Three Newton City Councilors — Amy Mah Sangiolo, Scott Lennon and Ruthanne Fuller are off and running for mayor. Do you have a favorite yet? Are you hoping someone else will run? If so, who? Vote in our poll and explain your vote in the comment section.
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I’m delighted that there’s already three highly qualified candidates. I’ll be voting for the candidate who’s ready to tell the property tax exempt institutions in Newton that their free ride is over. This is a point of basic fairness that simply must be addressed. Mayor Mann got the ball rolling decades ago when he sent property tax bills to exempt institutions like BC, and embarrassed them into a PILOT program [payment in lieu of taxes]. But that’s not enough anymore. Taxes must be levied fairly. I’m excited to see which of these mayoral candidates has the courage to take this on.
I’m with Mike on this issue. Unfortunately, I bgeluieve every candidate will say they are in favor of the PILOT program (afterall, who would be against more revenue) it comes down to who can create the relationships and implement successfully.
One day I’ll be moving to Florida, I have Fort Myers as the place I will move to. There they are a AAA bond community with a pt mayor and city manager form of government. They have a non-profit committee (or commission). I think this could benefit Newton. If the non-profits felt part of the city, I think it would be easier to ask for money. They also have a non-profit incubator. In many respects they are waaaaay ahead of us and we can learn from them (no snickering…we can learn from anyone).
@Tom: I love the idea of a non-profit committee. Have you talked to the mayoral candidates about that?
Bryan, I’m done with politics and helping this city out. Please feel free to pick up the ball, it’s just an idea I threw out there/
Amy Sangiolo is smart, thoughtful and dedicated – she has my support.
Greg, do you have 1800 people looking at this site. almost 1800 people voted in the poll. Come on.
Time to retire these polls, Greg. All they measure is which campaign intern is staying up later into the night, opening new Incognito windows and punching in the vote.
It does get frustrating. In fact that exact same thing happened during the Ward 2 At Large Contest two years ago. This guy who was challenging the two incumbents, used to win those polls by ridiculously margins too.
Most interesting detail … the None of the Above intern managed to get 21 votes in.
My smarm radar is telling me you may be referring to me. In point of truth, I lost those polls, because I was, you know, out talking to voters.
@Jake – You may have been out talking to voters but it looks like your intern must have been hard at work..
… but yes, these polls should in no way be considered accurate scientific measurements of voter sentiment. They’re just a way to entertain the readers of Village14 and torture the candidates.