Candidate profile: Jefferson dove into financial research before Select Board bid

Part of a series on candidates for Grafton Select Board in the May 17 Town Election.

Andy Jefferson doesn’t have all the answers. 

He admits it. And he revels in it.

As a Finance Committee member, he was thrown into the deep end during his first year when Chair Mark Haddad asked him to get into the school budget. Jefferson found it humbling, challenging, and fascinating and threw himself into researching and asking questions.

“I didn’t realize how much money you need to make an impact on things,” he said. “Really, you need hundreds of thousands of dollars to make any kind of impact. There are no easy answers. No easy cuts. No change is going to happen overnight. ”

Jefferson is seeking one of the two Select Board seats up for grabs in the May 17 Town Election. He works in marketing and public relations and has longstanding ties to Grafton. He has two children, one in the Grafton Public Schools.

“I try to think of it as a skill — I try to come up with potential solutions after I’ve studied the matter,” Jefferson said.

Naturally, he sees the need for Grafton to get some of those “hundreds of thousands of dollars” through through attracting new business — not an easy feat when it’s competing with towns on the Route 9 corridor.

But there is potential — Jefferson likes the work the town put in to develop a transit-oriented village at 8 Pine Street. The town acquired the last undeveloped parcel from the former Grafton State Hospital from the state and sought out developers to create a combination of housing and commercial space.

Other candidates running for the two open seats on the Select Board are Ann Marie Foley, Richard Whitney, and Carl Palmer.