WORTHINGTON — Deb Rocque skirted past Walter Fritz in Saturday’s town elections by 27 votes for a one-year spot on the Select Board.
Rocque received 176 votes to Fritz’s 149. In total, 31% of the town’s electorate voted, with 328 ballots cast out of the town’s 1,036 voters. Incumbents on the ballot were all reelected.
On Tuesday morning at her swearing in ceremony in Town Hall conducted by Town Clerk Katrin Kaminsky, Rocque said, “My ambition is to help balance the budget of the town and help Worthington be a vibrant and happy town for folks to live.”
Her election brings the Select Board back to a three-member panel after Steve Smith stepped down earlier this year, with one year remaining to his tenure. She also steps into the position at a busy time for the board, which has been meeting frequently with the Finance Committee to finalize a budget to be voted on in annual Town Meeting on June 7.
“I’ve listened to all of the meetings and everything else, but there’s not a lot of fat to trim,” she said about the town’s budget.
“And so therein lies the difficulty, right? It’s like you’re looking at trimming, trimming, trimming positions and programs that are really needed in the hilltowns,” she said. “So even a budget shortfall of $100,000 or $200,000 is significant in terms of positions, salaries, and services in this town.”
Town officials right now exploring an override of between $100,000 and $300,000 for fiscal year 2026, and Rocque acknowledged the unpopularity at that prospect.
“Obviously there is the not particularly popular idea of an override, taxes, cutting the budget, and figuring out what services or what positions we’d like to cut,” she said. “But I’m more interested in trying to figure out ways to attract more money or businesses to the town.”
She is fully aware that it’s too late to reverse an override request for next fiscal year by attracting businesses, but going forward she intends to brainstorm ways to draw people to the town, while taking into account a balance between rural idealism and the need to attract town revenue.
“I mean, you come here and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is great. I want to go mountain biking, I want to go hiking,’” she said. “And then you go, ‘Oh, there’s no place to eat, there’s no place to stay.’ And that’s troubling, because the same is true in Huntington — there’s so few things that we have to offer.”
A five-year resident, Rocque retired in January from an almost 25-year career with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS). Rocque received her doctorate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and became assistant director of FWS in 2019 after serving as deputy regional director in the Northeast Region for almost a decade.
Now, she co-owns Justamere Tree Farm, alongside her wife, who is a public defender, and a third owner.
She touts a career that had her running organizations, balancing budgets, and applying for grants — in addition to her lifetime passion and involvement in conservation work, which is exemplified by her having identified all the birds on the town’s pond.
She grew up in both Storrs, Connecticut, and Stonington, Maine, and her work with FWS had brought her to the Pioneer Valley — a career that has taken her from Alaska to the service’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.
