Select Board, School Committee fill Barron vacancy

BY WILLIAM J. DOWD

For the next five months, resident Thomas Mathers will serve as an interim member of the Marblehead School Committee.

The Marblehead School Committee and the Select Board picked Mathers in a joint meeting on Jan. 23, interviewing a half-dozen candidates in Abbot Hall over a two-hour period. Mathers will serve out the remaining months of Emily Barron’s three-year term on the School Committee.

In the second round of voting, Alison Taylor and Erin Noonan switched their votes from candidate Don Dewitt to Mathers, giving him the five votes he needed to secure the seat. The pair joined Select Board members Alexa Singer and Moses Grader and School Committee Chair Sarah Fox in giving Mathers the appointment. Paul Baker (three votes) came in second after tying with Mathers in the first voting round. In both rounds of voting, Select Board member Jim Nye cast a lone vote for Raymond A. Hansen.

Mathers will serve until the municipal election in June, but he said he will not pull nomination papers in March. Aside from paying property taxes, Mathers said he has no strings attached to the Marblehead Public Schools.

“My kids are 27 and 25. They did not go to school in Marblehead, so I have no institutional bias,” he told officials. “I don’t come in here with any fixed view on any member of the administration.”

From 2013 to 2016, Mathers served as an elected official on the School Committee of the Masconomet Regional School System, sitting on its finance and negotiating committees. He also served as a Butler University board of trustee for an unspecified time.

“From my perspective, I really enjoyed the policy subcommittee when I served,” he said. “I think that you can have a tremendous amount of input and impact on long-term kind of policy formation within the school system.”

He firmly stated that he takes seriously the separation of powers between the School Committee and the superintendent.

“Understanding your role as a school committee member is really important. You’re here to hire and fire the superintendent and evaluate their performance,” he said. “You’re here to approve, develop and formulate a budget. And you’re here to really provide governance on policy formation and implementation.” He said he’s learned that micromanaging doesn’t bring out the best in him or other people.

“I’m not a good micromanager. I’ve tried in my career to micromanage, [and it] always backfires,” he said. “But I think if you trust in people, you hire the right people. You empower those people and get out of the way. Typically, it works out well. That’s my experience.”

Fox and Singer said Mathers prior School Committee experience sold them.

“I think qualifications is important and understanding the intricacies that are involved with the town versus the schools and what that looks like,” said Singer, explaining her rationale before she cast her Mathers vote. “The importance of this short-term appointment, leading to then a situation where the decision is then led back to the voters.”

Mathers’ resume notes he is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Allievex Corporation. He has experience in the biotechnology, biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

The Marblehead resident graduated from West Point and is a former captain in the U.S. Army. Mathers flew Apache attack helicopters in the 1991 Gulf War, earning an Air Medal.

BY LEIGH BLANDER

When an emergency mental health or substance abuse call comes into Marblehead Police, Gina Rabbitt will head to the scene with officers to try to de-escalate the situation and connect people to the services they need.

“Someone might be having the worst day of their life and be in full crisis mode,” said Rabbitt, a mental health clinician who started at MPD about six months ago. “I talk to that person and try to calm them down if they’re feeling anxious. I try to resolve the matter at the scene as compared to arresting the individual or transporting them to the emergency room.”

Rabbitt is embedded with Marblehead police three days a week, thanks to a state-funded program called Jail Diversion. Dozens of Massachusetts police departments, including Salem’s, now have Jail Diversion programs.

“Our goal is to divert people with psychiatric and substance abuse issues from the criminal justice system to the mental health system,” Chief Dennis King told the Marblehead Current. King received a threeyear, $250,000 grant from the

“I had to do a double take,” she told the Marblehead Current outside her home. “I then saw a scarf.”

She did not want to use her cell phone because it was too loud with the state Department of Mental Health to fund Rabbitt’s role and implement crisis intervention training for all Marblehead officers.

Rabbitt, who grew up in Lynnfield, received master’s degrees in mental health counseling and criminal justice. She goes on calls with officers two to five times a week. When she arrives on scene, she starts by introducing herself.

“I identify who I am and why I’m there and what my role is,” Rabbit said. “People have been receptive.”

After de-escalating the scene, Rabbitt will work with people to find them the right resources, including Community Behavioral Health Centers in Lynn and water and wind, she explained.

“I ran into the house and called 911,” Tomlinson said. “My dog was still on the beach and wouldn’t go up with me.”

The Current obtained a photo of a skeleton — decomposed but largely intact — on the beach, but

Danvers, outpatient counseling, a partial hospitalization program or a substance abuse disorder recovery center.

“The need for mental health treatment has grown exponentially,” Rabbitt told the Current. “The more resources we have for people, the better.”

If someone is unsafe and needs the ER, Rabbitt can facilitate that. But given the long wait times and shortage of psychiatric beds, she tries to connect people to other services first.

If a mental health or substance abuse case happens on days she is not working, Rabbitt follows up with the people involved to make sure they are getting the services they need.

King said his officers has chosen not to publish it out of respect for the deceased.

Additional police officers arrived on the scene around 5:15 p.m. They began snapping photos and gathering evidence.

At around 5:30 p.m., two vehicles from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner arrived on scene.

In the evening, King reported the body appeared to have been in the water for “a significant amount of time.”

Detectives from the Peabody and Salem police departments, as well as troopers from the Essex County District Attorney’s appreciate having Rabbitt respond to calls and look forward to getting crisis intervention training.

“They want the tools,” King said. “Officers on the scene are trying to help. They are compassionate, and they want to help. We always say, ‘Treat people like they’re your mother.’”

‘An extremely important tool’ Psychiatrist and member of the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force Dr. Melissa Kaplowitch calls the Jail Diversion program an “extremely important tool.”

“We know there is an overrepresentation of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system. This program creates alternative pathways to get people treatment rather than jail,” she said.

King believes funding will stay in place to keep a Jail Diversion clinician on staff after the initial three years. He has also received money to hire a peer support specialist. Peer support specialists are specially trained to work with people who have substance use disorders.That position will be one day a week and should be filled in February.

“Marblehead is committed to helping,” King said, pointing to his two new positions and the Mental Health Task Force. “The town is taking care of its citizens. It’s refreshing.”

Office State Police Detective Unit, continue to investigate the case, according to the Saturday statement.