Meet Middleboro Select Board candidate Tracie Craig-McGee

MIDDLEBORO — Lifelong Middleboro resident Tracie Craig-McGee said she has been in training for 25 years to serve on the Select Board.

Craig-McGee retired from her 25-year post as the executive assistant to the Select Board and Town Administrator in Lakeville last year, and she has been elected to the Middleboro Planning Board for the past seven years.

Now retired, she aims to use her Lakeville experience in overseeing roughly 50 Town Meetings, 16 budget cycles and her insider municipal knowledge to ensure smart development and lower the cost of living in town.

“I had always said that when I retired, I was going to run because I know how to do the job,” she said. 

She graduated from Middleboro High School and received a scholarship for the Kinyon-Campbell Business School where she attended one term but dropped out to begin working full-time.

She said she’s worked long-stints at three jobs: at a commercial and industrial realtor in Brockton, a civil engineering environmental science company in Bridgewater and her long-standing position in Lakeville, which she retired from in August.

After working with Lakeville town officials, she said she’s “been there, done that” in being on-call for her municipal job at all times. During her tenure, she became a certified Procurement Official where she wrote contracts, assigned bids and coordinated how town departments received needed vehicles, equipment and more.

Craig-McGee was part of a three-person team who started the push to repair “dangerous” conditions at Peirce Playground, which was renovated around 2024. After learning how Lakeville used American Rescue Plan Act funds to repair a playground, she brought the idea to Middleboro town officials and Middleboro received about $500,000 to make the repairs.

“It was a grassroots effort at first, and then town officials took it over and did a great job,” she said.

Craig-McGee currently serves on the Community Preservation Committee as the planning board designee, and previously worked on feasibility studies and building committees for the middle school and Department of Public Works building.

As a planning board member, one of her proudest achievements was co-writing a site plan review bylaw that was put into action last year. The bylaw allows board members detailed oversight for mainly commercial developments, and it deals with minor parts development proposals — such as replacing windows — more administratively to quicken development processes.  

If elected, she said she won’t be afraid to say “no.” She said she was the only member on the planning board to vote against the Taco Bell located on West Grove Street, due to her concerns of the added traffic impacts to an already congested intersection.

Balancing the character of town with new developments is something she feels prepared for, and will approach developments with the same “down-the-road” thinking she uses on the planning board. 

“When development comes in, I’m looking for something that checks all the boxes,” she said, noting the stresses to schools and EMS services that residential developments can create with more residents in town.

Craig-McGee said she wants to see the next town manager have a strong background in municipal finances and can build good rapport with town staff — similar to former Town Manager James McGrail.

She said she sees a lack of respect between current Select Board members, and has concerns of how board members treat residents. Along with her municipal training, she said she wants to bring compassion and kindness to the board.

“You don't always have to agree, but there's a way to disagree civilly and respectfully, and I really would like to try to bring that to the board and to residents,” she said.