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It was so nice to see so many Ward 5 residents in person at my booth on Waban Village Day last month, and it was a great opportunity to hear from you and address concerns or issues in our ward's neighborhoods. I'm looking forward to seeing more of you again this Sunday June 11 from 11 AM to 4 PM on Lincoln St at the Newton Highlands Village Day.
Pride Month Message
Even in a difficult time nationally for LGBTQ+ rights and recognition, it is vital to recognize the pride and resilience of the community this month, which we did last week with Newton's annual Pride Flag-Raising ceremony at City Hall. Through solidarity, both within and from beyond the LGBTQ+ community, we can find great hope that equality, respect, and acceptance will prevail and that this dark period will recede once more.
Rethinking How We Invest In Our Future
Last week the Newton City Council completed its annual review of the budget and capital improvements plan, and this week we finalized revisions to the pre-funding timetable for our pension obligations, as proposed by the independent Retirement Board.
With the FY24 budget proposals from the Mayor and Superintendant now set to take effect, and with the recent unsuccessful tax override referendum now a few months behind us, I wanted to take a moment to step back and invite everyone to take a look at the bigger picture beyond any single year of budgeting and heated debates around specific line items.
It has been said that there are two kinds of people in political office: those who believe their job is to tell you why you can’t have nice things and those who try to find a way to say yes to delivering more for you.
One unfortunate trend in world politics in the past decade or so has been the embrace of a notion that the only “adults in the room” are the candidates who promise to make more cuts to government services and to roll back hard-won past policy victories. Promoting an optimistic vision for the future – instead of endorsing a perpetually narrowing horizon – and showing creative thinking on how to meet our needs as a society has become ridiculed as “unserious.”
This line of thinking has become so embedded that it feels as natural as the laws of gravity to believe there is no alternative. Genuine investments in our collective future are soon diverted into untouchable investment funds. Growing our community now, with permanent enhancements that strengthen our future revenues, is abandoned in favor of hoping the whims of market performance will meet future obligations.
But, of course, there is always an alternative pathway on policy, just as it is true that electromagnetic forces are vastly stronger than the inexorable pull of gravity. Budget cutbacks, overly aggressive savings, and a blanket reluctance to borrow are not always examples of fiscal prudence. Government budgets are not the same as household budgets. Reasonable caution can sometimes ebb into full-blown retreat just when some forward momentum is needed.
Even as we must meet all our financial obligations and deliver balanced budgets, there are choices in how and over what timetable we achieve these things. The safest path to a brighter fiscal future – and the one most likely to keep voters engaged in the project of building a better tomorrow together – is for government to make those key investments in ourselves and in materially improving our lives. That is how we rebuild public confidence and public finances, both of which have eroded because of years of under-investment in maintenance and service provision.
Together, we would be laying genuine groundwork for future financial growth and future budget restoration far better than in the ever-shrinking logic of austerity politics and its false promises of firm financial footing.
Leaders should strive to make life a little better each year. Just as forward progress is not inevitable, it is equally true that sliding a bit backwards every year is a political choice, not a fact of life.
There is nothing unserious about this perspective. To suggest that this is not being “the adult in the room” is a trivial slogan in defense of a political ideology that is increasingly unmoored from reality and good sense, despite positioning itself as immutable truth.
Sometimes I am asked how I make a difference on the City Council as one of 24 members – and one of eight on the Finance Committee – and I always note that I do my homework and my research, yet I often still arrive at, articulate, and champion an alternative economic viewpoint, to which I then work to bring more colleagues around. Just by being part of those debates, I shift the framing of those conversations and our imagination.
We must all acknowledge the difficult pressures of rising costs in required major contracts, legal settlements, and statutory funding obligations, weighed against the firm cap on property taxes, which the voters declined to lift in the recent citywide referendum. But it is also the responsibility of elected leaders to rise to such challenges by trying to find a way to say yes to offering and maintaining public services wherever possible, rather than looking first for reasons to say no.
As a Ward Councilor, I am one front-line interface between residents and those city services, provided by our incredible, tireless city employees, who deserve far more compensation than they currently receive. This work is both the most rewarding part of my job and the one that gives me the greatest insights on a weekly basis into the myriad ways that the public needs the government to serve them.
Many residents might not realize the full scope of these constituent services needs and the sheer number and volume of interaction points between city government and the daily lives of residents and their families. These range from as small as yard waste pickup issues and problem potholes up to family crises and emergency assistance. Whenever possible, I work with staff from many different departments to see how we can help and say yes to your requests.
For more than three years so far, I have been taking your calls and answering your emails. Keep it coming!
We the people are our own government, and it is therefore the government’s duty, through its public employees and your elected officials to ask what we can do for you.
That’s why I’ll be seeking a third term on the City Council this year. I know the City of Newton can do better for all of us. We should say so, and then we should do it.