Meet Select Board candidate Mark Swan

Mark Swan, who is running for Select Board for the first time this spring, described himself as an “America first and Wareham first candidate.”

Swan has never held a position in town government. He ran for Republican State Committee in 2024 but was not elected.

“I’m motivated to run because I have skills, I have problem solving skills, I have public relations skills, I'm good with people and I think I could make a difference in town government that way,” Swan said.

He said immigration is a motivating factor for him and pointed to what he called an “invasion of illegal aliens,” into Wareham last year.

“It’s not really a problem now,” Swan said of immigrants coming to Wareham. “But [Governor] Maura Healey has declared Massachusetts as a sanctuary state but I don’t think Wareham should be a sanctuary town, I don’t think that would be good for Wareham,” he said.

Swan, who is 64-years-old, moved to Wareham with his wife in 2004. He said he’s “semi-retired” but still works as a handy-man and contractor.

“I love Wareham, I love Onset, I feel like I'm living in a Norman Rockwell painting sometimes, it's so beautiful,” he said.

Massachusetts legislators have pushed for large-scale solar development across the state. In Wareham that often means clearing trees and constructing solar arrays on large swathes of land. 

When it comes to solar development Swan said he’s “glad the town has pushed back,” but is not against the idea of solar as a whole — saying if it saved money on electric bills he would support development.

“I know that solar panels use rare earth minerals and eventually those are going to need to go and that causes massive toxic waste,” he said.

He also raised concern about fires in solar battery energy storage systems.

As for housing, Swan didn’t have a strong opinion on accessory dwelling units, the small additional residences built on properties zoned single-family, commonly known as ADUs or in-law apartments.

“ADUs sound to me like a good idea. I don’t like the idea of it being taken advantage of so I'd really do a lot of research on that,” he said.

However, he did share strong feelings about affordable housing construction projects.

“It does trouble me to see these large apartment units or condo units that go up,” he said. “It's increasing the population vastly and the sewer and water system might not be able to support it.”

He said he would like to see more attention to repairing things like sidewalks, street lights and landscaping around Wareham.

“The abandoned buildings, something has to happen, some of them have been abandoned for quite awhile. Things like that really disturb me,” he said.

To address the issues he identified Swan said he’d “focus on the economy,” something he hopes would also reduce homelessness in Wareham. Additionally, he described himself as “fiscally conservative,” and said reducing taxes would “always be on his mind.” 

“I just feel like money's not going to the right place so I would just try and bring some common sense and efficiency to the Wareham town government,” he said.

Swan also highlighted school spending as an area he would “investigate.”

“I would go in with eyes wide open,” he said.