Bristol County commissioner candidates face a basic question: What do you do, anyway?

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A candidate for Bristol County Commissioner, unlike a contender for city council, mayor, state legislature or Congress, is apt to face a basic question: What exactly is a county commissioner?

As three candidates seek two seats on the three-member commission in the Nov. 5 election, the questions are flying.

“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people have no idea what a county commissioner does,” said Gregory C. DeMelo of Taunton, an administrator at Bridgewater State University, now on a fourth run for a commission seat. “It’s the most commonly asked question” he hears from voters. 

DeMelo, an independent candidate who chairs the Taunton School Committee, is competing with two Democrats. Julie Ruggiero, a nurse and real estate broker from Somerset, is making her first run at public office; incumbent Commissioner John R. Mitchell, of Fall River, is seeking a fourth four-year term after being first appointed in 2011. 

One seat is open, as Commissioner Paul Kitchen of Fairhaven, now serving his fourth four-year term, is stepping down.  

Together, the commissioners — Mitchell, Kitchen and John T. Saunders — preside over one of the six Massachusetts county governments left standing. Changes in state law in 1997 allowed counties to reorganize as regional councils. Though all 14 counties still exist as political jurisdictions, eight county governments disbanded, chiefly due to financial struggles, and the state took over many of their functions.

The remaining six county governments are all in eastern Massachusetts: Bristol, Norfolk, Plymouth, Barnstable, and the island counties: Dukes and Nantucket. 

In Bristol County — four cities and 16 towns with a population of about 600,000 — the three commissioner candidates offer a range of experience and proposals to voters trying to hire for two positions. The job is part-time, involves at least two meetings a month, and pays just over $39,000. 

The work includes managing a $34 million budget and about 150 full-time employees, including teachers and staff at the Bristol County Agricultural High School in Dighton. 

The commissioners serve as school trustees, oversee the Registry of Deeds and the County Print Shop, maintain buildings on and off the school campus, run a retirement system, and — at least through the end of 2024 — act on community requests for allocations under the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. 

Mitchell: “It’s a job I enjoy…”

On a rainy October afternoon in Dighton, Mitchell was leaning back in a chair at a blond wood conference table in the new Student Commons at Bristol County Agricultural High School, a pose perhaps suggesting satisfaction in a job well done.

He and Superintendent Derek Costa had just given a tour of the expanded, upgraded campus on the Taunton River. 

Three years ago, the county completed the $104 million project, adding four new buildings and updating two others. The changes added new classroom and farm technology — there’s a $150,000 robotic cow-milker in the new dairy barn — and allowed student enrollment to grow by nearly 50 percent on the 220-acre campus.

The expansion cost was split about in half between the Massachusetts School Building Authority and county taxes. 

With some 640 students, nearly 100 full-time employees, and an annual budget of $19 million, the school represents more than half of county expenses. It’s Bristol County’s main enterprise, and one of only two county-run agricultural high schools in Massachusetts.

The school is a significant reason why Mitchell said he’s seeking a fourth commission term.

From 1996 through 2001, he served as Fall River mayor. He runs a solo general civil law practice in Fall River. In November, he’ll be 71 years old. 

So, why not retire as commissioner?

“It’s a job I enjoy,” Mitchell said. “The school’s become a big part of my life.”

His campaign spending is relatively low. His October campaign finance report showed about $8,300 in expenses this year, and nearly $24,000 cash on hand. 

The school expansion was a departure for a county administration more accustomed to maintaining buildings than constructing them. 

Mitchell served on the building committee as the project unfolded. That meant many hours-long meetings on finances, work order changes, and managing construction complications through the pandemic. 

The new and renovated buildings opened in 2021, as the school phased in higher enrollments. Now there’s a waiting list of more than 200 young people drawn to programs in animal science, agricultural mechanics, tree and floral cultivation, landscape design, and environmental conservation.

A private foundation that Mitchell helped launch provides grants for graduates starting new businesses. Costa said graduates now are split about evenly between those who go on to college and those who go to work as employees or entrepreneurs.

Having worked on the expansion, Mitchell said he now wants to help make sure the school succeeds. 

He said he feels he and other commissioners have done well completing this project in particular, and managing county finances in general. 

A $34 million budget and $111 million in federal money

Finances and projects, usually building maintenance, are the main stuff of the commissioners’ work. They’re now handling a $34 million budget, raised largely in school tuition, county taxes, real estate transaction fees and renting buildings, including four courthouses, to the state.

The school expansion, supported by commissioners, has been one of the boldest initiatives in the county.  

There was pressure to expand enrollment, and for a long-overdue campus upgrade. Some classes were meeting in renovated chicken coops, Costa said. 

When the Bristol County Advisory Board, including representatives of each community, approved the expansion in February 2018, members from New Bedford, Fall River, Westport, Norton and North Attleboro didn’t even show up to vote. The project was approved 13-2, with Seekonk and Freetown voting “No,” according to a published report.

The full-time county staff of seven people, including County Administrator Maria Gomes, and the treasurer’s crew, maintain day-to-day operations. Commission meeting minutes suggest the business of a condominium board — albeit with a big budget. Commissioners approve expenses, post requests for bids on projects, and select contractors. 

The commissioners’ work expanded with the post-pandemic American Rescue Plan Act, which gave the county nearly $111 million. Of that sum, commissioners held $11 million for county projects, and since early 2022 have been allocating the balance to cities and towns as they apply.  

The county’s ARPA coordinator, Jane Gonsalves, said the commissioners have approved more than 200 applications, and they’ve already committed all the ARPA funding to projects, in advance of the federal deadline of Dec. 31. The deadline for spending the money is the end of 2026.

Commissioners are not usually required to take positions on issues that could move voters one way or the other.

Their work is mundane stuff: fixing the roof, installing a new heating system, paying for insurance, making payroll. This can make it difficult for a voter to decide who is best suited for the job. 

So far, candidates’ statements stress their experience and personal qualities, rather than views on public policy. 

Mitchell emphasizes his work so far, and, as incumbents will, the unfinished work that remains. On that list he includes restoring the historic Superior Court building in Taunton.

The two would-be commissioners stress their experience and personal qualities, but also say they’d like to see some changes.

Ruggiero: Two careers and a different perspective 

While many of those responsible for keeping Bristol County government running are women — including the county administrator, head benefits clerk, facilities manager, and accounting director — the county’s publicly elected face has always been relentlessly male. In more than three centuries of county government, one woman — one — has served as a commissioner.

Julie Ruggiero wants to be the second. 

If she succeeds, she would also drop the average age of the commission, which now stands at about 65.

Ruggiero is 30, and has never run for office before, although she grew up in a political family. Her father, former Somerset Police Chief Joseph C. Ferreira, is on the state’s eight-member Governor’s Council (another public body whose function would test the knowledge of all but the most civic-minded voters).

Ruggiero’s been building two careers, one as a real estate broker, one as a nurse for a home health agency.

She figures she’ll manage the commission work as she does everything else: lots of time on the phone and in meetings. 

So far she’s spent the most on the campaign, reporting nearly $27,500 spent this year, and just over $20,000 cash on hand. 

She thinks the commission could do a better job communicating. The county’s website could be easier to use, she said, helping the public better understand what county government does. 

“I think they’re a little behind the times,” she said. 

Indeed, if the agricultural school has caught up with 21st century technology, the county’s website lingers somewhere in the late 1990s. Navigating it is challenging, there’s no posted information on the current budget or the role of the county, and biographies of the three commissioners are not complete.

Ruggiero urges work on that, and a closer look at whether county buildings are being used to best effect. 

She applauds the move to lease the old Fall River Superior Courthouse to the Children’s Museum of Greater Fall River, which opened in 2013, and wonders about other possible lease arrangements. Are there vacant spaces that could be producing revenue? Are buildings being used most efficiently?

Ruggiero said the county could do a better job promoting the agricultural school, and should consider expanding after-school programs to people who are not enrolled as students.

She said she offers her business background in real estate, her compassion as a nurse, communication skills, and a point of view based on very different life experiences.

“Bringing diversity to the board is important,” she said.

DeMelo: Focus on Bristol Aggie, shared solutions

Gregory DeMelo said that when he’s asked what the county commission does, he tends to answer: Not much, but it could do more.

DeMelo, who is director of travel and special projects at Bridgewater State University, chairs the Taunton School Committee, holds a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from UMass Dartmouth. Bristol Aggie, as the school is known, is the main reason he’s running, he said. 

He’s advocating more effort to draw on alumni to raise money to help students and enhance programs. He commends Mitchell for helping to start the foundation, but said the effort has been late, and could be more robust. 

DeMelo also wonders why commissioners don’t play more of a role in matters affecting county residents. 

He mentioned that the county has not been involved in South Coast Rail planning. He wonders why discussions on local hospitals amid Steward Health Care’s financial collapse were going on “without a county commissioner at the table.”

He said commissioners could play more of a role in bringing communities together on regional solutions to common challenges such as housing, homelessness and the cost of living. 

“They all have the same problems,” he said. 

At 60, DeMelo said “I’ve got the energy, I’ve got the time, and I’m not afraid to ask questions.”

He sought the position in 2002, 2004, and 2006, and did not consider this race until Paul Kitchen announced he was not running again. By that time, it was too late to prepare petitions and paperwork to mount a Democratic primary run; hence he’s independent. 

He’s behind the other two candidates in campaign finances, reporting $18,700 spent this year, and nearly $1,800 cash on hand. 

“What I want to get across to voters,” he said, “is vote for the person who has the management experience to deal with a $30 million budget.”

Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.