Needham Select Board Candidates Eye April Election

March 16, 2026
• With less than a month before Election Day, three candidates running for Select Board share their motivation behind running for office and their perspectives on ongoing issues and topics.

Needham voters have some decisions to make. Races for Select Board, School Committee and Planning Board are all contested this election cycle.

For Select Board, first-term member Cathy Dowd is seeking reelection against challengers Rich Adduci and Bill Dermody. There are two open seats for a three-year term, as board member Marianne Cooley is not running for an additional term.

In interviews, each of the three candidates discussed communication with the public, the Envision Needham Center project and their approach to the board if elected. Election Day is Tuesday, April 14.

Dowd, who taught U.S. history and government at Needham High School, said a successful teacher is one that explains difficult concepts but also listens to students. She views her role on the board in similar way.

“You want to be able to make your points effectively, but you really also have to listen,” Dowd said, “and so communication is key.”

Recent projects have garnered scrutiny from residents and business owners — examples include the MBTA Communities Act referendum and “Not Our Vision” signs in storefronts referencing Envision.

Through public hearings and other engagement, Dowd said the town has sought feedback and made “great strides” on the communication front. Community input allows town leadership to react and change course if need be, Dowd said.

Adduci offered a different perspective. In meeting residents, he said a common sentiment is that “there’s room for improvement on how the Select Board is functioning.” He said he would like to see more collaboration among board members and a willingness to listen.

“I feel like there’s an opportunity here to expand the voices on the Select Board. I feel like maybe not everybody feels like their voices are being heard,” Adduci said. “It almost feels like people have to shout a little bit to get the attention of town government, and it shouldn’t be that way.”

Adduci, who runs his own cybersecurity and technology advisory services business, said he sees Select Board members as community representatives, meaning he would set his ideas aside in favor of other residents’ if elected.

Dermody put it this way: “God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much.”

“People get frustrated when they don’t know what’s going on. They want to hear what’s going on and be able to express their opinion somewhere,” Dermody said. “Even with the whole MBTA Communities Act, it turned out Town Meeting and the leaders didn’t do what the town as a whole wanted.”

Dermody, a Realtor and Town Meeting member, said soliciting community involvement is a key tenet of his campaign. He suggested designating a point person for each of the town’s 10 precincts to communicate with residents and engaging the Charles River Regional Chamber to reach the business community.

The town is now contending with Envision, a Public Works-led project to improve infrastructure along Great Plain Avenue, which carries with it the possibility to reduce the four existing lanes.

After a public hearing on the project, Dermody said it became clear that “everyone wants to keep it the way it is.” Traffic back ups, coupled with snow and emergency vehicles, would leave the center of town in a standstill and side streets congested, he said.

With that in mind, Dermody said he hopes to prioritize business owners by focusing on parking and ensuring they are successful.

“In the past, people said that downtown looks terrible because of all the empty stores,” he said. “Well, if people can’t park, you’re going to end up with more empty stores.”

The Envision plan, at its start, “had really great goals,” Dowd said: pedestrian safety, accessibility, stormwater drainage, among others. However, the plan should consider business voices and community consensus because “Needham center really belongs to everyone.”

Based on data and community survey input, Dowd said she would prefer the four-lane plan of the three current options. As a former management consultant, Dowd said she takes a data-driven approach to decision making, which she views is helpful “especially when people don’t agree.”

“If you’re looking at information or data together, I think you can be a lot more effective, A, in coming up with a good solution, because it’s based on reality and based on data,” she said, “but, B, also coming to some form of a consensus, because you’ve got some kind of common starting place.”

Adduci said businesses are “the lifeblood of the downtown.” He said he would consider dropping Envision altogether, seeing as its objectives may not be clear or objective at this point, though he acknowledged the work done by the subcommittee.

He sees Envision as a parallel to the MBTA Communities Act referendum in that regard. Adduci said the referendum vote was “a testament to our democracy” and a desire for less extreme change. As a former partner at Accenture, he said he was known as “a fixer” whose job was to bring projects “back onto the straight and narrow.”

“I want to hear everyone,” he said.

Adduci moved to Needham in 2023 from Westborough, and he’s originally from Chicago. He said he was drawn to Needham because of its vibrancy and longtime residents.

As a change candidate, and a self-identified independent on his website, he said he is open to change and willing to address “third rail issues.”

“My motivation is that, as I looked at what was happening in town, I just felt like there was room for more voice on Select Board,” Adduci said, “and I think [we need to] find a way to hear the community more and maybe have more collaborative discourse and less contentious discourse.”

Dermody, a third-generation Needhamite, is involved with the Needham Exchange Club and Memorial Park Trustees. He previously ran for state representative in 2024.

In his bid for Select Board, he said he feels ready to dive into hyperlocal issues and anchor the board with his ties to the town in Cooley’s absence.

“I think I am a good collaborator. I can get people to work together, to come out with the best things for the town of Needham, and I think the institutional knowledge that I have about the town really helps that,” Dermody said. “I’m a problem solver, too.”

Dowd has lived in Needham since 1997 and has been involved with the Needham League of Women Voters. She’s also a third-year law student at Northeastern School of Law.

Dowd said she admires the Town Meeting form of government and believes residents can make a tangible impact on their local community. She said she wanted to run for reelection to continue her work.

“I think on the local level, you can make a difference,” Dowd said. “I’m devoted to Needham. I care.”

The Charles River Regional Chamber will host a virtual debate between the three candidates this Tuesday at 10 a.m. The Needham League of Women Voters candidates forum, which also includes candidates for School Committee and Planning Board, is Monday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. at Broadmeadow School and on Zoom.

Bill Dermody is vice chair of the Needham Community Television Development Corporation, which oversees Needham Local and the Needham Channel. He was not involved in the writing or editing of this story.