Making Arlington great involves lots of meetings! Here are some where I've
pitched in.
Mass. Ave. Review Committee—The Select Board set up this committee to oversee planning for the redesign of Mass. Ave. in East Arlington, which was completed in 2015.
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Rebuilding Mass. Ave in 2014 |
This project was controversial! I was one of 10 "community" members added to the committee in 2009 to work through some of the conflicts.
My interest in Mass. Ave. stemmed from crossing that road every morning at rush hour to walk my daughter to school.
I started my blog, "The Word on the Street," to report on the work of this committee and explore related issues.
Everywhere Arlington Livable Streets Coalition—This neighborhood group focuses on traffic, sustainability, and other quality-of-life issues. It organizes a Minuteman and Alewife Greenway cleanup in the spring.
I've been a member of the coalition's Advisory Board since 2009.
Electronic Voting Study Committee—This committee produced the information that Town Meeting used to decide to purchase and use a secure system for tallying votes.
The main benefit is a record of how individual TM representatives vote, something that previously could only be recorded through time-consuming, and hence unusual, roll-call votes.
I was very active on this committee, taking the minutes and working closely with the chair, Eric Helmuth, and the Town Moderator, John Leone. (Want to see my minutes?)
This was a hard-working group of Arlington residents that helped TM to make a good decision in an informed way.
Community Preservation—In 2014, I joined with others in town to campaign for local adoption of the state Community Preservation Act.
This law allows cities and towns to establish a fund for special projects in housing, open space, and historical preservation.
Since these projects are funded by a small surcharge on the property tax, this is a big "ask." The law requires the issue to go before voters as a binding local ballot question.
Arlington voters
approved the proposal
in the 2014 election. Today the Town's
CPA Committee
has brought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of thoughtful projects to
Town Meeting for funding.
The campaign was organized by the Arlington Community Preservation Act Ballot Question Committee. My roles included co-managing the campaign website and designing and producing the town-wide mailer to voters.
Residential Study Group—The Town Manager established this task force in response to a resolution that I introduced at Town Meeting in 2016.
The group brought to Town Meeting proposals to discourage the "garage under" style of new construction, and to manage better the impact of construction in residential neighborhoods.
I was not as active on this committee as I would have liked, since it mostly
met during working hours. But other members did a terrific job and I was
pleased to support their work at Town Meeting.