Matthews Runs for Select Board: “I’m committed to ensuring that every voice is heard” 

Kevin Matthews moved to Sudbury with his wife, Prema, in the early 90s. He and his wife have, “loved living here, educated two children here, and plan on retiring here.” For the past 15 years, Matthews has been on the L-S School Committee. There, he worked hard to assure “the ongoing financial strength of our school in the face of challenging times.” One way he did so was by revising the previous model of, what he believed to be, “unsustainable faculty pay increases.” He has also been involved with installing a Student Resource Officer at L-S and addressing the sports gender disparity within the school by improving the girls’ softball fields to match the quality of the boys’ baseball fields. Matthews’ guiding goals as a selectman are for the town to be fiscally responsible, transparent and accountable in its governance, and highly collaborative in its leadership.

If Matthews is elected, one of his first goals would be to “prioritize sound budgeting and efficient use of taxpayer dollars, ensuring that every investment serves the long-term well-being of our community.” We talked to Matthews recently at the League of Women Voters ‘Meet the Candidates’ event at the Goodnow Library on March 16th. There, he mentioned the Fairbanks Community Center Pool as an example of inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. He said that the town is pouring lots of money into the pool to “bandage it.” Instead, he believes the town should make the decision whether to make a new pool, continue the pool and its maintenance as it is, or close it. He believes that as a town we should be embracing innovative ideas, as a source of better fiscal management solutions. Equally important to Matthews is thorough capital planning, when initiatives are going to cost taxpayers a great amount of money; he believes this spending should not be done as a “reaction” but should be planned and prepared for. 

Matthews strongly believes that the accountability and responsibility of this town’s government is critical to serving the citizens of Sudbury with full transparency and honesty. Matthews is “committed to fostering a government that holds itself accountable, is responsive to the needs of the people, and leads with integrity.” At the debate of the Select Board Candidates hosted by the League of Women Voters, he was asked about whether or not he believes that committee meetings should be accessible to all Sudbury residents. He responded, “I think the voters have a right to hold our committees accountable for the ability to access their meetings and participate in government.” He also spoke on past behaviors of town government and how he would like those actions to change when pertinent to public involvement. “What I see in this town sometimes is a town government that moves faster than the public. I want to make sure that the public is well aware of what we are doing and can actually participate in the decision-making process.” The need for community involvement and consensus building reflects a core principle of Matthews’ platform and if elected, future action on the Select Board.

Looking inward at the relationships between government officials, Matthews sees the need for and benefit of collaborative leadership. He believes “that reasonable minds can differ. In any community, there will always be different viewpoints. That’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity. Good governance isn’t always about agreeing. It’s about listening, finding common ground, and good solutions.”

Outside of his main aspirations, one of the important responsibilities of Select Board members is to “protect and promote a climate of acceptance, equity, inclusion, and belonging.” Matthews shows how much he values this responsibility by openly supporting DEI, particularly around accessibility. “If we engage our full community, we become a better town.” Matthews strongly believes that we need to have more conversations pertaining to diversity and learn how to accept and love others. Without those conversations, he believes there is no solution to the racism and intolerance that goes on within our society. With diversity, he thinks that we need affirmations and not critiques and that only seeing the bad leads to prejudice so we need to be accepting and see the good in others. Matthews has the conviction that there is no law or policy to cure prejudice and these should be conversations that are happening at home or in the classroom. Although, when asked multiple times about his stance on the LGBTQ+ community, Matthews failed to comment. 

With the polarized state of national politics, current political issues are highly divisive, but, like  diversity and inclusion, highly important for many voters when considering a candidate. Matthews, upon inquiry on current political issues, said he was uninterested in bringing in national politics to Sudbury because they can be “depressive” and those issues are “not affected easily,” so they should not be a focus of the town or the Select Board.