RTM District VI Selects Experience

Publish date: 2024-09-08

The Representative Town Meeting’s newest member is actually one of its most familiar faces. In a special session to fill the seat vacated by former representative John Whitehead in February, members from District VI voted unanimously Monday night to appoint former RTM member S. Lloyd Plehaty. He will take office effective immediately, but will have to compete for his seat in a general election this November.

Plehaty was expected to have competition for the seat from Anthony Kwedar, but Kwedar removed his name from contention shortly before Monday’s meeting. He told District VI chair Diane Conologue that he wanted more time to decide, and would wait until November’s election to try for the seat if he still wanted it.

Still, the district’s caucus members were happy with their decision to select Plehaty because of his prior experience on town's Structure and Administration standing committee. Whitehead was chair of the committee when he retired, and Plehaty could be inserted into a position there this summer.

Whitehead did not give a specific reason for his retirement. When Plehaty asked the other members of District VI why he decided to leave, they said they could not give an answer.

Plehaty was an RTM member from the sixth district for 12 years before he lost his seat in the 2009 election. “There were more candidates than seats,” he explained. He said his chief concern upon rejoining the RTM is the ongoing attempt to revise the town charter. He is especially against two hot-button issues: reducing the size of the RTM, and giving the body the ability to override the Board of Finance’s cuts to the budget. Overall, “there’s a list of about three dozen things” Plehaty said he would like to change.

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