Precinct: 9
Tell us a little about yourself. You can include your personal background, family, outside interests that are important to who you are as a person and a candidate.
I’ve been a resident of Lexington since 1995. My wife Michelle grew up in Lexington. Our 2 adult sons are graduates of Lexington schools. Besides my work in Marketing and IT, my main interests are being outside in the garden or on hiking trails.
How has your past experience — whether in your professional life, elected office, or as a community leader — prepared you for a role in Town Meeting?
I am running for re-election for Town Meeting. I’ve served for 9 years so far.
What is the most important issue in this election to you personally, and what ideas do you have about how to address this issue?
The environment — we’ve done great work at Town Meeting in promoting initiatives such as adding solar to our municipal and school buildings, or in working toward net zero and zero waste policies, or in moving away from using fossil fuels in new construction. We need to continue to advocate for change, push the envelope, and to continue to be an example to other communities around the Commonwealth and the nation.
In our neighborhood, we have lived with cut-through traffic for years. The re-zoning of the old Raytheon campus into a home for Shire/Takeda made things exponentially worse. We spearheaded an effort to install speed humps and other traffic mitigation devices to make our neighborhood safer. While many neighbors were behind our effort, there were dissenting voices, as well as skeptical members of the Select Board to convince. There is no magic sauce on collaboration — you simply gather your facts, present them well, listen to supporters and dissenters, and then listen some more. Much of progress happens when we do less talking and more listening.
Town Meeting has acted upon some pretty major issues over the past decade or so – from environmental initiatives, to the Center Streetscape project, rebuilding many of our schools, new fire and police stations, supporting the 250th, and the MBTA Communities rezoning, just to name a few. It is incredibly humbling to be able to serve in a small way to bring Lexington forward, and I would appreciate your vote once again.