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 came to Lexington in 1993 for a position at Lincoln Laboratory, married and raised three children. I stayed at the Lab and we made Lexington our home. I joined Town Meeting in 2001 and joined the Senior Tax Deferral Study Group, then the Appropriation Committee (2004–2008), School Committee (2008–2011), Enrollment Working Group (2013–2014) and CEC (2014–present). My approach is a mix of fiscal prudence and humane values—data analysis is crucially important, but the best solutions for Lexington must take great care to account for the impact on real people.
In recent years I have worked with the Recreation Committee and Commission on Disability. Both groups have taught me about their critical work, and brought home just how many important volunteers contribute to our great town. I hope you will send me back to Town Meeting so I can continue to be one of those people as we face critical decisions now and in the future.
Why are you running for Town Meeting?
We have many important decisions to make as a Town. Not just the immediate issues around zoning and the new high school, but all the other functions of town government. I think I have valuable experiences, memories of good decisions as well as bad ones, hard lessons learned over past Town Meetings and my work on various committees. I would like to do my part to help Lexington navigate the challenges we face.
I try my best to look at the facts as best we know them and avoid getting invested in one side or the other when we have difficult decisions. I apply my values, and–I think–our community values.
Then too, I enjoy being useful, meeting town citizens interested in the issues facing us. I get something valuable out of this as well.
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?
In my professional life I led teams of brilliant engineers to solve hard technical problems of critical national importance and provided technical guidance to the Federal Government. Teamwork, identifying and solving problems, communications—the key aspects for a technical career, but also of a well-functioning town government are my stock in trade.
I have years of experience working within Lexington, helping to solve critical problems (such as modernizing our enrollment projections), participating in financial summits to craft balanced budgets, leading the School Committee when the Estabrook Elementary School faced the PCB crises.
I also have experienced the year-by-year Town Meeting, where we have all grappled with thorny issues. The hard decisions are always those where there are valid pros and cons for both sides, and yet a decision must be made.
What is the most important issue in this election to you personally, and what ideas do you have about how to address this issue?
This year of course there are two divisive issues facing the town. Each deserves far more than the space allowed here.
The region has a critical shortage of both affordable and middle-income housing. We must do our part to bring on more housing that does not cost millions of dollars. But we must balance that with our own sustainability. I support Article 2 as a stop gap measure, but we must lean on the Planning Board and Select Board to quickly do the hard work to bring a zoning article to get this right.
We also must build a new high school. The old one is failing, its major systems are beyond end of life, it is far too small. MSBA allows only one option. The School Building Committee–after extensive examination of the options–found Bloom to be the least expensive option that gets the space we need, is the quickest way to get that space, and is being designed with great space flexibility for future enrollment growth and submitted it to MSBA. I get it is a huge expense, but the other options are even more expensive. I support the Bloom option.
Collaboration was at the heart of my career success. You work with and hire very smart well-educated people. You have to check your ego at the door. You must listen with an open mind and think critically about everyone’s ideas. You may love their idea, or maybe it just needs a tweak to become a great idea, or maybe it just is not something that will work but you gave it an honest hearing. Or as is so often the case, by combining ideas from many people you come up with something much better than any one person brought to the effort.
This has been the same approach I have taken on each of the committees on which I have served. One aspect I have always enjoyed is the interpersonal interplay, and it is something that is common among committees across town – hard working Lexingtonians coming together to do good work.
Lexington has been a fabulous town to live in and raise a family. One of the things I love about Lexington is the ability to contribute in meaningful ways. The Town Meeting form of government allows direct citizen participation in a way that is very rare. We are all much closer to the action than in other places where a School Committee member or County Commissioner is almost as remote as your Senator. I urge anyone interested to get involved in whatever area you are passionate about – there surely is a committee working that area. For me, I enjoy Town Meeting and my other committee work (currently Capital Expenditures Committee and Liaison to Recreation and Commission on Disability). I hope you will give me one of your votes so I can continue to contribute. Thank you.