My Take on the election, Last nights forum on Dedham TV and a recap of my views and why I'm running.

   Good evening, I'll start by touching on the forum and the election. I just want to say thank you to Dedham TV for holding the event and for the concerned citizens that came out and to anyone who watched. I thought we all made our points and spoke well for the most part. I think we have eight terrific people who genuinely care about the town. I feel all of our intentions are good. I know some better then others and I can honestly say I truly like and admire all of my opponents. The thing that bothers me is while the intent for running is admirable and I admire all of them, when the votes are counted and two of us win and six of us don't, the question I have is whoever does end up in those two seats what will they do? Will they be a voice? Will they try to invoke change? Will that change be good for our town?
   I'm not naming names and I'm not being critical. I'm simply being honest. I see a few who I feel might be a voice, from many of the rest I hear a lot of talk, but not too many real ideas. I've heard many times, I have ideas or I would look into this and I'd look into that or we need to be careful or we don't want to do more harm than good and that's not just one candidate that's multiple candidates. In all fairness until we actually break down the town's budget it would be unfair of me to be critical of those statements. However the first question I have is while all the projects we have done were needed were we careful the last 13 years and as far as our tax payers are concerned haven't we already done more harm than good?
   I understand completely that the town was way too conservative in the 80's and 90's and the early 2000's and we didn't have a lot of projects and we left a lot of needed projects from being taken care of go for far too long which is part of why we have the tax mess we have. In defense of the tax payers though we also wasted money in that time. The biggest example is the Middle School. I remember in 2005 we spent money to put brand new windows in the old middle school and then we repaved the tennis courts and refurbished the ball field. A lot of money was spent and then subsequently wasted as the field and that brand new court were ripped out so that the new school could go in and then we tore down the building we put all the new windows in so we essentially paid twice for projects on that same property and wasted money. We also have a ball field now where the old middle school stood that gets nowhere's the use the old field used to get because it is too small. 
   I bring this up because last night it seems like folks think that we are looking into making cuts in the budget that could hurt departments including the schools. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I personally plan on looking for examples of places we waste money or overspend. I don't plan on hurting any core services if I'm elected. I can give you an example of that in our current spending. We have 8 different plans for a municipal campus most if not all include a senior center. For one why do we have 8 plans, that seems wasteful, second why are we still paying for a search committee for a senior center if the senior center is included in these plans. It would make me think the search is over would it not? This is what I'm talking about.
   Last night a citizen asked about a $200,000 cut in the school budget. This is one of the few questions I didn't answer. The reason I didn't is because it was an unfair question. The reason it was unfair is because it was a misleading question. The school budget was not cut at all. It was actually increased. It just wasn't increased to the level the school board requested. I know this because it was part of Bill Keegan's presentation at FinCom. I care about education. I was given an education by this school system and so was my nephew, I coached CYO basketball for St. Mary's and I'm proud to say all my students at the High School level graduated and went on to college and they are going to make their mark on the world someday, maybe they will stay here and do that for us. Needless to say not every department gets the funding they want every year. As a state employee I deal with that every fiscal year. We have fireman and policeman still eagerly waiting for a new contract that includes cost of living increases. The teachers got their new contract last year and the school budget was increased this year so I feel we are making the commitment to the schools and will continue to do so. We easily could be Norwood who is cutting bus service to the Middle School and High School. 
   A question from the moderators was would any of us pledge to not increase taxes. Because the budget is pretty much done and we already know there will be an increase in property tax between 1.9% and 2.88% naturally I thought this pledge was for FY 2016 and I said yes, the others said no(I found out after the broadcast they were referring to FY'15 so that was an error on my part). I found one candidates answer sarcastic and disrespectful in the way they said no. We are talking about all of us being increased 80% over a 12 year period and personally I expect better from all of us. Personally this is the only thing about the campaign I have been disappointed in thus far. 
   I feel that in FY'16 we should draw that proverbial line in the sand. We can't endlessly continue to tax our residents out of town. Right now we have elderly folks who still own homes and are on fixed budgets and when they have to pay these increases that means they have to spend less on food or less on heating their home. I have friends who have moved to Norwood or West Roxbury or somewhere local to Dedham that the tax rate doesn't kill them to be a home owner. We are legitimately doing something wrong here. 
   Well I'm going to move on by giving a recap about myself and why I'm running and what issues are important:
   About me: I'm a lifelong resident of the town, I'm a direct descendant of the Fairbanks Family, I am a 1990 graduate of Dedham High School, I am a 2000 Graduate of Massachusetts Bay Community College with and Associates in Paralegal Studies. I work for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. I've been with the secretariat for 13 years, the past 6 of which I have served as the Payroll Supervisor at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital(fun fact Lemuel Shattuck is also on my family tree). I have coached in town for Dedham Youth Soccer, Dedham Youth Basketball and St. Mary's CYO Basketball. I also co-founded the towns Challenger Basketball league which is now run by Pathfinders, the special needs program division of our wonderful Park and Recreation Department. I am proudest of the this more than any other accomplishment I've made. The reason being is it made these kids lives just a little bit better. They got to play like other kids and be part of a team. If I'm elected I would take that mentality into that seat. It isn't about me it's about all of us. All of us are part of the team that puts Dedham on the right track. There is a position for everyone in town on that team. That's the mentality we need if we want it to happen.
   What finally made me decide to run: I was told of a charter change that would put all the department heads under the town administrator and by doing so would allow the town to change his title to town manager. The Park and Rec Commission and the Library Trustees were against this and personally so was I. I am personally sick of our elected officials giving in to complacency by allowing someone we didn't hire to control way to much of our operation and our tax dollars. I understand the selectman have to look that budget(he presents) over before it goes to town meeting and ultimately town meeting approves it, but we haven't had blue books for 3 years that show the line items so town meeting has no idea what they are voting yes too. We have done nothing but cater to the town administrator for years, making charter changes so he wouldn't have to move here, giving him gas stipends, putting him up in hotels during in climate weather on our dime not to mention the big salary he's made. I'm not as upset with the salary as I am with the fact that he hired an HR Director. At first I was on board with this only to find out he came from an HR background and when he was hired he was expected to also be the HR director. so now he is leaving and we have an extra person on the payroll that we shouldn't have hired, so again we have a place where money was wasted. These are things we need to look at when we hire a new town administrator. 
   The Biggest Surprise of the campaign: Well in case you couldn't tell from my comments above my intention was to run against Sarah MacDonald and Paul Reynolds. While I respect them and appreciate the fact that they volunteered when elected to be part of the governing body of our town, I felt there was too much of a movement to make the town something it's not and to give way too much power to a person that wasn't an elected official. I knew in October the time for complaining was over and the time for action was here and that's why I'm in this race. Unfortunately they decided they got what they wanted out of their experience and have moved on. 
   Where I stand on the budget and Transparency: Well we haven't had blue books that show the line items for each department and we haven't had that for three years. I have a problem with this. We have no idea where money has been invested and no idea where it was spent. We know what departments got, but we don't know if they spent to that budget or if money came back that wasn't used. We have no idea. While we all agree we need transparency, we need a plan to have transparency. For starters the town administrator before he leaves for Foxboro should start the process of getting our books up to date. If he can't complete it the acting Town Administrator and the staff should complete this and a system for completing the books every year should be put in place when a new town administrator is hired. I also think we should develop an open checkbook system much like the Commonwealth uses and also the City of Boston and other municipalities have adopted. This would be an online tool that we would put on the town website so we can see where our tax money is going and what it is being used for. We have a sitting board member, Jim MacDonald who is a 39 year veteran with the Treasurer's office who could lend some expertise to a process like this.
   Taxes and the possibility of a residential exemption: Well anyone who reads me or has heard me speak. I think taxes in this town are out of control. Part of this is inflation, part of this is the lack of projects for the better part of two decades. Part of this is also waste like the examples I gave above. My plan would be to identify waste, eliminate that waste and then look at the budget and see what cost effective changes we can make that don't hurt core services or the schools and we level taxes off. Down the road as we continue to be more frugal with our spending I feel we could do a small residential exemption and give our homeowners a little something back for the contribution we have made to the town. We should be promoting the idea of owning a home and creating roots in our community not taxing people to the point that they have to leave it.
   The Senior Center/Municipal Campus and a crazy idea to get two elementary schools and the civic complex done too: I completely agree with this concept. We've outgrown town hall, talk of a senior center has gone on since I've been 10 years old. The police and fire stations have long out lived their useful lives. Now the talk I hear is this project will cost roughly 20-26 million to complete. The Robin Reyes fund has 4.4 million in it. The town has a terrific AAA rating and could take out a 30 year note for around 3% that we could pay annually using the fund. This was an idea that was thrown out at the discussion on Dedham TV. I have a better idea. I would reach out to our businesses to see who would be willing to donate to this project. Businesses like donating. Especially to a town they do business in. They get a tax write off and they also give back to the community they do business in. It's a win win for our town and for them. If we could get half of this project funded through donations we could do a 15 year note instead and pay for this faster or we could still do a 30 year note and we could add Oakdale School and Riverdale School as well as the civic complex to this project and we could complete the municipal campus, the civic complex and two schools in one project. Then the whole town wins. We have a senior center and civic complex(that can start generating revenue for us once complete) and two schools and everybody wins and we have the funding. 
   The new town administrator search: Although a plan was put in place to begin the search by the current sitting board I have my own ideas on this. For starters I work in Human Resources and have conducted countless interviews and hired staff and have a successful record doing so. I also want to start the search here in Dedham. I would prefer to have a Dedham resident in that job. We need someone that shares our perspective and understands us as voters. Someone that understands the community. His or her decisions on the budget or taxes hits them just like it hits us. I think we need that. If we can't find someone from here that we are comfortable with or we can't find a qualified candidate then I feel we should widen the search to folks who live elsewhere and I wouldn't be opposed to an outsider, but I do think that person would need to learn about the community and the tax payers and stake holders.
   I'm finally going to wrap this up by saying this is me. This is what I can bring. I spoke about folks who are running that might be a voice. I'm telling you here and now I will be our voice on the board. We all have a voice and I will represent us with dignity and respect and I will be vocal and will do what is necessary to implement all of the things I've spoken about. I feel this is what we deserve and I intend on doing whatever it takes to make it happen. We deserve better. We can do better. We can do better together, but it starts on April 12th. I'm asking you humbly to entrust one of your two votes to me so I can help get us get to better. Thank you so very much.