VOTERS IN SOMERSET elected a new member to the Select Board on Monday who has expressed interest in resolving a dispute that has stalled the sale of land at Brayton Point to an Italian company interested in building a $300 million factory to produce subsea cable for the offshore wind industry.
Jamison Souza, a real estate executive who formerly served on the School Committee and the Planning Board, defeated incumbent Lorne Lawless by 251 votes – 1,344 to 1093. A third candidate, Paul Healey, received 338 votes.
Souza won every precinct except the fifth, the one closest to Brayton Point. Lawless won that precinct by a margin of 260-175.
Commercial Development Inc., the company that owns Brayton Point, has reached a tentative deal to sell 47 acres to Prysmian Group of Italy for the construction of a cable manufacturing facility. That deal hasn’t closed yet because Commercial Development owes the town nearly $3.5 million in fines it incurred for allowing a scrap metal export business to continue operating at Brayton Point despite a cease-and-desist order by the Zoning Board of Appeals. A state judge later shut the scrap metal business down because of the noise and dust it was causing.
Under town bylaws, permits cannot be awarded to companies with outstanding fines. Commercial Development has refused to pay up and its lawyers have warned town officials that the fine issue could derail the Prysmian deal.
Lawless wanted the Prysmian deal to go through, but he refused to budge on the fine issue, saying all companies big or small have to comply with the town’s bylaws. Souza condemned Commercial Development’s defiance of the cease-and-desist order, but indicated he was eager to find some way to move the Prysmian deal forward.
He has proposed that Commercial Development pay the fines but the money be put in escrow, which would allow the land sale to Prysmian to go forward while town officials negotiate with Commercial Development on the fine issue.
Souza said he wouldn’t capitulate to Commercial Development on the fines, but he gave no assurances that all the money would be collected. He said he wanted to investigate the issue if he was elected. Lawless said he believed Souza would let Commercial Development off the hook.
Commercial Development is a polarizing company in Somerset. The company was originally viewed as a white knight, a company promising to tear down the coal-fired power plant on the 300-acre property and replace it with businesses tied to offshore wind. But a two-year delay in federal approvals of offshore wind farms led Commercial Development to lease land at Brayton Point to a scrap metal export business that alienated neighbors and prompted a takeover of the Select Board by candidates aligned with the neighbors.
With Lawless’s defeat, two of those Select Board members have now been ousted from the board. Only Allen Smith, who was elected in 2021, remains on the board.