Issues and Endorsement Responses

Check out my answers to questionnaires from some of the local organizations that make endorsements.

Brookline for Everyone ↪

In a few sentences, how do you approach questions related to housing? Do you generally support building more multifamily housing in Brookline? How do you feel about density when it comes to housing?

Yes, I support building more multifamily homes, and building densely in general.

Housing is fundamental to many of the problems facing us. The entire metro region has a desperate housing shortfall, and as a result residents are being displaced, new people can’t move here to take advantages of the opportunities of the area, we struggle to make a real dent in our climate impact, and we become less diverse and less representative of America over time, rather than more.

Brookline historically knows how to build both densely and beautifully. We can do that again, and ensure our neighborhoods are walkable, climate-friendly, and open to a wide range of people and families.

In 2021, the legislature passed a law requiring 175 cities and towns with MBTA stations, including Brookline, to establish a zoning district in which multifamily housing is permitted as-of-right—that is, without needing any variances or special permits. The Brookline Planning Department is working on a plan that would bring Brookline into compliance with this new law. Town Meeting will be debating their proposal in November, ahead of our compliance deadline of December 31, 2023. Do you generally support the direction that the Planning Department is taking toward leveraging Harvard Street as a key “Main Street” to bring us toward compliance? Click here for more info on MBTA Communities Act and the Town’s efforts toward compliance.

Yes, I enthusiastically support the Harvard Street plan, for all the reasons given in the link above and more. It speaks to our values as a Town that the Planning Department had started work on this plan even before the MBTA-CA set a deadline.

I’m a frequent patron of the cafes and shops along Harvard Street; those businesses and their easy accessibility are among my favorite parts of living in Brookline. And to get to those cafes and shops, I pass many parking lots and one-story buildings. It is clear there is a lot of opportunity here to have more of what we love about Harvard Street and support local businesses and house more residents.

Housing policy is closely linked to other policy/political areas, such as transit, racial justice, and environmental policy. How do you think about housing policy as it interacts with these other issue areas?

(a) Housing & Transportation

These are inextricably linked.

I grew up in suburbs where single-family homes with multiple cars were the norm, and we drove most places. Now I live in Precinct 9, in a beautiful 120-year-old building, and I walk, take the bus and subway, and ride my bike and Blue Bikes. Close by are restaurants, shops, and grocery stores. Multifamily homes line my street.

The character of both neighborhoods is tied to the historic availability of transportation: my home suburb was built around driving, Brookline around streetcars and walking. The latter supports much denser housing, including the building I live in, which could not be built under today’s zoning.

We can’t separate these. We should build more dense housing, make it easy for more people to move around Brookline in a variety of ways, and work with the MBTA to improve the quality and capacity of transit.

(b) Housing & Racial Justice

Housing policy in America has been weaponized for racism for a long time. It still is. Brookline is no exception: as I learned from B4E, Brookline invented the racial housing convenant. A glance at the 2020 Census map shows that Brookline is whiter than most of its surroundings, despite being in a metro area with high mobility.

We have to actively grapple with this history, and overturn our quietly segregationist policies, to make a difference. Housing policy and affordability isn’t the entirety of the story, but it’s a huge component, and it’s part of what Town Meeting has to address.

(c) Housing & Climate Change

In Brookline, our housing and transportation choices are our biggest opportunity to improve our environmental impact.

Brookline Equity Coalition ↪

1. The MBTA Communities Act requires municipalities served by mass transit to have a zoning district in which multi-family housing is permitted as of right and meets certain other criteria. Recently, some Town Meeting Members have urged noncompliance with the Act (see this Boston Globe article).

Will you support full compliance by the Town of Brookline with the MBTA Communities Act, including (1) a likely Warrant Article in the Nov. 2023 Town Meeting to implement the zoning plan proposed by Town staff and (2) oppose Warrant Article 24 (as currently designated) in the May 2023 Town Meeting, which would cause noncompliant delay by requiring additional options to be explored?

Yes, I support full compliance with the MBTA-CA.

The entire region is facing a desperate housing shortfall. The price of housing in Brookline in particular is crisis-level. The MBTA-CA is driving us to overcome obstacles that have stood in the way of building housing we should have built decades ago.

While I wish it had not taken such a blunt tool to get the Town to act on our stated values and commitments, I enthusiastically support the Harvard St. plan that the Planning Department has produced.

2. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Brookline, like many communities across the country, studied how it approached public safety. Community-driven efforts like the Task Force to Reimagine Policing ultimately concluded that our town could benefit from an approach that invested more proactively in meeting people’s social-, economic-, and health-related needs — as opposed to spending more on police to respond to the symptoms of those unfulfilled needs.

One of the Task Force’s recommendations was to create a civilian crisis response program that is an alternative to the police and would respond to crises involving mental health or being unhoused. Would you support a Warrant Article or other effort to create such a program, and investing municipal money for its development?

Yes. We need this. I’ve been in the situation of scrambling to find trained, non-police resources for someone who seemed to urgently need them, and finding nothing. Brookline does have some at-risk community support services (and I’m glad for that!), but not enough, and they are not available 24-7.

3. Do you support the Debt Exclusion for the Pierce School which is on the May 2 ballot?

Yes. Pierce is in bad shape, we have a thoroughly considered project plan, and the state is ready to kick in money to support that plan. I agree with all the reasons given by yesforbrookline.com (as I do for the next question too).

4. Do you support the Override for Operating Expenses which is on the May 2 ballot?

Yes. Prop 2 ½ has artificially suppressed Town revenue. We need this override to fund the running of the Town. We should pass it, and going forward, the Town should adopt the recommendation of the Brookline Fiscal Advisory Committee to create a strategic plan for future overrides.

5. Do you support Warrant Article 13 (as currently designated) that would establish an Office of Housing Stability to assist residents at risk of displacement, prevent homelessness, and to develop initiatives to combat displacement?

Yes. In addition to the compelling arguments given in the WA itself, this would mean more Town employees focused on and able to speak to the needs of renters. Renters are under-represented in Town government (by a lot). An Office of Housing Stability would not solve that problem, nor is it intended to, but it moves the Town closer to recognizing the importance of renters’ voices.

6. Do you support Warrant Article 20 (as currently designated) that would codify Brookline’s commitment to ensuring access to safe, caring, and equitable reproductive and gender health care, and would establish Brookline as a safe haven for anyone seeking or providing reproductive or gender-affirming health care

Yes. This affirms the Town’s adherence to a state law that makes me proud to live in MA.

7. For non-incumbents only: In June 2022, Town Meeting rejected a warrant article that would have revised the discrimination complaint process to make it more meaningful, including the ability to investigate incidents of discrimination using subpoena power and the ability to recommend fines (more info here).

Hypothetically, if you were a Town Meeting member last year, how would you have voted on this article?

This WA is fairly complicated, and I simply ran out of time to research it enough to feel confident of what my call would have been. That said, based on what I do know, it is likely I would have voted for it.

Open-ended questions

Brookline is not immune to racism. It is embedded in our systems and institutions just as it is everywhere. How do you see racism show up in issues of housing, in our public schools, and in public safety in Brookline? What are some thoughts you have about how we can take action locally to confront and eliminate racism in Brookline?

Even as a white person, I’ve seen and heard enough to know there’s plenty of covert racism in the town (some of the reactions to the renaming of FRR horrified me). The report of the Task Force to Reimagine Policing and other surveys back this up.

Most of all I want to see the Town welcome many more of the people who want to move here, in such a way that we get to a more diverse Brookline. That means building a range of housing to meet different needs, and ensuring a big fraction of it is affordable. It means enabling people who move here (and those who are already here!) to stay. As noted in Q3 below, in the past Brookline has used housing laws to maintain the status quo. We need to turn that on its head.

Beyond that, we should act on more of the recommendations we already have to reform policing and improve social services. The Town has a number of committees of dedicated residents (the Task Force being one of them) that have produced thoughtful, well-researched reports on how to address Brookline’s structural issues, and all too often that work simply remain on the shelf. We can do better.

2. Please review all of the recommendations from the Task Force to Reimagine Policing at this link. In addition to the civilian crisis response program discussed in Question 2 of the previous Section, what are your thoughts on the other recommendations of the Task Force and policing generally? (More context here)

I’m wholeheartedly in favor. I’m glad that the proposals to remove the SROs and end Walk and Talk were adopted, and hope to see movement on the others, including creating a Social Services unit that can provide follow-up and assistance beyond crisis responses, and moving traffic enforcement to a civilian body.

I’ve twice seen the Brookline police interacting with people behaving erratically. The police handled both incidents much better than I feared. And both still highlighted the gap. The police are not the right first responders here; their tools are limited, and there’s far too much evidence showing that the potential for escalation is unbounded. Neither situation called for guns in any way. They called for social services, resources that are very, very limited at the moment. (One of the people I saw was clearly well known to the police. They had nowhere to direct him other than “away”.)

Brookline can do better than this, and the Task Force put forth concrete proposals to do so. Town Meeting should continue to act on them.

3. In your opinion, what are the most pressing transportation- and housing- related issues facing Brookline? And what measures or policies would you like to see the Town implement to address these issues? How would you encourage the Town to create more affordable housing?

We need more, and more affordable, housing. We need more public transit and more infrastructure that supports multimodal transportation.

I would like to see reforms in our zoning code that allow for mixed-use and dense housing to be built “as of right”, and to work with the MBTA to extend more transit routes through Brookline. Indeed, I live in a 120-year-old multifamily brownstone that can’t be built under today’s zoning. Brookline used zoning ordinances, along with tools like redlining and racial covenants, to erode our once-dense streetscape, emphasize car ownership, and keep the town as white as possible. We have to reckon with this in order to make progress on racial equity.

The Town recognized its role in the region’s housing crisis when we joined the MAPC Regional Housing Task Force pact, but we have a long way to go to reach our commitment. We can close this gap.

4. What are the top three issues that you care about most for Brookline? Please tell us in one sentence per issue on how you would address them.

Housing, climate change, and social justice. With the note that all three are inextricably linked, here are some measures I would support for each:

Housing: zoning reform, accept friendly 40Bs, reduce displacement.

Climate change: reduce parking minimums, improve transit with measures like bus lanes, focus on shared resources like parks

Social justice: police reform, affordability, ensuring services and shared resources are accessible to everyone

Biking Brookline ↪

1. Do you feel that the Town has made adequate efforts and has adequate policies to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries, and what do you think about Vision Zero?

Yes, we should adopt Vision Zero – and act on it! The Town has taken some steps towards this: lowering speed limits, traffic calming, adding bike lanes, but Brookline as a whole still heavily prioritizes travel by car and supports few truly multimodal environments. I frequently have to bike around vehicles parked in the bike lane, or dash into the road to board the bus because a car is blocking the stop. We’ve demonstrated we know how to deploy measures like dedicated loading zones and bollards to separate bike lanes, but have yet to implement such measures in a widespread way.

Vision Zero is not only important on its face, it is in line with other Town goals: reducing climate change impact, improving accessibility. We should, and we can, make progress here.

2. How do you think safer bicycling accommodations would benefit Brookline residents, and, based on the benefits you have identified, how important a priority do you believe it is for Brookline’s streets to be accessible for bicycling by people of all ages and abilities?

Safer cycling accommodations benefit all users of the streets. The limited accommodations we’ve made already have been beneficial, and we should continue to make more.

I frequently commute by bicycle from Brookline to Kendall Square, a route that now has with protected bicycle infrastructure and traffic control (including bike signals and a bike box at the BU bridge) most of the way. This is tremendously safer (and more fun) than my bike commutes in the Boston area years ago. It also means that car and bus drivers don’t have to contend with me, nor am I competing with pedestrians at any point. I easily share the bike lanes with people on scooters, skates, and Blue Bikes.

The Protected Framework proposed by the Bicycle Advisory Committee would supply similar benefits throughout Brookline. It’s somewhat difficult, for example, for residents in Precinct 9 (where I reside) to reach Larz Anderson Park by transit or bicycle. Improving the cycling infrastructure enables Brookline residents to make better and safer use of Brookline itself.

3. The Brookline Green Routes Network Plan (pages 16 - 17) states that “Brookline has failed to advance its bicycle planning strategy at pace with national trends,” and that “the list of funded improvements to bicycle infrastructure for 2022 and beyond is modest when compared with improvements being made in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville.”

Do you agree with this assessment, and are there specific bicycling-related changes in regulations and infrastructure affecting Brookline’s streets and its development patterns that you would like to see piloted or implemented?

As noted above, we’ve funded some improvements – and we have a long way to go, compared to our neighbors and to what the Town could be. The Bicycle Advisory Committee recommends the Protected Framework; the Task Force for Reimagining Policing recommends moving traffic enforcement to a civilian body solely responsible for public safety, without the competing goals (or risk of devastating escalations) of the police. These are big goals we should work towards, but there are also short-term actions we can take: recreate the rolling lanes of 2020, using more maintainable barriers this time; improve the bike signage and wayfinding at major intersections, where now cyclists are left to jockey with traffic; and so on.

The Harvard Street plan put forward by the Planning Department (see Brookline for Everyone’s explainer) offers an opportunity to focus on improving our cycling infrastructure on the Harvard Street corridor at the same time as we remove zoning obstacles there, benefiting local businesses old and new.

PAX

1b. Briefly, what else in your background is politically pertinent, especially a history of progressive activities besides the above?

Since moving to Brookline, I’ve supported the activity of Brookline for Everyone and have commented in a number of housing- and transit-related meetings. I first ran for Town Meeting last year; I was endorsed by B4E and Brookline Equity Commission and engaged in campaign events and door-knocking for all endorsed candidates.

2. WHY ARE YOU RUNNING? WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU SEE FOR BROOKLINE? WHERE WILL YOU FOCUS?

My spouse and I moved across the river to Brookline in 2018 to live near friends. Since then, we’ve discovered what a wonderful place Brookline is: the parks, the small businesses, the convenience of transit, the kindness of people. I can walk my friends’ children to school and to various parks in minutes.

However, few people I know can move here. We were able to afford our place because we both have privileged tech jobs. Brookline’s libraries have a huge range of amenities, but they don’t have a huge range of people to serve. Brookline’s schools are excellent, and they’re effectively private schools because of the cost of living here.

I want to welcome a lot more people to Brookline. And that’s in line with our town’s values! I think we have the skills and the commitment to enable many more people to move here, while also grappling with climate change, and without sacrificing the things that make Brookline such a great place to live and raise families.

3. BUDGET PRIORITES: What budget items would you increase, decrease, or leave the same?

The simplistic answer is that I would increase funding for affordable housing and social services, and proportionally decrease the police budget as other Town departments stand up to take over some of their function (see below). However, there is a great deal more to say! Town revenues have been artificially suppressed by state law (Prop 2 ½), and the impact of this is felt across all budget categories, from schools to roads.

The Brookline Fiscal Advisory Board made many recommendations for solving this problem, and the Town should adopt them. One that stands out is to establish a strategic plan for operating overrides such as the one on the May ballot. This would enable us to do long-term planning for revenues that grow in tandem with our population and with inflation, and would change the conversation about budgeting dramatically.

4. LABOR/PUBLIC EMPLOYEES: After collective bargaining, Town union contracts come to Town Meeting for approval. As such, what are your views on Town Meeting’s role in approving contracts? How would you fairly allocate the Town’s limited funds among educators, firefighters, police officers, DPW, etc.?

It is clear that the current role of Town Meeting is not working. Having only a yes/no vote at the end of the process, yet also expecting and being expected to weigh in on any aspect that looks questionable, directly leads to needless conflict and delay.

We elect the Select Board to conduct negotiations and to bargain fairly on behalf of the Town. If Town Meeting could improve this process, then TMMs should get engaged much earlier. Otherwise, we should trust the process.

5. HOUSING – What are your views on land use policy, and more specifically, (a) [briefly] changing 1 and 2 family zones to multifamily, and (b) [more extensively] the proposed MBTA-CA “upzoning” of Harvard Street? How should the Town best balance its housing needs with the preservation of our local businesses? (If you haven’t followed the issue of MBTA-CA, start with the Select Board’s 1/31/23 Packet and Minutes)

I support mixed-use and multifamily zoning in the entire Transit Parking Overlay District, along with other density measures such as eliminating parking minimums and reducing setbacks. I know from personal experience that this area has tremendous potential and can support families of all sizes, including those without cars.
I support the MBTA-CA. Our entire region is facing a desperate housing shortfall. Brookline has committed to addressing it (by joining, e.g, the MAPC Regional Housing Task Force pact), but town structures and other factors have made progress slow. The MBTA-CA is a blunt tool, but it motivates us to solve these problems, and still gives us the flexibility to guide development towards Brookline historic styles.

To the latter point: I live in a lovely 120-year-old multifamily building that I once saw used in a city planning presentation as a positive example of Harvard St. design patterns – but like much of our historic housing, it would not be permitted by today’s zoning. We can fix that.

6. CLIMATE/ENVIRONMENT/OPEN SPACE – Town Meeting has passed many initiatives, including encouraging alternative transportation, net-zero building, electric vehicles, and green electricity through aggregation. What involvement, if any, have you had with such issues, and what are your thoughts for where we might focus next?

Brookline’s land use has the greatest potential to reduce our environmental impact. The initiatives Town Meeting has already passed, including the ZEAB Warrant Articles this past fall, are meaningful steps that I support. They are also pieces of a bigger picture.

Denser housing and accessible mass transit greatly reduce the carbon impact of day-to-day living. Multifamily housing is more efficient to heat and cool; shared parks require less space (and can be more fun!) than yards; transit means less need for cars. Brookline has already shown we can build dense buildings and beautiful parks and support multiple transit options. We have the opportunity to do so much more, and to enable more people to live low-carbon lives here instead of carbon-intensive lives elsewhere.

As for my personal involvement: While I donate to environmental action groups, take transit and bike rather than drive, and pay for composting, my greatest involvement here is simply supporting new housing, such as the project at 500 Harvard. I hope to extend this involvement by sitting on Town Meeting.

8. RACIAL CLIMATE: How do you perceive Brookline’s racial climate (i) in the Town workforce, (ii) in our schools, and (iii) in town, generally – especially as you perceive Brookline as compared with elsewhere in MA and USA.

Part of being on Town Meeting is to learn more about people’s experiences and their suggestions for making Brookline live up to its ideals. All of America has a lot of work to do here; Brookline has more than some, but simply comparing us to other places doesn’t really seem relevant to me. Let’s learn from our residents, and from other municipalities that have succeeded in becoming more welcoming and more diverse.

9. POLICE DEPARTMENT: (a) What are your views on Brookline PD, including as compared to policing in America? Specifically, with short answers: (b) How much priority should (have) be(en) given to promoting an insider vs. seeking an outsider; and (c) Do you see a need for significant cuts in Police spending to fund other services?

(a) My personal experience with the Brookline Police (as a white person!) has been positive. I also wholeheartedly support the recommendation of the Task Force to Reimagine Policing to create a separate social services department. These are not in contradiction!

I have twice witnessed interactions between the police and people who were behaving erratically, and both times the police handled it as well as I could have hoped. And both times Brookline could have done much better. The police are not ideal first responders here, both because the options they can offer are highly limited, and because once they arrive the potential for escalation becomes unbounded. This is true no matter how good a police department is. Their role is criminal justice, not social services.

(b) Conducting an external search for candidates and considering them alongside internal candidates is a responsible process for such a critical role. We did the same for Town Administrator, and Charles Carey, who happened to be an external candidate, has been an excellent choice.

Ashley Gonzalez was obviously the wrong choice (though I commend the police department and the Select Board for acting quickly to dismiss him – I’ve seen similar situations take far longer). This is a reason to revisit our process and work to improve it – not to conclude that it’s always better to hire internally.

(c) Yes; see my answer to (a). We don’t ask the police to provide ambulance service or to do restaurant health inspections, and we should not ask them to provide specialized social services.

10. MAY 2 BALLOT QUESTIONS: What are your views on (i) the Operating Budget Override(s); (ii) the Pierce School Debt Exclusion; and, (iii) the limiting of marijuana licenses?

(i) Yes, we should pass the Override (and then plan ahead for our next override, as costs cannot be expected to increase by 2.5% a year indefinitely). We need this money to run the Town. Yes for Brookline explains this well and succinctly.

(ii) Yes, we should pass the Exclusion. Pierce is in bad shape, we have a thoroughly considered project plan, and the state is ready to kick in money to support that plan. Let’s pass it.

(iii) State law already limits licenses to a pretty small number; I don’t see a need to limit them further.