Skipper Manter Fits Many Roles in West Tisbury
By IAN FEIN
Second in a series of profiles leading up to the West Tisbury town
election.
Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter spent most of his childhood watching his
family serve the town of West Tisbury.
His grandfather was a selectman for 45 years, his father and
grandfather both wore the badge as chief of police, and his mother
served as the town accountant for 35 years.
So it comes as little surprise that Mr. Manter - who goes by
Skipper, a nickname he received only days after his birth - also
chose a life of public service to the town.
"It's in my genes," Mr. Manter said in an
interview last week. "I'm enthusiastic about serving.
I've dedicated close to 100 per cent of my life to the town
- professionally and otherwise."
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/03/10/content/skipper_manter_1_sm.jpg" Mr. Manter joined the West Tisbury police department some 30 years
ago, at the age of 18. He has spent almost 20 years on the town finance
committee, served as town moderator for 12 years and is nearing a decade
on the Up-Island Regional School Committee.
And in the upcoming annual town election in April, he is running
against challenger James Alley for a second, three-year term as
selectman.
"If people want me to serve somewhere, I'm more than
willing to jump up and take it," Mr. Manter said during a rare
morning not spent at a town board meeting or patrolling the streets as a
police sergeant. "I just rally to the cause whenever I see there
is an opening.
"It brings me a warm and wonderful feeling, to be able to
serve people in the different situations that come up," Mr. Manter
said. "It gives you a great feeling of accomplishment when someone
comes up to you, either the next day or the next summer, and thanks you
for the work that you've done."
Because of his different seats, Mr. Manter often attends meetings
where more than one - and as many as three - of his
different roles are represented. Some of his fellow finance and school
committee members have noted that it is not always clear which hat he is
wearing during those discussions.
But Mr. Manter said he does not see any conflict.
"It's not confusing to me, even though it might be to
others," he said. "I always make judgments in the best
interest of the town, regardless of which committee I am on."
Mr. Manter plans to run for reelection on the regional school
committee this fall but said he does not intend to seek another term on
the finance committee next spring. He said that after almost 18 years,
it is time to let others have their turn sifting through the
town's finances.
He is opposed to the proposed town bylaw that would limit the number
of elected offices any one person could hold, and he questioned the
motives behind it. He noted that he is currently the only town official
whom the bylaw would affect, and that, aside from selectman, he ran
uncontested for his other town offices.
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/03/10/content/skipper_manter_2_sm.jpg" "What's the need for it? I'm only there because
people have chosen to put me there. If they didn't think I could
handle the different positions, they wouldn't have voted me
in," Mr. Manter said. "I think it's important in the
democratic process for the electorate to have as many choices as
possible. To legislate the choices on the ballot, I don't think is
appropriate."
All of his jobs are equally important, Mr. Manter said, but he is
willing to fight to keep his selectman seat because he wants to be a
leader in the community.
"I enjoy the job very much and think I'm doing an
adequate job," Mr. Manter said. "I told voters three years
ago that I wouldn't let them down, and I don't think that I
have."
Mr. Manter listed improvements to the town cemetery and roads as two
of his prouder accomplishments from the last three years. He
acknowledged that this past year has been a difficult time in town
government, but said he thinks the worst is in the past.
While he has heard some concerns about the overall atmosphere of the
town hall, Mr. Manter does not believe there is anything particularly
askew in West Tisbury. "I haven't experienced it," he
said. "If you're looking for information that is public,
people will be helpful. If you're looking for something
you're not entitled to, they might not be."
Regardless of the current situation, Mr. Manter said he would like
to see town employees receive once-a-year training on customer
relations. "Even the best town hall in the world could realize
some benefit from sharpening our people skills," he said.
The fate of the West Tisbury town hall building remains unclear, Mr.
Manter said, but a new direction for the project could emerge after the
April town meeting, where a number of different warrant articles will
address the issue.
"Where the end result is, I don't know. But we will
continue to look and try to find a project that people will
support," Mr. Manter said. "To me it's obviously a
very important and sentimental project. I hope people realize that the
town hall is the center of any New England community."
Mr. Manter supported the $5.5 million price tag for the failed town
hall renovation project last fall, a political stance that proved
unpopular with many voters as well as his fellow finance committee
members. He offered to step aside after six years on the town hall
building committee, but the finance committee opted to keep him as its
representative.
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/03/10/content/skipper_manter_3_sm.jpg" As a longtime finance committee member, Mr. Manter has earned a
reputation as a fiscal hawk. (Before signing the $300,000 architectural
contract for the now-defunct town hall project, he convinced the firm to
take over its own postage costs.) But during his tenure as selectman,
the overall town budget has increased at a rate of more than 10 per cent
a year.
He said that his new hat has given him a different perspective on
town spending.
"There are concerns out there. I've heard it recently,
and it does not fall on deaf ears. But trying to balance it all together
- what the town needs, and what people can afford - is a
challenge," Mr. Manter said. "There is nothing individually
out of whack with any one of the budgets."
West Tisbury currently has the highest average residential property
tax bill of any town on the Cape and Islands. Mr. Manter suggested that
the large amount of conservation land in town, which shifts a greater
percentage of the tax burden onto residential homeowners, is partly
responsible for the rising tax bills.
Though he steered clear of speculating on the outcome of the Graham
tax case against town assessors, Mr. Manter said that the selectmen must
prepare to address the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board decision, which
is expected later this year.
Mr. Manter has publicly defended the assessors on more than one
occasion, and has asked townspeople not to pass judgment on the case. He
expressed support for the assessors' $12,000 in travel expenses
incurred last summer, and led efforts to pay the $225,000 in legal bills
from the case, which a large majority of voters supported in January
after rejecting payment last November.
As a private landowner, Mr. Manter has his own pending legal matters
against a town board.
He filed a lawsuit against the West Tisbury conservation commission
in Dukes County Superior Court last fall, and also appealed at least two
commission decisions to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental
Protection. Neither matter has been resolved, and Mr. Manter has refused
to speak about the issue.
The land use dispute, which dates back more than two years,
challenges the environmental impacts of unpermitted activities Mr.
Manter does at his small family farm on Muddy Cove in Tisbury Great
Pond.
SRC="http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2006/03/10/content/skipper_manter_4_sm.jpg" Mr. Manter said last week that when he is not serving the town, he
can almost always be found tending to his farm. He has never lived
anywhere other than West Tisbury and never plans to leave.
Unless, that is, he is off to Walt Disney World.
As anyone who knows Mr. Manter can attest, the Orlando, Fla., resort
is his favorite vacation spot. He first went in the late 1970s and now
travels there at least once a year. And even when here he wears the
affinity plainly. At Christmas he donned a Santa hat with Mickey ears;
he keeps a Mickey Mouse doll and other Disney pictures on his desk at
the police station, and he almost always wears a Disney-themed American
flag pin - which he described as a symbol of his patriotism.
"Like the patriotic pins that a lot of politicians wear since
Sept. 11, this is my same expression of support for my country,"
Mr. Manter said. "It just happens to have a little Mickey on
it."
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