Town Edition
Dukes County
Gosnold, Massachusetts
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Every third Monday in May the voters of Gosnold gather on Cuttyhunk Island and agree to keep funding a school that has no students in it, because state law says that if one family with one child steps off the ferry tomorrow, the town has to be ready to teach that child. Gosnold is the smallest town in Massachusetts, about seventy year round residents spread across the Elizabeth Islands off the southwest tip of Cape Cod, and the same small group of voters owns the water mains under the island road, the road on top of them, and the one room schoolhouse kept ready for a student who has not arrived yet. There is no town manager here. The three neighbors you elect to the Selectboard run the town themselves, and this guide shows you how to take your seat in the room where they answer to you.
Gosnold at a Glance
Sources: Massachusetts DESE, district profile · US Census Bureau (data.census.gov) · Town of Gosnold.
- County: Dukes. Gosnold is the Elizabeth Islands off the southwest tip of Cape Cod, and Cuttyhunk is the one inhabited village. It is the least populous town in Massachusetts, and it was set off from Chilmark as its own town in 1864.
- Government: open Town Meeting, with an elected three-member Selectboard that serves as the town’s executive. Win Sanford chairs the board.
- Schools: Cuttyhunk Elementary is the town’s own one-school district, kept staffed and ready even in years with no enrolled students. Margaret Frieswyk is Superintendent, and older or off-island students are taught on the mainland.
How Gosnold’s Government Works
Gosnold runs on an open Town Meeting, which means there are no elected Town Meeting members at all: every registered voter in Gosnold is a member, and any of them can walk in, speak, and vote on the budget. Voters also elect a three-member Selectboard and the School Committee that oversees the town’s elementary school. The Selectboard serves as the town’s executive: it sets policy, approves the bills, appoints residents to town boards and offices, and carries the town’s business between Town Meetings, working out of an office staffed by an administrative assistant rather than through an appointed administrator. So the money is voted by whoever shows up, and the direction and the daily work both belong to the board the voters elect.
Town Meeting
The legislative body, and it is not a committee. Every registered voter in Gosnold is a member. Town Meeting adopts the annual budget, passes town bylaws, and approves major spending. This is direct democracy in its literal sense.
Selectboard
Three members elected town-wide. They set policy, sign the warrants that decide what reaches Town Meeting, appoint residents to many town boards, and serve as the town’s executive.
The Selectboard’s Office
The board’s own office at 28 Tower Hill Road on Cuttyhunk carries the town’s daily paperwork, staffed by an administrative assistant who works for the elected members.
School Committee
Elected by the town’s voters. It sets policy for Cuttyhunk Elementary, the town’s own single-school district, and works with the Superintendent the town shares its schooling arrangements with.
- Residents elect the three members of the Selectboard, the School Committee, and a ballot of working town offices.
- The Selectboard runs the town between meetings: it sets policy, decides what goes on the Town Meeting warrant, and carries out what Town Meeting votes.
- Town Meeting votes the budget and the bylaws, and every registered voter present can vote.
- You take part: pre-register at 16. A pre-registrant is on the list but is not allowed to vote yet. Once you turn 18 that designation comes off on its own and you are a registered voter in Gosnold, which makes you a member of Town Meeting with a vote on the floor. If you never pre-registered, register with the Town Clerk, and do it well ahead: the rolls close at 5 p.m. on the tenth day before any election or Town Meeting.
Civic Calendar
- Selectboard: meets on a regular schedule through the year, and each agenda is posted in advance on the town website.
- Town Meeting: the open Annual Town Meeting is held on the third Monday in May, and any resident registered to vote in the town may speak and vote on the budget.
- Town elections: Gosnold holds an annual town election each spring, when voters fill the Selectboard, School Committee, and the town’s other elected offices.
- State and federal elections: even-numbered years. The clerk posts the current primary and election dates, and offers early voting and vote by mail.
Explore the Gosnold Edition
- Selectboard’s OfficeThe board that runs the town
- SelectboardYour three board members
- School CommitteeSuperintendent & committee
- Town DepartmentsWho does what at Town Hall
- Boards & CommissionsWhere residents serve
- LegislatorsYour voice in Boston & D.C.
- Gosnold HistoryFrom 1602 to the smallest town in the state
- DemographicsWho lives in Gosnold
- Non-ProfitsCommunity organizations
- Student DataGosnold schools by the numbers
Your County Officials
Two of the people with the most direct power over your life are elected, and neither one sits on Beacon Hill. The district attorney decides who gets charged with a crime, and what they get charged with. The sheriff runs the county jail. The sheriff is elected by the voters of Dukes County. The district attorney is elected by the voters of a prosecution district, and Massachusetts draws eleven of those across its fourteen counties, so a district attorney’s territory does not always follow a county line. Both appear on your ballot in Gosnold. Now you know what to look for.
Massachusetts elects fourteen sheriffs, one for each county, and eleven district attorneys, one for each prosecution district. The job is the same everywhere: the charging decisions, the jail. Look up any town in the state and see who holds these two offices there.
Your First Civic Action in Gosnold
You do not have to wait until you can vote to be heard in your own town. Here is how to take a real concern to the people who decide.
- Pick the right body. Town policy, roads, and licenses go to the Selectboard. Schools go to the School Committee. The budget and bylaws are voted by Town Meeting.
- Find the meeting. The Selectboard meets on a regular schedule, and each agenda is posted in advance on the town website.
- Know your members. All three Selectboard members are elected town-wide, so every one of them answers to you.
- Speak. Meetings are open to the public and residents may address the board. The town posts a Request to be on Agenda form.
- Or send it in. Roads, water, and public works questions go to the town office, which routes them to the department that owns the repair.
- Town offices: 28 Tower Hill Road, Cuttyhunk Island, MA 02713. The Selectboard’s office answers at 508-990-7408, and Administrative Assistant Lisa Wright staffs it.
- Town Clerk & agendas: Town Clerk Michelle Carvalho, 508-990-7408, with meeting agendas and minutes posted at gosnold-ma.gov.
- Public schools: Cuttyhunk Elementary School, the town’s own district, with Superintendent Margaret Frieswyk at 508-997-5408.
Local government works best when residents show up. Find your Selectboard, speak at a meeting on a Monday evening, or simply register to vote and take your seat at Town Meeting.