panel 00:50:14

00:51:04 Sophia Harris introduces candidates Charlie Patsios, Ted Dooley, Wayne Spritz, and Wayne Godfrey
00:53:44 Candidate opening statements
01:05:18 Q1 — Perspective/skills missing from the Select Board
01:12:03 Q2 — Water quality / public health at King’s Beach
01:18:50 Q3 — Rail Trail completion
01:23:25 Q4 — Preserving the General John Glover farmhouse
01:31:40 Q5 — Handling strong disagreement in the community or on the board
01:38:50 Q6 — Prioritizing among Glover / Vinnin Square / Hadley Hotel / Hawthorne / Veterans Place / Rail Trail / Archer Trails (3-minute responses)
01:50:57 Closing statements

Section 2: Speaking Attendees

The diarization is unreliable in this transcript — the same person is tagged as several different [Speaker N] numbers across the evening, and the same tag is used for different people. I have re-derived identities from self-introduction, content, and the moderator’s “starting with you, X” cues.

Glenn Kessler — co-organizer of the forum (self-identifies 00:02:07). Tagged variously as [Speaker 3] and [Speaker 1] in the opening.
Sophia Harris — Editorial Director, The Daily Item; moderator (self-identifies 00:03:20). Appears as [Speaker 4], [Speaker 2], and [Speaker 1] at different points.
Martha Cesarz (introduced as “Martha Driscoll Caesar,” 00:03:32) — School Committee candidate; longtime educator; running for the unexpired (~2-year) Amy O’Connor SC term (self-identifies at 00:20:48: “I’m running for those two years … because Amy did resign”). Appears as [Speaker 5], [Speaker 3], and [Speaker 1].
John Giantis (transcribed as “John Jantas,” 00:04:07) — School Committee incumbent seeking a third term (self-identifies 00:06:15: “I’ve served on the Swampscott school committee for the past six years”). Appears as [Speaker 3] and [Speaker 1].
Charlie Patsios — Select Board candidate; Swampscott Housing Authority Chair, Board of Assessors, Water/Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee; self-described real estate developer (self-identifies 00:53:45). Appears as [Speaker 3], [Speaker 4], [Speaker 5], and [Speaker 6].
Ted Dooley — Select Board candidate; Planning Board Chair; Harbor & Waterfront Advisory Committee Chair (self-identifies 00:55:07). Appears as [Speaker 4], [Speaker 5], and [Speaker 1].
Wayne Spritz — Select Board candidate; mechanical engineer at Chesterton; Solid Waste Advisory Committee Chair; Essex County rep to MA DCR Stewardship Council (self-identifies 00:58:00). Appears as [Speaker 4], [Speaker 5], [Speaker 1], and [Speaker 3].
Wayne Godfrey — Select Board candidate; ~20-year Swampscott resident; Town Meeting Member; former HRC Board of Directors; works in luxury retail (self-identifies 01:01:53). Appears as [Speaker 3] and [Speaker 5].

A note on the school-committee candidate slate: the political-context snapshot lists a third SC candidate (Katie Arrington); she did not appear at this forum.

Section 3: Meeting Minutes

School Committee panel

Opening statements 00:05:12–00:08:28

Cesarz said she was not a particularly political person; her teaching career began in Swampscott (17 years) and she is running to give back. Framed her candidacy around “supporting the schools” and helping residents understand “how we fund the schools.”
Giantis introduced himself as a six-year incumbent running for a third term. Cited his role in collective bargaining with teachers, tutors, education support professionals, administrators, and custodial staff. Named three challenges: long-term financial stability, retaining staff, supporting evolving student needs.

Q1 — Perspective/skills missing 00:08:28

Cesarz 00:08:43: “If you express opinions that are different from someone else’s, those opinions aren’t respected. I hope that I can bring that back to the school committee.” Framed her contribution as listening and respecting difference of opinion.
Giantis 00:09:32: Pointed to the new superintendent (Calichman, less than a year in) and said the committee has built more measurable goals/evaluations than under the prior superintendent. Cast the new evaluation rigor as the committee’s evolving practice.

Q2 — School reserve funds vs. municipal budget 00:10:53

Giantis 00:11:07: “We watch every dollar scrupulously … able to have funds in reserve to plan ahead, you know, thinking like circuit breaker and for special ed.” Defended reserves as a tool for budget stability.
Cesarz 00:12:56: Admitted “how little I really knew about the school budget” and said she has “a lot of questions about what are reserve funds and how can one department have reserve funds and other departments may not.” Committed to learning and then sharing that information with residents.

Q3 — Racism at Swampscott High School 00:14:07

Cesarz 00:14:26: Said she had worked with the METCO program and referenced a Shore event Black History Month speaker — “I cannot believe I’m sitting here all these years later and I’m listening to a young woman feeling that she was a fish out of water, that she never really connected.” Called it both a school and community issue.
Giantis 00:16:09: Agreed it’s both. Cited the METCO director’s outreach. Referenced an unspecified Lynnfield incident in the press that morning to argue this is a broader regional issue.

Q4 — Cost control without compromising educational quality 00:17:33

Giantis 00:17:55: Called the just-submitted budget “extremely bare bones.” Said the goal is to retain talented teachers/staff and preserve student outcomes; lower-priority items can be moved to a future year.
Cesarz 00:19:34: Framed it as “wants vs. needs.” Said cuts should happen “furthest away from children in the classroom.”

Q5 — Rebuilding trust after the SC chair’s resignation 00:20:34

Cesarz 00:20:48: “I’m running for those two years … because Amy did resign. It was an upsetting time for me to hear about what was going on within the committee and within the community about the school budget … there were things said at different times at different meetings that really were not respectful.”
Giantis 00:21:55: Said his goal on the committee has been to be “a consensus builder and a bridge between different folks.” Emphasized “proactive communication … I’d rather have those conversations before something blows up.” Mentioned working with “Martha and Katie” — Katie likely refers to fellow candidate Katie Arrington.

Closing statements 00:23:33

Giantis 00:23:56: Emphasized “the responsibility to get decisions right matters … between immediate needs and long-term sustainability.”
Cesarz 00:25:12: Read from the published responsibilities of the school committee, then said “Over the last few years, questions about the school budget in expression of differing points of view have not always been welcomed or respected.” Pledged to help residents find budget information.

Select Board panel

Opening statements 00:53:44–01:05:06

Patsios 00:53:45: 35 years in town, Town Meeting Member, recently elected to Board of Assessors, Governor Baker–appointed Housing Authority Chair, Water/Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee. “I believe that we can do better in Swampscott than we currently have.”
Dooley 00:55:07: 7-year resident, Planning Board Chair, Harbor & Waterfront Advisory Committee Chair, Master Plan and Community Preservation Committee. Framed his campaign around economic development: “I helped lead the zoning overhaul in Vinnin Square that has resulted in tens of millions of dollars being invested … those investments are going to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in new growth.” Stated 00:57:02: “We can’t cut anymore. I don’t think we can increase taxes anymore. We need to rely on more economic development.”
Spritz 00:58:00: 26-year Olmsted resident; mechanical engineer at Chesterton; served on Renewable Energy, Solid Waste Advisory (current Chair). Cast himself as evidence- and process-driven: “Facts matter. Details matter. Process matters. Evidence matters.” Cited his role helping secure the Green Communities grant and currently leading the trash contract RFP.
Godfrey 01:01:53: ~20-year resident; HIV/health-care advocacy in the 80s–90s, including work with Daniel Patrick Moynihan; later elected to the Human Rights Campaign Board of Directors; currently in luxury retail. “My skill set is listening to people.”

Q1 — Perspective/skills missing on the Select Board 01:05:18

Godfrey 01:05:25: “We have billion-dollar problems in this town that we can’t tax our way out of.” Promised to pressure state and federal partners on the Chapter 70 school funding formula.
Spritz 01:07:09: Cited his engineering background — “stratifying complex problems into workable solutions” — and named consensus-building as his contribution. Noted “83% of the budget is supplied by property taxes.”
Dooley 01:08:41: Repeated his new-growth thesis. “New growth is how we are going to ensure that we have continuous, sustainable tax revenue growth without having to solely rely on property owners.” Cited the Vinnin Square zoning work as his proof point.
Patsios 01:10:23: Identified profit centers — “Our building commissioner or the building department brings in roughly almost $800,000 of revenue. We’re limiting the amount of hours that they can work.” Called for water/sewer commission to separate that bonding from the town’s. Said three town housing studies in 15 years have all recommended addressing senior housing and the town has not.

Q2 — King’s Beach water quality 01:12:03

Patsios 01:12:15: Argued problem is catch-basin runoff and recommended a VAC truck for DPW (which Lynn and Marblehead have) to replace what he called “a clamshell bucket truck that scoops dirt up like you would imagine like a toy in an arcade from 1977.” Said the UV pilot “ran out of money.”
Dooley 01:13:48: Cited his DCR Stewardship Council role and joint catch-basin data work along Lynn Shore Drive. Critiqued the existing town/Lynn working group: “we’re not hearing and seeing what is being discussed as it is happening … these meetings need to be made public.”
Spritz 01:15:42: Reminded the room he was “one of the few vocal people that really made this issue front and center” several years ago, securing advocacy and funding. Said he was disappointed in the UV pilot: “the engineering study in itself was lacking considerably.”
Godfrey 01:17:09: Shared that his dog got sick on the beach as a puppy. Said the UV device works on stagnant water but there is little data on moving water like Stacey’s Brook. Called for federal/state partnership.

Q3 — Rail Trail completion 01:18:50

Godfrey 01:18:55: Supports in principle; would want to look at financial commitments more closely.
Spritz 01:19:43: Supports in concept; flagged that the public is learning “we may not have enough money to be able to complete from an eminent domain standpoint.” “Perfect cannot be the enemy of good.”
Dooley 01:21:09: Yes, completing it. Strongest framing of the night against eminent domain: “We can find a way to finish this rail trail without … frankly, piss off everybody who lives in the neighborhood by taking eminent domain from their property … This is not rocket science.”
Patsios 01:22:48: “Whenever a vote is taken at town meeting … the outcome of that vote is where I stand afterwards. I will not be an obstructionist to a policy that the town’s voted on.” Suggested CPA funds as a financing route.

Q4 — General Glover farmhouse 01:23:25

Patsios 01:24:27: “John Glover’s home should be saved. It’s a national treasure.” Said CPA funds could be used.
Dooley 01:25:48: Disclosed the matter is “a pending application before the Planning Board right now” and answered carefully on that basis. Supports preservation but said the long-term financial framework is unsettled — “what is the financial impact of that going to be.” Said the Athens family fundraising group has “hundreds of thousands of dollars they have to raise in too few of months.” Suggested CPA, bonding against CPA, rezoning, or business use as options worth discussing.
Patsios added 15-second remark 01:27:50: Credited “the Athenas family” for paying taxes and insurance on the property over the years.
Spritz 01:28:37: Supports preservation. Echoed Dooley that long-term plan is needed and noted “the town is not a good landlord in general.”
Godfrey 01:30:03: Supports preservation. Suggested approaching This Old House to help with the roof, and floated 01:31:27: “if the golf course paid its fair share we could actually divert those funds directly to the Glover.”

Q5 — Decision-making amid strong disagreement 01:31:40

Godfrey 01:31:59: “Over the past few years, we have been no stranger to strong disagreements on the select board as well as within town … I come to this without ego.”
Spritz 01:33:40: Active listening; understanding the root of why questions are asked. Cited rail-trail and Hawthorne debates as legitimate.
Dooley 01:35:09: “Sometimes you watch some meetings and you’re like, people don’t have respect for each other.” Rejected the binary labels (“you’re for the school budget or you’re anti-school … you’re for the rail trail or you’re anti-rail trail”).
Patsios 01:37:00: Argued disagreements often arise from “incomplete information being provided.” Made a personal commitment to make his home available for assessor inspection: “I will participate in everything that is required.”

Q6 — Prioritizing multiple major projects (3-minute responses) 01:38:50

Patsios 01:39:42: Spoke as a real estate developer who routinely chooses among competing projects. Argued the Hawthorne is the urgent one — “$400,000 in easy math that we are not receiving while we hold a property that we don’t know what we’re going to do with.” Called for replacing the 10-year master plan with a 25-year horizon ratcheted down to 10.
Dooley 01:42:51: Said town staff prioritization properly belongs to the Town Administrator; the SB’s job is to set public policy. Strongest call on the Hawthorne — “We need to make a decision on that parcel of land. And it needs to happen immediately.” Proposed an RFI: “We didn’t take that route … there’s no currency in hope.”
Spritz 01:46:31: Noted the list omits the ~$100M middle school and ~$15M DPW project. Said the Hawthorne needs trust rebuilt after “we bought this bill of land for $7 million” and a $37M library proposal “came and landed in our pockets and everyone’s throwing our heads up and saying, where did this come from?” Endorsed the RFI route.
Godfrey 01:49:20: “We currently have the most expensive municipal parking lot in the history of municipal parking lots.” Backed prioritizing the Hawthorne with broad public consensus-building.

Closing statements 01:50:57

Godfrey 01:51:10: “I bring no ego to this.” Concern that residents are being taxed out of their homes.
Spritz 01:52:41: “I offer a different type of expertise at the executive level. It’s evidence driven and it’s not prone to groupthink … I have no conflicts, I have no other political future goals.”
Dooley 01:54:59: Reaffirmed support for beach bonfires (a town meeting item this year). Directed listeners to dooleynumber4.swampscott.com.
Patsios 01:57:07: “If we prioritize, we don’t take topics individually in a vacuum.” Explained his vote against the UV pilot: “The question was, where are you going to site the UV system once you’ve proven that it works? … And I said, why would I test drive a car I’m not going to buy?” Directed listeners to charlieforchange.org (transcribed “charlieforchains”).

Section 4: Executive Summary

The forum existed because no one else was running one. Glenn Kessler explicitly framed it as a stop-gap so that residents — not just other candidates — could pose questions. That a candidates night had to be improvised by a private citizen and two newspapers is itself a signal about civic infrastructure in a year with two open Select Board seats and a vacant School Committee seat.

Both School Committee candidates oblique-criticized the climate that drove Amy O’Connor from the chair. Without naming names, both Cesarz and Giantis made “respect for difference of opinion” the through-line of their evening. Cesarz, in particular, used her closing statement to read from the published SC responsibilities and contrast them with recent practice: “Over the last few years, questions about the school budget in expression of differing points of view have not always been welcomed or respected.” This frames the SC seat as a corrective seat, but does so in a way that aligns with how the Tides press coverage of O’Connor’s resignation framed the climate (per the political context snapshot). Giantis’s emphasis on “proactive communication” is the same theme from a different angle. For voters trying to read where each candidate stands on the budget-skeptic vs. budget-defender axis, neither candidate offered a clear directional signal — both presented as listeners and bridge-builders.

All four Select Board candidates converged on three points that matter for live town issues:

The Hawthorne is the urgent priority. All four explicitly singled it out in Q6 over a list that included a ~$100M middle school project. Dooley, Spritz, and Patsios all endorsed some form of RFI/market-test of what could go there. Patsios framed the carrying cost at roughly $400K/year (debt service plus foregone real estate tax). This convergence matters: whoever wins those two seats will inherit a board that has been deliberating the Hawthorne for years, and the new members are aligned that the deliberation phase needs to end.
The town cannot cut its way out and may not be able to tax its way out. Dooley made commercial new growth the centerpiece of his pitch. Patsios named the building department, water/sewer commission separation, and senior housing as profit/relief levers. Spritz spoke from process and infrastructure rigor. Godfrey looked outward to the state — pressure on the Chapter 70 formula and “billion-dollar problems we can’t tax our way out of.” The unstated subtext for voters is the political context’s “override possible within 1-2 years” trajectory. None of the four candidates committed to (or rejected) an override in this forum.
The Rail Trail will be completed in some form, but not via maximalist eminent domain. Dooley was sharpest on this — explicitly saying the project should not “piss off everybody who lives in the neighborhood by taking eminent domain.” Spritz invoked “perfect cannot be the enemy of good.” Patsios said he will not be an obstructionist to a town-voted policy. Godfrey conditionally supports. For Rail Trail abutters worried about the eminent-domain question, this slate is friendlier than the current board has been.

Glover House: live but unsettled. All four candidates supported preservation. Dooley disclosed the pending Planning Board application and was correspondingly cautious. The clearest practical contribution to the discussion came from Dooley and Spritz, who both noted that without a sustainable long-term operating model — museum, business, mixed use — preservation just defers the question. Patsios’s contribution was to publicly thank the Athens family for keeping the building alive long enough to be saveable, and Godfrey’s This Old House suggestion is the kind of creative-but-unvetted idea voters can read as either resourceful or unserious.

King’s Beach: the UV pilot is widely viewed by these candidates as a misfire. Three of the four — Patsios, Spritz, and Godfrey — criticized either the engineering or the financial structure of the UV pilot. Patsios disclosed his vote against funding it on grounds that no siting plan existed. Dooley called for the inter-municipal working group to meet in public. For residents tracking what kind of accountability frame a post-election board will bring to the Lynn-side relationship and to DCR, this is a meaningful signal.

Section 5: Analysis

The most notable feature of the evening was what didn’t happen: hostility. All four SB candidates voluntarily commented on this. Dooley 01:35:09: “This campaign season doesn’t seem to have this dichotomy, which I’m very thankful for … you’re for the school budget or you’re anti-school.” Patsios deployed the consensus frame repeatedly. Spritz and Godfrey both led with “no ego” and “listening.” None of the candidates attacked any other candidate, current or former officeholder, by name. None lit into the schools-vs-town fissure that has dominated meetings throughout 2025–2026. Even the obliquely critical mentions of the previous chair’s resignation (Cesarz, Giantis) were structured as “what we should do better” rather than “here is who was wrong.”

In a year defined by the Grishman hit-and-run, the Fletcher investigation, O’Connor’s resignation, and an FY27 budget fight that has multiple board members openly raising the override word, the bipartisan civility of this forum is itself a finding. Whether it survives election night is a different question — but the candidates have publicly committed to a posture, and that commitment is now part of the record voters will hold them to.

Where the SB candidates actually differ:

Patsios is running an operator’s campaign. His evidence is procedural — he knew which truck the DPW lacks, he can recite the exact dollar drag the Hawthorne is putting on the town, he ran the no-vote on the UV pilot on a defensible siting question, and he framed every fiscal lever (water/sewer commission, building department hours, senior housing) as something a hands-on member would already be pulling. The risk for him in voter perception is that he’s running as a developer in a town with a recent fight about a developer (Hawthorne), and he is on the assessors and housing authority simultaneously — there is a “wears too many hats” framing available to opponents that didn’t get tested in this format.
Dooley is running the strongest economic-development pitch and the strongest executive-discipline pitch (“discussion is a means to a decision, not delay” 01:43:56). His Vinnin Square zoning track record is a concrete artifact of policy-into-execution. His weakness for voters concerned about land use is that he is currently a sitting Planning Board chair and explicitly invoked that constraint to limit his Glover answer; his connection to the development-friendly side of the town’s politics is durable.
Spritz is running on technical rigor and process. The most distinctive moment of the night was his quiet aside that he had been “one of the few vocal people” pushing King’s Beach onto the agenda years ago — a real claim with corroboration in the public record. The political-context snapshot also flags him as the chair currently leading the trash RFP, which means he comes in with operational fluency on the issue most likely to drive an override. For voters whose theory of the town’s troubles is “the engineering studies have been sloppy,” he is the cleanest fit.
Godfrey is the candidate most reliant on intangibles — temperament, listening, advocacy. His state-formula reframe is rhetorically forceful but operationally distant (a Select Board member cannot rewrite Chapter 70). His This Old House and golf-course-fair-share suggestions on Glover read as imaginative rather than rigorous. He has the least visible track record on the technical files the next board will face. The question for him is whether voters value a different perspective at the table or expect the depth that the other three candidates clearly bring.

Inflection-point read. This forum is not itself an inflection point — it’s a campaign event in advance of one (the April 28 election, per the political-context snapshot). But the convergence of all four candidates around three positions — Hawthorne decision now, Rail Trail without maximalist eminent domain, skepticism of the UV pilot — meaningfully constrains what the post-election board can plausibly do on those files. If any two of these four win seats, the new board majority will inherit those public commitments. That makes this evening more consequential than the standard forum format suggests.

On the SC race: Cesarz and Giantis are competing for different seats per the political context, but both presented as the “respect-the-skeptics” candidate. Neither offered the explicitly pro-school-spending posture O’Connor became known for, and neither offered an explicitly fiscal-skeptic posture either. This signals that the next SC will at minimum be a more procedurally cautious body than its recent predecessors — which, in the context of a brewing override fight and an active MSBA Statement of Interest for the middle school, is itself a significant directional shift. Whether it produces better governance or simply a slower committee is the question voters can’t answer from this forum alone.

2026-04-07: Candidates Forum