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.
We moved to Lexington in 1971, attracted to its excellent schools and its historic role in abolishing a king and paving the way for democracy, A child and a grandchild attended LPS. We hosted a METCO student and I co-led a Camp Fire group. I have degrees in classical studies (Greece, Rome, Ancient Near East) from Tufts University and in library science from Simmons University. For 30 years, I was Boston University Libraries’ classics, archaeology, and art history subject specialist assisting faculty and student research, and teaching students library skills including the increasingly important ways to evaluate information sources; I retired in 2021. I have greatly benefitted from opportunities to live apart from American comforts and culture: as a student in Naples, Italy; a spouse and mother in Oxford, England; a Harvard Fellow with the Sardis Expedition in Turkey; as an archaeology volunteer in Greece and Cyprus. Currently, I enjoy taking OWLL classes at the Community Center and planning and participating in Lexington Alarm activities. As a Town Election Worker, I am committed to preserving state-run elections under the Constitution and free and fair voting rights.
Why are you running for Town Meeting?
I am running for re-election to continue being a voice in the Town’s future as it strives to meet today’s challenges of budgeting that balances needs and wants, affordability for current and future residents, diversity, zoning for a variety of housing options, sustainability in the time of climate change, speeding traffic on residential streets, expanding human services and human rights programs, and high school construction costs. First elected in 1980, I have voted for conservation land acquisition; historic building preservation; recreation facilities, parks, and program upgrades; the purchase and renovation of a community center; replacement of the beyond repair and obsolete DPW building, police station, fire station, and three elementary schools; and the motion to hold a town-wide debt exclusion vote to fund a new LHS. I voted for citizens’ Article 2 at the 2025 Special Town Meeting to reduce acreage and units under the MBTA Communities Act as the town had already reached the required target of 1,231 units and needed time to assess the impact on infrastructure and schools. In the future, the Planning Board can request Town Meeting to amend the bylaw in order to add units and acres. I voted to establish the Affordable Housing Trust and 50 permanently affordable units near Lowell and North Streets, and I will vote for the Community Preservation Act’s $3,200,000 appropriation to the Trust. I will continue to vote for bikeway improvements, sidewalk construction, and to strengthen the tree bylaw.
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?
My years as an elected Town Meeting Member and my professional life have given me many perspectives, insights, and knowledge relevant and useful for a TMM role. I have learned to appreciate and trust the work, expertise, judgment, and dedication of the many committee and commission volunteers, at-large elected officers, and Town Staff as they are called upon to provide information and to make often difficult decisions, especially during economic challenges like we face now. They are working hard to respond to justifiable community calls for greater transparency and communication as is appropriate. My professional and vocational experiences have taught me respect for, delight in, and openness to customs and cultures not my own; they have sometimes required me to be resilient, flexible, and adaptable to change. Both in the library and in the trench, I have gained admiration for young people–their resourcefulness in independently caring for themselves in sometimes unfamiliar circumstances (not every college student comes from a town or country that has a free and open library), their uncertainties, joys and pains, and their capacity to spend evenings in alcoholic revelry, yet be at 5 a.m. breakfast before trekking to an excavation site. In the library, I learned to use technology, databases, and the internet, and that humanity is best served by the past and present work of poets, writers, artists, musicians, philosophers, and historians.
During community discussions around the plans for building a new Lexington High School, I attended several meetings of the opposition group, LHS4All. I listened to their arguments against the plan, the site, and the cost. At the time, I was sympathetic with their opposition to the relocation of the playing fields and the potential intrusion into the wetlands, but as time went on, I could not dismiss the probability of losing state funding and prolonging the time until construction. I suggested that some of them run for Town Meeting; several were elected, and able to present their views on the Town Meeting Members listserv and on TM floor.
For the most part, my opposing views are with Town entities because my neighborhood can easily be impacted by policy decisions such as LHS student parking and pickleball courts too close to people’s homes. In these cases, I played a supporting role as I feel the views expressed by constituents make a more compelling impression and chance for success. I feel we and Town staff generally arrive at acceptable consensus.
What is the most important issue in this election to you personally, and what ideas do you have about how to address this issue?
All issues in every election are important to me as they affect someone’s or everyone’s quality of life in town, the environment, and pocketbooks. Housing, and school and municipal budgets top the list. While I appreciate the need to increase housing supply, and the reality to make cuts in the budgets, this year my significant issue is trash collection and disposal because of their escalating costs and the polluting emissions from trash incineration.
I support the purchase of trash and recycling bins compatible with a hauler’s automated “grabber” system. To save money, haulers are discontinuing manual collection. The Waste Reduction Task Force’s website publishes the results of their research, an incredible amount of information in colorful graphs and tables, and recommendations for future study and initiatives. The wheeled bins, however, may present challenges to seniors and people with mobility ability. The Town is looking into accommodation solutions. One idea might be to enlist the help of students and youth groups whereby they also could amass community service hours.
I support amending Chapter 90, Section 9, Regulation of Refuse Disposal by removing the word “free.” Anticipated population growth, the enormous amount of trash collected, the rising cost of collection paid by ratepayers, and increases in what is going into the trash that should be going elsewhere call for immediate attention. In 2001, I questioned the logic of our tax dollars going up in smoke when they could have been put to far better uses. In 2026, we are in a better position to reduce tonnage. Black Earth Compost, for example, collects heavy, water-laden food waste that otherwise would add tons to the trash. New state laws ban putting certain materials into the trash. I would support one “free” 35-gallon bin combined with fees for excess trash, as well as programs to reduce fees based on income or to exempt fees altogether for folks who have genuine health reasons that cause the excess.