Where were they then?

info
July 01, 2026•10 min read

Where were they then?

Where the Five Current Selectboard Members Were in January 2021 and in April–May 2022

Question: Where were Amy MacNab, Michael McGee, Cynthia "Cindy" Ladd Fiorini, Brian E. Glennon II, and Fernando Guitart — the current Selectboard — in January 2021, when Project 612006 was initiated at MassDOT, and again when the project went onto the TIP with funding?

Executive summary

  • In January 2021, only one of the five current members held any elected town office: Amy MacNab, who was Clerk of the three-member Board of Selectmen. She had won a Special Town Election on September 1, 2020 for the unexpired term of the late/resigned Selectman Shawn Dahlen.

  • Michael McGee and Fernando Guitart were both defeated candidates in that same September 1, 2020 special election, four months before January 2021. In January 2021 McGee held no town office; Guitart was a Finance Committee member.

  • Cindy Ladd Fiorini and Brian Glennon II were both elected members of the Planning Board in January 2021 — Ladd Fiorini a member (and the Planning Board's designee to the Community Preservation Committee, Open Space & Recreation, and the Affordable Housing Trust), Glennon the Vice Chair.

  • By the TIP window (April 14 and May 17, 2022), four of the five were on the board, which had just reorganized: Fernando Guitart, Chair; Cindy Ladd Fiorini, Vice Chair; Michael McGee, Clerk; Amy MacNab; Theodore J. Flynn. Brian Glennon was still Planning Board Vice Chair — he did not join the Selectboard until March 25, 2023.

  • New finding: the Board of Selectmen held open-session meetings on January 21, January 25, and January 28, 2021 — the exact dates of the Cutler–MassDOT funding meeting, the MassDOT District 5 project initiation, and the MassDOT Project Review Committee approval. None of the open-session minutes for January 4 through February 22, 2021 mention the Powder Point Bridge, MassDOT, or the TIP.

Correction to earlier project research

The project file Duxbury-Officials-Roles-Dec-2020-to-Mar-2021 (dated August 12, 2026) records for Amy MacNab: "No town office found for Dec 2020 – ~late March 2021," with confidence "High (absence from FY2020 officials list)." That conclusion is wrong and should be struck. The FY2020 annual town report only covers through June 30, 2020, and MacNab was elected on September 1, 2020 — after that report closed. Primary sources now show she was a sitting Selectman, and the board's Clerk, throughout January 2021, and she is recorded present at the January 4, 11, 21, 25 and 28, 2021 meetings. Any filing or letter built on the earlier "no office" conclusion needs to be revised.

The two anchor windows

Window 1 — Project initiation, January 2021

  • Jan 21, 2021 — Rep. Cutler–MassDOT funding meeting (Shane Sousa, D5 Bridge Engineer)

  • Jan 25, 2021 — MassDOT District 5 project initiation (the PNF/PIF, still unlocated)

  • Jan 28, 2021 — MassDOT Project Review Committee approval

Window 2 — TIP with funding, spring 2022

  • April 14, 2022 — MassDOT statewide draft programming filed Project 612006 under "Section 2A / State Prioritized Reliability Projects," $157,257,710, STBG-BR-Off, District 5, FFY2027 (Boston Region MPO draft FFY 2023–27 statewide highway programming)

  • May 17, 2022 — Boston Region MPO endorsed the FFY 2023–2027 TIP at $157,257,710

Who was where

Board of Selectmen as actually constituted in January 2021 (three members): Theodore J. Flynn, Chair; David J. Madigan, Vice Chair; Amy M. MacNab, Clerk. Attendance confirmed in the approved open-session minutes of January 4, 11, 21, 25 and 28, 2021 (Madigan absent Jan 28).

Person-by-person, with sources

Amy M. MacNab

  • Elected at the Special Town Election, September 1, 2020, "Selectman – Unexpired Term 1½ years": MacNab 1,839; McGee 1,520; Guitart 1,403; McCormack 286 (write-in 22, blanks 105; total 5,175) — FY2021 Annual Town Report, p. 72 (FY2021 report).

  • FY2021 narrative: "Due to the illness and resignation of Selectman Shawn Dahlen, a Special Town Election was held on September 1, 2020 to fill his unexpired term… Amy MacNab was voted in as the new member of the Board of Selectmen." Dahlen resigned June 18, 2020 (FY2020 report).

  • Listed as "Amy M. MacNab, Clerk" on the FY2021 elected Selectmen roster; recorded present at the Jan 4, 11, 21, 25 and 28, 2021 open-session meetings.

  • Became Chair at the board's reorganization after the March 27, 2021 election; re-elected unopposed March 26, 2022 with 1,356 votes (2022 official results); handed the gavel to Guitart on March 28, 2022.

  • Her own account is consistent: "in September of 2020 I was elected to the board of selectmen" (candidate video).

Fernando Guitart

  • January 2021: Finance Committee member (FY2021 roster; term listed 2023, annotated "resigned 3/21"), and a member of the Envision Duxbury Land Use & Zoning working group. Defeated candidate for Selectman on September 1, 2020 (1,403 votes).

  • Elected Selectman March 27, 2021 (3-year term, "vote for 2"): Guitart 1,192, Ladd Fiorini 1,041 (2021 official results). Named Vice Chair at the post-election reorganization.

  • Elected Chair on March 28, 2022 — so he was Chair on both April 14 and May 17, 2022. Confirmed as Chair in the approved minutes of April 4, April 11, April 25, May 16 and May 23, 2022, in the FY2022 report signature block, and in press coverage that June (WATD, June 2022).

Cynthia "Cindy" Ladd Fiorini

  • January 2021: elected Planning Board member (served 2008–2021; Clerk 2010–2019; term to 2023), and the Planning Board's designee to the Community Preservation Committee (term to 2022), the Open Space & Recreation Committee, and the Affordable Housing Trust (FY2021 report).

  • Resigned the Planning Board in March 2021; Kristin Rappe was appointed in June 2021 to the vacancy.

  • Elected Selectman March 27, 2021 (1,041 votes); Clerk of the board 2021–22; elected Vice Chair March 28, 2022 — Vice Chair on both April 14 and May 17, 2022.

Michael P. McGee

  • January 2021: no town office. He had lost the September 1, 2020 special election (1,520 votes).

  • Elected Selectman March 27, 2021 to the 2-year seat (1,246 votes); elected Clerk March 28, 2022 — Clerk on both April 14 and May 17, 2022. Re-elected March 25, 2023 (1,181 votes).

Brian E. Glennon, II

  • January 2021 and April–May 2022: Planning Board Vice Chair (elected member, term to 2023), and the Planning Board's representative on the Open Space Committee (term to 2022). Re-elected Vice Chair by the Planning Board in July 2020 and again in April 2021; still listed as Planning Board Vice Chair in the FY2022 report (July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022).

  • He held no Selectboard seat in either window. He was elected to the Selectboard on March 25, 2023 (1,123 votes, "vote for 2," with McGee at 1,181) (2023 official results), replacing Theodore Flynn.

The March 28, 2022 reorganization, verbatim

From the approved open-session minutes of March 28, 2022 (present: MacNab, Chair; Guitart, Vice Chair; Ladd Fiorini, Clerk; Flynn; McGee):

"Ms. MacNab stated the first order of business is the Re-organization of the Board… Ms. MacNab began by nominating Mr. Guitart for Chair of the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Guitart accepted. Seconded by Mr. Flynn. Roll Call: Ms. MacNab-aye; Ms. Ladd Fiorini-aye; Mr. Flynn-aye; and Mr. McGee-aye."

Vice Chair was contested 3–2 (Ladd Fiorini over McGee), and Guitart briefly tried to hand the chair to McGee — "Mr. Guitart stated that he wanted Mr. McGee to serve as Chair for his last year" — before the board settled 3–2 on Guitart as Chair and elected McGee as Clerk unanimously.

Result, effective March 28, 2022 and in place for the entire TIP window:

  • Fernando Guitart — Chair

  • Cynthia Ladd Fiorini — Vice Chair

  • Michael McGee — Clerk

  • Amy MacNab — member

  • Theodore J. Flynn — member

(Separately, the "Board of Selectmen" became the "Selectboard" when the Duxbury Selectboard Bill was signed into law; the Town was notified April 28, 2022, and the Town's own page dates the change to 4/14/22.)

New finding: the January 2021 minutes are silent on the bridge

Duxbury's Selectmen minutes are posted by year and are retrievable. The approved open-session minutes for January 4, January 11, January 21, January 25, January 28, February 1, February 8, February 22 and March 1, 2021 contain no reference to the Powder Point Bridge, to MassDOT, to the Project Review Committee, or to the TIP — including the January 21, January 25 and January 28, 2021 meetings, which fall on the same days as the Cutler–MassDOT funding meeting, the District 5 project initiation, and the PRC approval.

The nearest item in the window is unrelated: on March 28, 2022 the Town Manager reported on the Powder Point Road coastal-resiliency road-elevation project and MVP grant funding — the road, not the bridge.

This is consistent with everything else in the record: within the December 2020 – March 2021 window, the only Duxbury figures who appear in the bridge correspondence are Planning Director Valerie Massard and Town Manager René J. Read, with DPW Director Peter Buttkus earlier (January 2020). None of the five current Selectboard members appears in the January 2021 bridge record at all.

Caveats, stated plainly: these minutes are scanned images read by optical character recognition, so a single mention could in principle be missed; minutes are summaries rather than transcripts; and executive-session minutes are maintained separately and are not in this set. The clean way to close the point is a records request for (a) any executive-session minutes for those dates and (b) the meeting packets/agendas, which sometimes carry correspondence the minutes do not summarize.

Practical takeaways

  1. MacNab is the only current member who was in office when the project was initiated. If the question is "who was in a position to be told," it is MacNab (as a sitting Selectman), plus Flynn and Madigan, who are no longer on the board — and staff.

  2. Guitart and McGee were candidates who had just lost the September 2020 special election; Ladd Fiorini and Glennon were on the Planning Board, the body whose Planning Director was corresponding with MassDOT in February 2021. Ladd Fiorini also sat on the Community Preservation Committee at the time, which matters for the M.G.L. c.44B second-door funding argument.

  3. Glennon was never in either window. Any note to him about how the project got started should be framed as history he inherited, not decisions he made.

  4. Four of the five were on the board in the TIP window, with Guitart in the chair, so the April 14 / May 17, 2022 programming of $157.2 million happened on this board's watch — a fair, non-accusatory way to ask what the board was told and when.

Sources

Research note for the project

Two reusable discoveries from this work:

  1. Minutes are reachable by year at https://www.town.duxbury.ma.us/node/22/minutes/<year>, back to 2017. Each listing entry redirects to a PDF under /sites/g/files/vyhlif10506/f/minutes/. This closes an earlier gap in which the Dec 2020 – Mar 2021 Selectmen minutes were recorded as not retrievable.

  2. The minutes PDFs from this era are scanned images with no text layer — they must be read with optical character recognition, and the file-naming is inconsistent (selectmens, selectmans, selectboards, minnutes).

Back to Blog

We are in the process of obtaining our 501(c)(3) status from the Internal Revenue Service. IRS Pub 557 indicates that the effective date of our exemption will be retroactive to our date of incorporation, which is February 10, 2026. We expect that donations will be tax exempt.

Copyright © 2026 Save Powder Point Bridge LLC | All rights reserved.