Meet the Lakeville Select Board candidate Maureen Candito

LAKEVILLE — First-term Select Board member Maureen Candito is vying for reelection to alleviate homeowners’ tax burdens by developing industrial corridors in Lakeville.

She previously worked as the Lakeville town administrator from April 2019 to October 2020, and served on the Finance Committee for five years. Candito has been the Select Board Chair since April 2025. 

“It was always instilled in me from a young age that to really be part of your community, you have to work for your community,” Candito said.

She said the town administrator role was a “dream job” and her prior experience serving on the town Finance Committee, Rent Control Board and various search committees for school superintendents was well put to use through her leadership roles.

Candito said she is lucky she worked her way through various boards and committees, because it taught her how to be a reliable leader — especially when they need support from the Select Board.

Candito said the experience has helped her in “knowing when we should vote on something, and knowing when we should hold it when we don't have enough information on it.”

She organized the March 5 meeting between the Select Board, finance committee, the FreeLake school committee, district leaders and Freetown town officials to discuss the school district's funding and needs, a meeting she said hadn't been held for years. 

“The reason I did that was to make sure that all involved in the very important budget discussion that we are having with the potential for the tax override — and the very big shortfall — to make sure we're all hearing the same message at the same time,” Candito said.

She said it was important for all groups involved in the regional school district to hear the budget discussion first-hand to make “more educated” votes. If reelected, she said she wants to organize similar meetings in the future.

“When we are faced with more daunting tasks like this, I want to have meetings where we have more stakeholder engagement of our boards,” she said.

Candito is proud of working with fellow board members to create a fine for owners of dilapidated commercial property, which Town Meeting is expected to vote on later this year.

“Everyone talks about some of the dilapidated properties, but we don't have a mechanism to fine them right now and try to get them back into good repair,” she said.

In Candito’s view, avoiding overdevelopment and maintaining the town’s rural character are priorities for residents. She said voters have historically voted down big commercial projects, but the town is now feeling the effects. 

“Whether it's right or wrong is not the issue, it's that there's a consequence for it, and the consequence is economic,” Candito said, noting individual homeowners make up almost 89% of the town’s tax base.

Candito said making Lakeville needs a structure to become business friendly. She said focusing on building out industrial corridors with water and sewer lines around routes 18 and 105 is a necessity, since that would lower the startup costs for new businesses.

“I would like us to start working on infrastructure in order to make sure that generations ahead of us do not have the same [financial] problems in Lakeville,” she said, noting the corridors could also limit development sprawl across town.