Madam Moderator
Sarah Alger’s 30th year at the town meeting podium
Written by Brian Bushard
Photography by Kit Noble
When Sarah Alger hammered down the gavel to start her first town meeting in 1997, her annual salary as town moderator was a paltry $175. But to Alger, an island real estate attorney, the annual and sometimes biannual meetings were never about the compensation as much as they were an opportunity to preside over arguably the most impactful—and often controversial—nights in town politics.
Alger is running this May for her 30th term as town moderator. In her 30 years at the podium, she has overseen over 3,000 town meeting articles, including some of the most controversial proposals on the island, including beach driving permits, fertilizer bans, town sewer expansions and, of course, short-term rental regulations. While the title of town moderator might be far from the most coveted position on Nantucket, Alger has not only taken it in stride but become an integral part of annual town meetings.
“I’ve been doing it so long it would be hard to separate me out of it,” she said. Aside from her first election—when Alger won by a mere 200 votes over Tim Madden and Curtis Barnes—she has run unopposed every year. As the moderator of Nantucket’s open town meeting form of government, Alger has become one of a dying breed of town moderators across the country. While open town meetings—described as one of the last vestiges of true democracy—were once commonplace across New England and New York, they have been steadily phased out for alternative forms of government, like town councils, mayors and another format called a representative town meeting. Across the country, the annual tradition of open town meetings has mostly become a thing of the past. Despite numerous efforts to move on from open town meetings, Nantucket—for now—has held onto the tradition.
For Alger, it’s also a family tradition. Alger grew up in Osterville, Massachusetts, attending town meetings in Barnstable as a kid, volunteering as a timekeeper while her father, John Alger, served as town moderator. It inspired in Alger an appreciation for town government that has never subsided. In the mid-1990s,she cosponsored a domestic partnership bylaw, making an impassioned speech while eight months pregnant with her second child.
That article, then one of the most contentious proposals presented at an annual town meeting, took four years to pass and ultimately gave same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples.
In 1997, she decided to run for moderator after meeting the town’s moderator at the time, Tom Arnold. “He said he wasn’t going to run for moderator and had a list of people he said would be good,” Alger remembered. “I said, ‘What if I ran?’ Well, he clearly had never contemplated that.” Arnold wasn’t alone. That same election cycle, Alger was standing outside Stop & Shop when a woman pointed to her and said, “Anyone but her for town moderator,” Alger remembered. That turned out to be the only time Alger faced opposition.
After her first meeting was in the books, then-Land Bank commissioner Phil Bartlett gave her a hug. “I didn’t think you could do it,” he told her. Thirty years in, Alger has found a way to keep the meetings not only fair and balanced but entertaining. In 2021, when the town first brought in electronic voting handsets, Alger quipped: “If you mistakenly take a handset home, you will be tracked down, and I cannot guarantee what will happen to you.” Perhaps her most iconic line came one year later, in a segue from a proposal to ban plastic “nip” bottles to another on topless beaches, she joked: “Zipping right along from nips to nipples.”
When asked about staying upbeat and humorous at town meetings, she remains modest. “I have no control over that,” she said.
Last year, Alger brought back another family tradition, bringing her daughter, Madeline Malenfant (who competed on Project Runway last year), to the meeting as timekeeper—the same position Alger held as a kid. “I was always interested in town meeting,” Alger said. “I was interested in community service, had been on different boards. I knew I would never run for anything else. I still enjoy it, but if there’s someone else who would like to take over and do it better or differently, I would be open to it 100%.”
Latest Stories
