Peter Teitelbaum will be new to town politics if elected to the Board of Selectmen, but he says his newness could be a blessing in disguise.

"I believe that I can be a bridge between Selectmen who have different viewpoints," said Teitelbaum. "I think that I can work to bridge some of the divides in this town simply be treating everyone respectfully."

Teitelbaum has never run for elected office, but has served as a volunteer on the town's Minot Forest Committee for two years.

Teitelbaum graduated from the New England School of Law in 1998 and joined the law firm Shephard S. Johnson Jr. and Associates of New Bedford as an environmental lawyer in 2000, working there until 2003.

He has practiced environmental law privately since 2003, working mostly with clients who live outside of Wareham who need services on everything from buying a piece of land to dealing with enforcement action because of failure to comply with environmental regulations, he said.

His experience as a lawyer gives him a bit of an advantage, Teitelbaum said.

"I know how to look at problems and solve them, and that's why I'm running, because I'd like to put that at work for the town," he said.

In terms of solutions for the town's budgetary problems, however, Teitelbaum says that it is first and foremost up to the Town Meeting voters to decide.

"I hesitate to go into Town Meeting with my mind made up on anything," Teitelbaum said. "I like to listen to my fellow citizens and to hear their viewpoints … once they have made a decision, I will support the decision."

Solutions to Wareham's budget problems, such as increasing taxation to help fund Wareham's deficit, are also to be found on the Town Meeting floor, according to Teitelbaum, but improvements can be made in terms of the town's future economic outlook.

One strategy Teitelbaum mentioned is to promote tourism.

"Has anyone been on the www.visitwareham.com website? No, because it doesn't exist," Teitelbaum said.

Another strategy, he said, is to reach out to companies that have located in neighboring towns and ask them why they did not choose Wareham.

"We need to have a point person, in town or not, whom a perspective business owner looking at Wareham can locate and contact," Teitelbaum said.

Weighing in on some of the issues currently affecting the town, such as the high cost of sewering, Teitelbaum said that one strategy the town could take is to delay upcoming sewer projects until the November election.

Teitelbaum said that if the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives the "infrastructure-friendly" Democrats may find ways to offer more federal money to fund projects such as the sewering initiative.

Teitelbaum, while acknowledging that the bills for neighborhoods that have already been sewered "must be paid," said that it was hard to install the sewers in a way that is fair to everybody.

"No town, no municipality was able to do it all at once," Teitelbaum said. "It's a massive undertaking over decades and changing conditions means changing expenses to the homeowners."

Teitelbaum added: "There are people who received the benefit of the sewer 35 years ago who didn't pay a cent."

Speaking about the town's current deficit and whether increasing property taxes is something he supports, Teitelbaum said that "the issue of increasing taxation has to be looked at on a line-item basis, and the budget needs to be looked at on a line-item basis."

Teitelbaum's family has had a presence in the area ever since his great-grandather moved to Wareham before WWI.

Teitelbaum's grandfather was a sailor who graduated from MIT ("I'm a sailor," Teitelbaum himself notes), and though he was born in Galveston, Texas, he moved to Wareham with his mother when he was 2 1/2 months old.

Teitelbaum went to Wareham Public Schools until he entered Tabor Academy in the 9th grade. After graduating from Tabor in 1977, he enrolled in Colby College.

Teitelbaum took some time off from Colby and held multiple jobs in the interim, including working on the cranberry bogs on the South Coast, before he enrolled in Bridgewater State University where he earned his B.A. in English and history in 1984.

Teitelbaum worked for the Boston Globe from 1989 to 1999 as a district supervisor and manager for the newspaper delivery side of the business, a position in which he had to "hire, train, supervise, discipline, and terminate" employees according to policies and procedures that were set in place, Teitelbaum said, noting that the experience would help him in his role as a Selectman.

One issue that Teitelbaum finds near and dear to his heart is cigarette smoking. Teitelbaum said that his mother passed away in 2009 from complications from lung cancer.

Teitelbaum himself quit smoking four years ago after he got so sick from a cold in the winter that he couldn't muster the strength to go outside and buy cigarettes. The cravings for cigarettes then started, but they would come for a short amount of time, Teitelbaum said, though they came repeatedly throughout the day for a few days. After that, he was in the clear. "It's a matter of quitting for 3-4 minutes at a time, many many times," Teitelbaum said.

Teitelbaum said that he seeks to work with the Board of Health and get involved in anti-smoking programs in the town.

Ultimately, Teitelbaum would like to make sure he is tuned into his fellow citizens and accurately representing their viewpoints, he said.

"Selectmen are elected to be leaders, but at times, they also need to follow," Teitelbaum said.

More about Teitelbaum can be found on his website, www.teitelbaum-selectman.com.