The Ipswich report https://thelocalnews.news/2026/03/03/ipswich-select-board-names-three-town-manager-finalists says “The candidates — all of whom currently serve as town managers or assistant town administrators in nearby communities — are Steve Bartha (Lexington), Angus Jennings (West Newbury), and Brendan Sweeney (Boxford).”

Lexington could indeed use a Town Manager who, unlike Steve Bartha, knows how to identify strategically critical issues.

THE MOST critical such issue, which our Select Board is also ignoring, is that Lexington must urgently correct the fact that rental apartments now pay in real estate taxes only 36% of what single-family houses of the same size pay to the Town, yet will soon generate (via 1,000s of new MBTA rental apartments like the 312 ones at 17 Hartwell Ave) 1,000s more kids that our LPS will have to educate (of which the high school age ones won’t fit into Bloom; but that’s a detail compared with this “36% problem”).

I will circulate after Town Meeting a calculation of what ignoring this “36% problem” will cost Lexington in 5-10 years, something any strategically minded Town Manager should have already done, but Steve Bartha didn’t do.

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