Bernard Greene Re-elected To Serve As Head Of Select Board

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline Select Board Chair Bernard Greene will continue in his role as chair of the Brookline Select Board. But in a first in recent memory, he will share some of the duties of his role with Select Board member Heather Hamilton.

Greene, the first Black man in Brookline to serve as chair of the board, was re-elected to fill the role Tuesday night. Along side that vote, the officials decided to add a vice-chair position. Raul Fernandez was the only board member to vote against that. Although he did not say why during the meeting, a group of people who have been vocal in the racial justice movement online had called for him to be elected as chair.

Some community members expressed surprise that a new role was created without much discussion. Although the public body gave notice of a "Vote on Select Board Leadership,"after the meeting, Town Meeting Member Mike Offner questioned whether that was enough and filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the office of the Attorney General. In it, Offner accuses the board of not giving enough notice of the Select Board's intent to deliberate and vote on the creation of a new position and insufficient notice of the Select Board's intent to nominate and vote on the election of a Select Board member to that newly created position.

Although the Advisory Committee and the School Committee both have had vice or co-chair roles, this is a first in recent memory for the Select Board.

Greene said newly elected John Van Scoyoc had floated the idea as he was getting up to speed on his new position last month. Hamilton had independently expressed interest in a leadership role.

"She was the only person, to my knowledge, who wanted to do it," Greene told the Patch.

Greene said he sees the role as a way to keep the Select Board running smoothly and to have another voice, one with different perspective, help set the agenda.

Hamilton, who has a full time job in addition to her duties on the Select Board, called the position an experiment after a "bumpy year" for the board. Hamilton said communication has been a major challenge both with each other and with the community.

"I can understand and empathize that there are voices that are not heard, and I can understand that this can seem like a concerted slight against Raul. It's not; It's just that if we learned anything from the past year, it's that relying on one person to be the mouth piece and overall communicator for the board is really unfair to that one person."

Hamilton said in her role she hoped to help move toward a workable solution in which all five voices of the board were reflected in the meeting agendas.

"If we don't want the same people becoming chair and being on Select Board we need to start experimenting," Hamilton said.

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