The Ward 5 ward councilor primary is right around the corner, September 10. I’m going to send a set of questions to the Ward 5 ward candidates in the next few days.
What questions do you have from them? What matters to you?
Please answer in the comments with proposed questions, not just topics, if you please.
Take a look at the issues web pages for Bill Humphrey and Kathy Winters. On what issues do you want more details? On what issues do you want to understand their differences?
Or, ignore their issues pages. What’s the issue you care about?
The third candidate in the race, Rena Getz, doesn’t have a site up, yet. Her campaign treasurer assures us that one is coming. I’ll update this post with a link when it’s up.
I want to know how soon after he retires would it be appropriate to construct a statue of John Rice in front of the Hyde Center?
And I’d like to hear their vision for Newton Four Corners and the adjacent part of Beacon Street which feels like an area that could benefit from a better use, density and design.
I agree with Greg; We need a statue for John Rice! And it is telling that John Rice gives a full hearted endorsement of Kathy Winters and is working hard in her campaign.
I’m sure Greg knows that Four Corners is not within ward 5, but it is a piece of Newton that is languishing.
– What do you think about environmental legislation like the plastic bag ban, and would you support future proposals like it?
What position did you take on the Engine 6 proposal in 2013?
Here are some big picture questions for all the council races. We all make decisions about where we live. Why did you decide to live in Newton? If you had to move out of Newton, but still live in the area, where would you move and why?
If you’re on the Council when it’s time to vote to site a new Senior Center on any one of the 6 parkland/playground finalist locations, would you vote to site the facility on parkland/playground or not?
Newtoner – I am supportive of environmental measures like the plastic bag ban and the ten cent paper bag fee. I would be supportive of future proposals which would help further environmental goals but would not be unduly burdensome on consumers or businesses.
Greg – Good question. Four Corners has proven a tough location for restaurants and small businesses. It is close to heavy competition in Newton Center and Newton Highlands, and it is a small area that is dominated by bigger chains that are conveniently located for auto traffic. I think it is a good spot for mixed-use development with some more attractive storefronts or office space, and I would be open to ideas to reinvigorate the commercial strip along Beacon.
In the spirit of bringing together cannabis retail supporters and Opt Out supporters, would you support modifying Newton zoning laws to make cannabis retail stores have a lower impact by limiting the size to 2000 ft.² and zoning them in less visible locations such as industrial zones?
JenAK – JenAK – I did not take a position. In 2013, I was not following City politics, and could not have told you who my city councilors were. I tagged along to a meeting on Engine 6 with a friend (who was a strong supporter) and I was struck that angry voices were drowning out what should have been a more constructive dialogue. It spurred me to get more involved and to run for the (then brand new) Waban Area Council. But what did I think? I believe it is important that we provide housing and services for the struggling among us. But I also thought neighbors raised some valid concerns that should have and could have been addressed before the City committed to funding the project.
Jeffrey – We moved to Newton in 2000 because we wanted to be close to Boston in a city or town with excellent public schools and with public transportation. We looked in Brookline as well, but settled here because we wanted a little more yard space as we raised our family. We found a modest fixer-upper in a great neighborhood and we’ve never regretted it. If I had to move? I’d look in the surrounding towns with good public schools – Brookline, Dedham, Needham, Wellesley. But I’m glad I don’t have to!
Though Four Corners isn’t in ward 5 and ward 5 residents use it heavily, ward councilors vote on all issues so I think it’s a valid question.
Do you oppose putting cash only retail cannabis shops in manufacturing zoned areas that are isolated in the evening?
What is your position on reducing the size of the City Council? More specifically, what will you do or propose to make it happen?
Gerry – I would not vote to site the senior center on parkland if it encroached on green space or use of the parks or playgrounds. As we add more density in the city, it is more important than ever to hold on to our green spaces and fields. I have been a coach for several sports and my four kids have played on all of the 6 named sites, so I am well familiar with how maxed out we are in terms of field use. But I can’t give you a complete NO on parks. If a plan comes forward that sites a senior center on parkland in a way that replaces or improves on existing structures and does not take additional greenspace or fields, I would be open to it.
Sarah – No. At this point, I believe it is time to move forward with our current zoning and to make rollout of RMDs as smooth and successful as possible as we go through the permit process for each proposed site. If we start to see problems with RMDs I would be open to revisiting the issue.
Peter – I am very supportive of downsizing the council and would consider any solution that will get through the council and mayor and that has a chance of voter approval. I am opposed to eliminating the ward councilor role, but I am open to considering a smaller at-large council elected with ranked choice voting, because I believe RCV could effectively result in “local” representation, and it safeguards against a majority of voters controlling all of the seats. We will need to compromise to get this done.
Jane – Sorry I should’ve answered your question along with Sarah’s (see above). I would oppose limiting RMDs to industrial zones.
Hi Kathy and Bill,
What do you think of Riverside, Northland and other large projects for Newton?
What measures would you want to see to reduce the cost of health care for our city employees?
If you were to look book 20 years from now, what changes would you have made to make our city a better place 20 years from now?
This Ward 5 voter appreciates all the time Kathy Winters is committing to answering questions here. I hope Bill and Rena will join in as well.
@Kathy Winters: Thank you for your reply. If you’ll allow me to push a little further on this issue: “unduly burdensome on consumers or businesses” can be interpreted in many different ways. Some people think a 5 cent bag fee is an unacceptable burden, while others think we need to go much further than that to reduce the burden of plastic pollution. What would you consider overly burdensome? Is there legislation enacted elsewhere you would not like to see in Newton?
NewtonMom- Both Riverside and Northland are large parcels that provide a great opportunity for redevelopment and to add needed housing. I am pleased that both developments have a substantial commercial component. There is a lot to like about Northland — undergrounding parking, breaking up the buildings, commitment to rigorous sustainability standards, the amount of green space and the amount of affordable housing. Riverside is still early in the process, and there are great aspects there as well, but I’d like to see more green space and a break up or set back of some of the massing along Grove.
My two big concerns with any large scale development are that they do not overwhelm surrounding neighborhoods with traffic and that we have adequate plans in place for school enrollment.
Both of those developments are located near busy intersections that are critical to surrounding neighborhoods. I support the efforts of Councilor Auchincloss and others to drive down parking and align the interests of the developer with the city in terms of attracting car-lite tenants. Alternatively, I also like the idea that after a certain number of units come online, Northland be required to show they are meeting their TDM numbers before getting building permits for remaining units (Councilor Laredo was pushing this at the last LUC meeting on traffic). I know Northland has stated that either of those measures would make it impossible to procure financing. But I would hope that if they can convince the City Council that their TDM plan will work, they can also convince a lender.
My second big concern is that we plan for resulting school enrollment. I am familiar with the Demographic Study Report by McKibben Demographics. I am skeptical about his projections for new development enrollment. We know that even without significant new development, the percentage of Newton students living in condos and apartments is rising (makes perfect sense given the cost of single family homes). We can look to Needham for more information. In 2017, McKibben made similar projections for the town, where hundreds of units have recently come online. It will be instructive to look at their enrollment numbers in the Fall.
I want to be clear though — I do not raise enrollment as a reason to block new housing; we are part of a region that needs more housing and we have a responsibility to provide a first rate education to anyone who moves here. Let’s plan for it and negotiate with developers at the outset for what we will need.
A final thought: I would always be motivated to work with a developer to get to yes through the special permit process rather than push them in the direction of a regular 40B (a Friendly 40B is a different story — but let’s save that for another post).
That’s a long answer NewtonMom, and it certainly doesn’t cover everything, but hopefully it gives you a sense of my approach to new development.
Newtoner – Good question. Some towns charge residents per bag of trash by requiring them to place all of their trash in special bags purchased from the town (like our overflow bags, but smaller). Those bags then go in the bins for pickup. To me that program is both unduly burdensome and ineffectual.
I had been waiting for Sean to compile and send me the questions, but if we’re answering them now, here are my answers to the questions I saw in the comments:
– I support the plastic bag ban, although I would acknowledge that it is a relatively minor environmental action in the grand scheme of things. I would have to evaluate future similar proposals as they came up. I prefer straightforward regulations or ordinances instead of more complicated fees, but I would have to see the specifics of a proposal.
– I was in favor in 2013 of the proposal to use the Engine 6 fire station in Waban for a small number of apartments for people who had been formerly homeless getting back on their feet and with an on-site support staffer. It was right near the Woodland T station, allowing easy access to get into Boston for work. And we know that, despite the fearmongering rhetoric from a few community members, many of our friends and neighbors already in Waban (or Newton as a whole) are recovering from addictions to alcohol or opioids, and they are not in any way different from the people in recovery who would have lived at Engine 6 under the proposal, particularly since they would have already met certain benchmarks in their recovery process before being allowed to live there. The people who were (and remain) leaders of the Engine 6 group supporting the effort are all lined up behind me in this City Council campaign, not only because I supported them then, but also because they know that one of the other candidates was helping the opposition at the time, despite public statements to the contrary in the present day. There remains a great deal of extremely vitriolic misinformation around this project that typically dissipates when I explain the actual proposal to people. Pulling the plug on the process because of a few angry people before it could get to proper hearings was inappropriate. Of course, it’s too late now, because it’s condos instead and the City of Newton had to settle with HUD out of court.
– I grew up in Newton (fifth generation), so I never had to make decision to move here. My cousin also still lives around the corner, too, where my grandmother lived before she passed away, and I grew up with my great aunt in the house. It’s a big extended family and a lot of us have moved in and out over the years.
– I would not vote for locating a new Senior Center on parkland or recreational land.
– I don’t think we need to locate retail cannabis stores anywhere differently from where we locate liquor stores. (And to Jane’s point, it’s probably a security risk to put cash businesses by themselves in an industrial zone.)
– I supported the 2017 charter reform proposal, along with a majority of Ward 5 voters, which would have reconstituted the City Council with a smaller size. I don’t know if I would have come up with the exact configuration they proposed, but it would be something fairly similar probably if I were trying to propose something from scratch again now. As long as the Ward Councilor position exists, I want to make sure that it is represented in my ward by someone who shares my perspective on City Council issues.
– The large development projects are still being heavily revised each month in the negotiation processes, reacting to input from Councilors and the community, and I don’t want to pre-judge the proposals before the processes are done; so I have just been attending as many of the meetings as I can to stay on top of the changes. My priorities are getting them to as much of an environmentally sustainable point as possible and getting as much affordable housing as we can, while of course also figuring out the best possible traffic mitigation for each project. (In some cases, smaller projects actually have worse traffic results than larger ones because the ongoing budget for mitigation planning is much smaller, but it depends on the case.) There is a lot to like in all of the proposals, and there are still areas of concern in each of them, which I hope the councilors will negotiate to address.
– A lot of the healthcare costs issue is beyond the control of individual municipalities and will ultimately have to be solved with a federal-level answer, and so I can’t offer a good local-level answer on that question, but I also do not believe that other officials here do either. (Those answers that they have offered I don’t agree are good answers.)
– The biggest long-term change we will want to make sure we have made when we’re looking back 20 years from now is the transition away from fossil fuels for energy and heating in Newton. That’s going to be a time-consuming and difficult process in phases, and so we will have to put the wheels in motion now in order to get there in 20 years.
Bill, thanks for answering the first part of my question. Would you mind answering the second? “If you had to move out of Newton, but still live in the area, where would you move and why?”
I’d like to understand how they view the role of a Ward councilor vs an At-Large councilor? Do they see a difference in voting to represent Ward 5 vs the greater City of Newton?
Does not seem either candidate would support a reasonable REDUCTION in the overall number of apartments proposed at Needham Street and Riverside? Bold, considering the amount of voters supporting RightSize Newton. Rena?