town election

Last week, I heard Greg Agnew was planning to run for Sewer Commissioner...then, this morning, I saw Jason Lee's Facebook status and had to go check for myself. Sure enough, as Jim Connors took out papers today, the position has now become the most hotly-contested race on the ballot.

School Committee is not far behind, as 4 candidates vie for 2 positions. The current list of potential candidates who have pulled papers can be found here.

So what does a sewer commissioner do? Well, according the Town Charter:

SECTION 3. Sewer Commission  
4-3-1 A board of sewer commissioners of three members shall be elected for three year overlapping terms.
Members may receive such compensation as may be appropriated by the town meeting.  
4-3-2 The board of sewer commissioners shall be responsible for the development of general goals and long
term plans for the town’s sewer system and shall also establish the fees, user charges or rates necessary to
fully fund the sewer system operations.

The Westwood Board of Selectmen and Planning Board will hold a joint meeting tonight (Monday, July 20, 2009) at 7:30pm at Town Hall to choose from nine individuals who have applied for the open position on the Planning Board. After discussion, the Board of Selectmen and three of four members of the Planning Board (Steve Rafsky is unable to attend) will vote to select one person to fill the seat of retiring member Henry Gale. In addition to seven new individuals who applied for the position, both candidates who lost in the 4-way contest this Spring (David Feyler and Jason Lee) have indicated interest and will be considered.

Approximately 15% of Westwood voters (1499) turned out and elected Steve Rafsky and Steve Olanoff to the Planning Board. In the Assessor's race, Mark Murphy won election to the position he had been appointed to last year.

Complete results are available on the Town website.

No endorsement from me but a few observations.

For the Board of Assessors, voters will choose between Mark Murphy and Jack Rose. You can view their statements from the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum here, after about 5 minutes of intro and 2 minutes of Nancy Hyde...just let the video load in another browser window for a few minutes while you are reading the rest of this post, then use the slider button at the bottom to skip ahead to 7:13.

For the Planning Board, I think each candidate has something valuable to offer and the choice is not simply a matter of who has the most experience or agreeable points of view. It might be helpful for people to go to the Planning Board's page on the Town Website and review the previous meeting agendas and minutes to get a feel for what these meetings are really like. Then consider whomever is elected is volunteering to participate in these meetings at least twice a month for the next 3 years. Today's issue might be recriminations about Westwood Station or frustration about a horse barn, but most of the time, it will be people who want to build stuff on their land...and the goal of the Planning Board will be to handle those requests fairly, quickly, and balance the present and future needs of the town as a whole with the desires of individuals.

The video of the forum from last weekend wil be broadcast on Comcast channel 8 at the following times:

Sat. 4/25 - 10:00AM
Sun. 4/26 - 1:00 PM

It is the same thing that is viewable online.

I am also involved with WestCAT, the Westwood Community Access Television non-profit organization. We will have some updates on our progress in setting up broadcast capabilities--for now, the contents of channel 8 are the responsibility of Comcast and are limited to coverage of Selectman's meetings and the School Board. The reason for the limited and late coverage of the candidate forum is that I did not request coverage far enough in advance for them to schedule a person to cover the forum...so I recorded it myself.

On December 11, 2008 CC&F received their special permit for Westwood Station. They have less than 2 years to start going vertical. The way I see it, time is against Westwood Station and the Town. Next year the Town will most likely be looking for an override and for all we know Westwood Station will still be a pile of dirt. Our Town Selectman and boards need to come to the realization that the project may be to big for the Town and the developer. There is no sign that the developer has any funding available to move forward.

I am not against Westwood Station, how can I be I live over by the High School so it does not directly effect me. On the other hand an override does directly effect myself and my family. Many residents in the town have said for years now that the project is just too big. That point of view fell on deaf ears from our boards who then told the residents one thing and did another.

It's time to vote someone on the board that can think outside the box and is not just another hand picked candidate from the Board of Selectman.

How can Mr Rafsky stay objective when it comes to Westwood Station? He sat on the Economic Development Advisory Board and he and Nancy Hyde are the face of Westwood Station. We need new faces, new Ideas on not only the planning board but all our boards.

I hope to garnish your Vote on Tuesday April 28.

A good number of residents turned out Sunday afternoon for the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum. Daily News Transcript coverage here. Video below:

Dedham selectman Paul Reynolds sent me a Facebook event invitation to come down to the Blue Bunny and see how Dedham meets and greets their candidates...so I swung by there this afternoon. It was a great, informal opportunity to meet people who are excited about Dedham. Our Representative, Paul McMurtry was there, as was Martin Hanley, the managing director of the James Joyce Ramble that many of us will be running in a few weeks.

The video below is just a quick clip. No debate, no candidate statements. Just people meeting each other and talking about the town. Here in Westwood, the League of Women Voters will be hosting a Candidate Forum on Sunday, April 19, from 3-5pm at the First Parsh Hall. I think informal get togethers like what Dedham did would be a great idea in Westwood to allow residents and candidates a chance to get to know each other better in a less structured environment.

There will be a meeting open to any residents of Westwood interested in discussing ways to increase citizen participation and representation from all parts of the town, on Tuesday, March 3, 7pm, at the main library, in the large downstairs meeting room.

A number of residents, with differing points of view on many issues, but sharing a desire to participate more actively and effectively in town governance, have met several times over the past few months. These discussions led Greg Agnew, Mike Walsh, and David Feyler to propose the 3 petition articles for town meeting relating to expanding the Board of Selectman membership, creating term limits, and moving the date of Town Election to a Saturday.

The purpose of this meeting, organized by David Feyler, is to continue that discussion and to talk about the positions on the ballot for Town Election. Residents interested in running have one week from the time of this meeting until the final deadline to turn in nomination papers with the required 50 signatures (recommended 60).

This meeting is not a political committee. There will be no voting, no endorsement, no "draft anybody" movement.

Town Clerk Dottie Powers has posted the most recent list of positions up for election and who has pulled nomination papers. I'm reproducing that list below and adding what job descriptions I could find.

• The "Description" is information copied from the Town Charter or elsewhere on the town website.
• "returned papers" means the person has already obtained nomination signatures and filed their petition with the Town Clerk.
• "open" means no one has pulled papers yet--not that the position is vacant.