Meet Select Board candidate Jill Hai

One of Jill Hai’s first initiatives as a member of the Board of Selectmen was to try to change the name of her position. The year was 2018, but there was still pushback against the idea of changing the traditional name to one that was more gender-neutral. “Historically, it was a group of men who were selected to govern the town. We are now a group of any and all gendered people, and we are no longer selected, we are elected,” she says. The issue went to a vote and the name was finally changed to the Select Board in 2019. 

Next, Hai turned to the issue of housing. Her work as the chair of the Special Residential Development Bylaws Ad Hoc Committee led to the approval, 5 years later, of Article 33, which aims to encourage more diverse housing development, including smaller, more affordable homes and multi-family buildings, with some units reserved for residents earning 80% or less of the area’s median income.  

“The reason it took so long was that it was an unbelievably inclusive and collaborative process,” Hai says. The committee included a developer, affordable housing advocates, a realtor, real estate lawyer, and other members of the community. “Building large single family homes is economical for the developer,” Hai explains. “We actively sought all of these conflicting opinions and worked to come up with something that would create the incentive for developers to choose the path that we said, in our comprehensive plan and values statement, was the kind of housing we wanted to encourage.” 

“The community requires that we not be one monolith,” Hai says when asked why affordable housing is so important to her. “Whether it’s socioeconomic, racial, age — you can pick your criteria — without that diversity we don’t get the full spectrum of ideas, the vibrancy.” 

Asked what other issues are most important to her, Hai quips, “That’s like asking me who’s my favorite child!” 

“We’re facing an existential crisis as a planet, not just as a town, not just as a commonwealth,” she says. “Lexington is leading the way — we’ve just adopted a zero waste plan, the climate resiliency plan. We have one of the highest levels of electrification in private vehicles. We also have the fleet electrification plan. We have two truly net zero schools we are operating. We will have essentially a net zero police station. We’re one of the first towns to adopt fossil fuel free building.” Hai says these were all collaborative efforts that she was proud to support. 

Hai points to other firsts during her time as chair and vice chair of the Select Board. The town has been widely praised for being one of the first to come out with a new zoning plan to comply with the state’s MBTA Communities Law, requiring communities served by public transit to encourage multi-family housing near transit corridors in order to help alleviate the state’s housing crisis. During the pandemic, Hai helped Lexington become the first to provide for remote participation in Town Meeting. 

Asked what differentiates her from challenger Cindy Arens, Hai says the two are on the same side about “lots of things — almost everything.” But she points to her own experience serving on the Select Board for six years and Town Meeting for twelve, including five years on the Capital Expenditures Committee — experience she says will be essential for guiding the town through the “largest capital project we’ve ever had in Lexington — the new high school.” At the same time, some union contracts will be up for renewal — something Hai knows a lot about as a former labor and employment attorney. And all that is happening while Lexington is also planning “a birthday party for the entire country,” she points out. 

“I genuinely do believe I’m the right person for the moment,” she says. “What am I most passionate about? I’m most passionate about Lexington.”

Read about Select Board candidate Cindy Arens here. Learn more about Jill Hai at her website, jillhai.com, or in her Letter to the editor announcing her candidacy.