Brown will not run for office again

SHARON — First Selectman Malcolm Brown has announced that he will not run for a third term when town elections are held this November.

Brown was first elected in November 2005 and was re-elected in November 2007.

“Does this mean that I’m unhappy with working at Town Hall? No,� Brown said during an interview with The Lakeville Journal in his office at Town Hall. “I’m about to pass my 66th birthday on June 19. I have three grown kids, two grandchildren and a wife. I don’t want to work this hard for too much longer and I want some time for relaxation.�

Brown was born in Port Chester, N.Y., and grew up in nearby Mamaroneck. The retired pediatrician graduated from Harvard University in 1965 and from the medical school of Columbia University in 1969. He worked at Children’s Hospital in Boston from 1969 to 1973 and progressed from an intern to a resident.

He moved to Sharon in 1973 and joined the Sharon Clinic, where he worked from 1973 to 1985. Afterward, he was a founding partner of Sharon Pediatrics, where he remained until early 2005.

The life of a doctor is an exhausting one.

“I have worked extraordinarily hard since my sophomore year at college,� Brown said. “I am of a generation when internships and residencies required every-other-night and weekend duty; I had to work all day and all night long, every other night and I spent four years working like that.

“When I was working at the family practice, I also had hospital work Monday through Friday and sometimes on the weekends. Then when I shared the pediatric practice, I worked all day and sometimes nights for 12 years.�

After four decades, in October 2004, those long hours began to take a toll on his health.

“I had some heart trouble, and that was when I decided to retire from my medical practice.�

Exercise and medications helped get him back in form, and he was feeling better by Memorial Day 2005. He threw his hat into the ring for the race for first selectman.

“Some may ask ‘My heavens, why did he step from one stressful job to another?’� Brown said. “I’m a restless soul who enjoys challenges. I also enjoy town government.�

He said he has learned quite a lot from being on the job at Town Hall for the past four years.

“I learned how to develop a town budget and how to get it to work, including how to get the numbers into place and live by them,� Brown said. “I knew nothing about that when I came into office. I also learned a lot about drainage. I had lived in town for 32 years, but I’m telling you, before I was elected I didn’t give one moments notice to how important it is.�

Brown’s biggest regret, he said, is not staying in office longer.

“Part of me wants to stay around,� he said. “However, I have decided to limit my interests to my family and the two disciplines in life I have enjoyed most: music and medicine.�

Brown said he has been named a board member of The Berkshire Choral Festival. Though it is a volunteer position, he expects it will demand a good deal of his time.

“It’s not something to be taken lightly,� he said. “There is no way I can be an effective first selectman and a board member at the same time.�

He has also volunteered to be a town representative for the Salisbury-Sharon Resource Recovery Authority for a three-year term.

And he is considering a possible part-time return to medicine, but has not determined in what capacity.

“I don’t intend to clinically practice medicine again,� he said. “If I can volunteer somewhere or work 20 hours a week to help fix this mess we call a health-care system, that would be good enough for me.�

As for advice to the next first selectman, Brown said whoever gets into office in November 2009 needs to concentrate on several important areas.

“Pay close attention to drainage and water-crossing problems,� he said. “The road crew is extremely important to the town, including its management and the relations between the crew and the town. But above all, relations between the selectmen are important. It’s a partnership and at this level of government management is important. Fighting over nitty-gritty things is a waste of time.�

He said he would not predict or suggest any candidates who should run for office this year.

“I do know of a couple of people who may be interested, but it’s premature for me to identify them,� Brown said. “They have to say that they are running. If I say anything, it would put them on the spot.�

Brown said he will miss Town Hall.

“I had a good time here and I made many good friends,� he said. “So yes, I will miss it.�

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