The Issues

Keeping Brookline Green

While Brookline has made progress toward becoming a greener town, there are still areas of tremendous potential. Encouraging the use of public transit, walking, and cycling reduces congestion and air pollution. Improving energy efficiency of public buildings reduces waste. Improving our parks and paths will result in citizens' increased enjoyment of our greenspaces.

Green Transit

  • Biodiesel for school buses and Brookline DPW vehicles.
  • Adequate shelters and handicap accessibility for all C and D line MBTA stops.
  • More benches near bus stops.
  • More bicycle racks in commercial centers and near government buildings and schools.
  • More bicycle lanes, thereby creating more predictibility for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.
  • An increased number of hybrid and other high MPG vehicles in the town fleet.
  • Continue the conversion of traffic lights and street lights to LEDs, which will reduce both energy consumption and maintenance requirements.
  • Require that Brookline taxi fleets phase high MPG vehicles such as hybrids into their fleets.
  • Work with the MBTA to implement traffic signal prioritization for bus and streetcar routes.

Green Buildings

  • Install green or solar roofs on public buildings.
  • Increase municipal use of green (renewable) energy, phased in over time.
  • Require that all municipal and school buildings are cleaned with certified green cleaning products.
  • Use zoning bylaws as a tool for incorporating energy efficiency and sustainability into private development projects.
  • Introduce recycling to all Brookline schools in a coordinated manner, incorporating an educational component.
  • Mandate that businesses in Brookline recycle, just as residents are required.
  • Give the "green light" to captial improvement projects which will lower town building energy bills.

Green Spaces

  • Continue to increase the capital budget for street trees at or above the rate of inflation.
  • Increase maintainance on sidewalks and intersections, such as:
    • repairing sections with fall hazards;
    • installing more curb cuts at intersections for wheelchair accessibility;
    • increasing frequency of crosswalk repainting;
    • ensuring that crosswalks are accessible after snow storms;
    • ensuring that all crosswalk signals and buttons are functioning properly.
  • Properly maintain and repair foot paths and foot bridges.

Transportation Safety

Our neighborhood faces a number of transportation safety issues, including personal safety near MBTA stops in the evening, speeding along Carlton Street and in the Cottage Farm area, frequent double parking in the bicycle lane on Beacon Street, inadequate snow removal on our sidewalks, and a Beacon Street project which has reduced the number of crosswalks on Beacon Street and whose curb cuts and walk signals have made crossing substantially less safe for pedestrians, particularly those neighbors who are disabled. While I can't promise to fix all of these problems, I can promise that I will continue to exert pressure on the Department of Public Works, the Transportation Board, our selectmen, and our state legislators to improve the safety for all who use our roads, paths, and sidewalks: drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

Managing Town Debt

Brookline is one of just a few cities and towns in Massachusetts with credit rated Aaa by Moody's. However, Brookline is walking a tenuous financial line—the town debt projection is $105 million for fiscal year 2017. The payments on our current loans are almost $13 million per year, and will be closer to $18 million by 2017. Town Meeting must work with the Selectmen to make sure that this debt gradually decreases, thereby reducing the amount of tax money funneled to banks and investors instead of city services and schools. More budget information is available here.

Furthermore, Brookline has underfunded its pension obligations about $100 million (source). In private industry, unfunded pensions have left retirees with no way to purchase food, housing, and medicine. Brookline must honor its commitments to those civil servants who worked hard for the benefit of our town. The current plan to be fully funded in 2025 should be made more ambitious.

Finally, other post employment benefits (OPEBs) are also underfunded, to the tune of $208 million. That is to say that it will cost Brookline $208M to meet the non-pension promises we've made to our current employees, obligations which we hadn't been putting aside monies to fund. Fortunately, the Town has begun to make progress on this obligation, and in FY12 the Town will add approximately $1.5M to the $9.5M already contributed. OPEBs won't be fully funded in 2040; Brookline won't even be fully funding our ongoing obligations until approximately 2020. Once the pension plan is fully funded, the Town should use that line item to speed our meeting of our OPEB obligations.

All of these issues have been identified and addressed by the Selectmen and Town Meeting in the past ten years, but due to insufficient contributions and a bearish market, the pension unfunded ratio and the OBEB defecit have gotten worse over that time period. It's quite easy to buy something now and put off payments until some future date. I assure you that I will keep a close eye on these debts Brookline holds, working to make sure that interest payments on debt are reduced and to ensure that Brookline honors its financial obligations to those who have worked for her in the past.

Democratic Values

While the Town Meeting Member position is officially nonpartisan, don't think that political ideology doesn't come through in Town Meeting votes. I'm proud to be Democratic, for I believe in preserving civil liberties and equal rights for all people, affordable and accessible health care for all, sustainable environmental and energy policies, and appropriate investment in education and public infrastructure. While specific issues on the national and statewide scenes aren't always the same as those in Brookline, the principles and priorities I believe are important nationally and in the Commonwealth are the same ones that I believe are important in our precinct.