This is from the Newton Teachers Association.
The Newton Teachers Association is pleased to announce its endorsement of candidates for office in Newton’s November 3rd election.
The candidates we are endorsing each answered a questionnaire that the Newton Teachers association made available to all candidates for contested offices. Questions were intended to gauge expertise and experience, commitment to public education, and support for collective bargaining. Candidates’ responses were shared with members of our Executive Board and Representative Assembly. The latter, the NTA governing body, voted unanimously on Tuesday, October 21, to endorse the following candidates:
For Alderman-at-large:
Ward 2:
Susan S. Albright
Marcia T. Johnson
Ward 5:
Deborah J. Crossley
Ward 8:
David A. Kalis
Richard A. Lipof
For Charter Commission:
Jane O’Connor Frantz
Bryan P. Barash
Brooke Lipsitt
Howard M. Haywood
Christopher Steele
Joshua Krintzman
Rhanna Kidwell
Anne M. Larner
Karen Manning
I find it bizarre that the NTA didn’t endorse any School Committee candidates even though they asked us a bunch of questions.
Thank you to the NTA for their endorsement if elected I promise to serve worthy of their trust.
I didn’t answer their questionnaire because it was mostly about whether we support overrides or not. If they weren’t going to put any thought into the question, I wasn’t going to answer it. I am sure these questions got sent to the candidates for the Board, Sc and CC. They preach individual thought and yet they don’t practice it.
Thank you to the NTA, I appreciate your support!
This is an honor, thank you to the NTA for your support!
I agree Tom. I saw their questions for Charter Commission candidates (I’m going to post them separately). They had little to do with the charter.
If the NTA wants to get involved in political races, why not endorse School Committee candidates?
Gail,
I don’t mind them endorsing, but how about some thought into it. I’d also like to know what happened to ward 3 race (Hess-mahan, cote and malakie). Very, very odd.
It seems like they had predetermined candidates. If you ask them, I doubt they know what the charter is. Instead of educating people, they seem to add onto the ignorance.
Who’s surprised at their endorsements?
Isn’t there an appearance of conflict of interest being that Jane Frantz is on the NTA Executive Committee? Sounds like there may be…
@Tom: You are taking a Village 14 poll way too seriously.
I wonder what happened regarding wards 1 and 3?
Is it a coincidence that Jane is at the top of the list?
This is perplexing and I am sincerely dismayed by this breach – what does a union representing a labor force, only some of whom live in Newton, have to do with the more general concept of re-examining and perhaps revising the City Charter that applies to ALL citizens? What exactly do specific financial overrides for one sliver of the population have to do with the overall City Charter?
I’m disappointed – I have to re-think my potential vote for all those the NTA endorsed for the City Charter Commission, amid concerns of possible favoritism for one group of citizens over another. There are conflicts of interest at work here as well…
Tom, I don’t know about the other candidates from Wards 1 and 3, but I never received a questionnaire from the NTA.
Gail-
You’re right.
Ted,
The questionnaire was an attachment in an email, roughly 4 weeks ago.
Thanks, Tom. From whom? It is conceivable that I missed it, but I just searched all of my email accounts and did not find anything when I searched for “NTA,” “Newton Teachers Association,” and “questionnaire.”
Well, I deleted it, but from what I remember it was either from the NTA or Michael Zilles. (who is the head of the union…as you know).
To be clear, I heard about the questionnaire after other candidates did when I received an email from another candidate asking me about it.
There are two groups of people in the NTA. One is the Executive Board and each member has a designated area of responsibility. My primary role is legislative action and in that role, I organize meetings and contact with our State Reps about issues related to public education, run phone banks for state candidates, find people to attend hearings related to public education, etc. Last spring, I organized a forum with Reps. Khan and Balser to discuss unfunded mandates that cities and towns must pay for and 50 educators attended it. The following month, I did a forum with Sen. Creem about the same topic with the same turnout. Most of the discussions related to the poor quality of the Parcc test. The NTA has a positive working relationship with our Reps. and State Sen. We provide good input, they listen well, then they are very honest with us about the challenges we face in getting legislation passed.
The Representative Assembly (the RA) is the other group with one representative from each elementary school, 3 from each middle school, and 5 from each high school. The representatives meet monthly to provide feedback about issues and concerns in the schools. The RA is the grassroots piece of the NTA.
The RA voted on endorsements based on the responses to the questions in part. However, Gail left out the most important question:
1. Tell us about your background and why you are interested in running for Charter Commission. In particular, could you tell us your background and participation in civic service in Newton?
I have not discussed the follow-up questions with Mike Zilles, but I was glad that candidates who do not have direct involvement in the Newton schools had an opportunity to express support for public education in a substantive way.
I received a call on Wednesday to tell me that I would be asked to leave the RA after the discussion of the first issue that had nothing to do with the elections. When I was asked to leave of course I did and did not hear from anyone until today.
The questionnaire was from Mike Zilles.
Can we see the candidates’ responses? Are they on a website? It would be a shame if the NTA collected valuable information from people running from office and it not make it available.
I called this afternoon and was told that the questionnaires will be online, probably by the end of the weekend.
Jeffrey,
I wouldn’t count on it.
When I ran for Mayor the NTA had a similar questionnaire and before I filled it out, I made them promise me that I could see each individual answer from their Q’s. They promised that they would and send it the answers to their union members. I wanted to make sure their endorsements were on the up and up. Of course they did neither.
The answers for the 2 finalists were posted. I read both online.
Tom, I hope that does not happen this time.
Jane, I don’t understand what you mean by the “2 finalists.”
Big picture, there is no hard information for the charter race. It would be very valuable to be able to compare candidates answers to the same questions. Instead of having debates and meet-and-greets, I would rather see how everyone responds to the same 20 questions for which the answers are “Yes,” “No,” or “no current opinion.”
Jeffrey,
Jane was answering my comment about the NTA not having all of the mayoral candidates answers on line just the final two. Thats what I was afraid of.
Jane,
The Questionnaire was answered before the preliminary, they promised to have all 4 questionnaires on line before the prliminary.
Tom – I don’t have any information about the preliminary in that race. I’ll be sure to follow up with the NTA on this race, as I’m sure other candidates will as well.
Jeffrey – I’ve been to several forums with low voter turnout, but I’ve talked to many residents at village events, canvassing, calling, etc. I guess we all wish for a more informative process – candidates and voters alike – for all races.
As an aside, I assume people know that the police and firefighters also endorsed candidates and we know very little about their endorsement process. I’d hate to see the take away from this be the less said the better.
Jane–I think unions should be free to use whatever information they want to endorse a candidate. That being said, if a candidate answers questions in writing, the union provides a public service in making this information available in one location. I can’t think of a good reason not to do so.
Jeffrey, agreed, I wouldn’t mind seeing the information sheets, even if I share a lot of the same candidates as the NTA. Not all though.
I give the various union endorsements some limited value, but far less than in a regional election. It just helps to form a complete picture of the candidates to know who supports them and why. Just a piece of the puzzle. I give this as much weight frankly as Stephen’s helpful list from a few days ago. Useful, but I’ve got my own mind (despite what some of you think….)
The NTA plans to do so and I agree it’s a public service.
Just beware that not everyone answered the questionnaire because it looked like a joke.
Well, Gail, I checked again, and I guess Mike Zilles forgot to send me a questionnaire.
That’s okay. I still got the endorsement of the most important member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association I know. She just happens to be my wife.
This is my response to the questions I received from Michael Zilles which I sent to him on 10/15.
I am a Newton native and a product of the Newton Public Schools. I have a background in managing housing needs and coordinating services for adults with a mental illness, as well as environmental activism and education, and I currently work part time for the Boston Globe as a digital service support specialist. I also served for several years on the boards of the Newton Conservators, the LWV-Newton and I currently serve on the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. I have two children in 6th and 8th grade who attend Bigelow Middle School.
My long term involvement with environmental issues, the Lincoln Eliot PTO and with the League of Women Voters got me thinking about running for local office. I have a strong commitment to public service and deep ties to my community. Serving the last two years as an alderman has certainly one of my proudest achievements, and has allowed me the opportunity participate first hand on a broad range of issues, including supporting and maintaining our excellent school system.
I am thrilled that we are on budget and on schedule with building three new elementary schools, and very pleased with the recent purchase of the former Aquinas Jr. College site which will dramatically expanded our school capacity on the North side, and will allow us to ultimately house the entire pre-school program on one site.
I would not support any new overrides in the near term, but I would never rule it out altogether in the future. I am very cognizant of the impact of higher property taxes on our working families, seniors and other residents of moderate means. I supported the last override because it was based on pressing school needs, and the money was earmarked for very specific projects.
Yes, I support the Mayor’s capital improvement plan. It’s a living document and our priorities can change.
The administration has recently announced that a third party actuary has confirmed the administration’s funding strategy, which will enable Newton to eliminate the city’s unfunded pension liability by the year 2029 and the Other Post-Employment Benefits Liability by the year 2042. I think this is a significant beginning, but this is a long and complicated problem, and it is far from solved. Currently, the City has a combined pension and retiree health insurance unfunded liability of around a billion dollars. The retiree health insurance liability is particularly problematic with only 0.3% actually funded by the City.
It will be tough to come up with the money to fund all our programs, services and activities, as well as the pension liabilities over the next 15-20 years. Yes, we can expand economic activity and our commercial tax base, but that too has its limits. In the future we may require employee compensation concessions that help us come to terms with this liability. However, this would be a last resort for me. We also want to attract and retain an excellent workforce. At this point, I think we need to consider all options
The possibility of providing health insurance through the GIC should be considered if it can offer high quality health insurance at a better price. This should be negotiated with the unions. What we should be doing is providing health insurance through a federal, single payer plan like every other developed country in the world. Health insurance is a right of every citizen, just like a good quality public education.
And yes, I support collective bargaining rights.
I’m honored to have received the endorsement of the Newton Teachers Association.
Regardless of whether one likes or dislikes the criteria on which they were made, we should all support people, groups and organizations taking an interest in the Charter Commission process. The process is extremely important and could end up having a lasting effect on our city. More involvement is my preference, not less. Thank you NTA!
Thank you, NTA.
So…it’s looking like the NTA sent the same questionnaire to candidates regardless of office they are seeking.
@Jane: Do you know why they didn’t endorse SC candidates?
Thank you very much to the NTA. Very humbled and pleased to have the endorsement!
One quick note on Ted’s observation above. I too did not originally receive the questionnaire, and had to request it from other folks once I knew it was in the field.
I have no idea. I wasn’t at the Representative Assembly during the discussions/votes and haven’t spoken to anyone about it.
On a quick note, collective bargaining has come under attack throughout the country so it’s become a key issue for unions making endorsements for any position in this day and age.
While I think Mark Marderosian is overreacting a bit to the boilerplate NTA questionaire on another thread (what do we expect out of a union?), I agree with him that it’s pathetic to see Charter candidates falling over themselves with gratitude to the union for the endorsement.
Why should we care about the NTA’s view of the Charter Commission? Just carry on and do your job.
If I had a dollar for every time I said “thank you” in the last two months, I’d be a wealthy woman!
Looks like everyone is on equal footing in Ward 3. No worries NTA I will always support public education. As the saying goes: “My answers to your questions are in the mail.”
To NTA, I am honored not to have received your endorsement. Not getting your endorsement enforces my belief that I am doing things impartially and correct. In my speech, I toldNewton I was going to do whats best for them, not whats best for a special interest group. So thanks for solidifying that concept. As an independent I don’t cowtail to anyone. So, thanks for the lack of endorsement.