We have invited all candidates running for contested seats in the upcoming Newton election to submit a guest post to Village 14. The format and content of the post is entirely up to them.
City Council candidate Emily Norton who is running for the ward seat in Ward 2, has submitted this video:
A few observations and questions:
– I disagree with Ms. Norton on development in Newton and her votes against the projects on Washington Street. However, I appreciate that she speaks clearly about it. Some other candidates have been ambiguous and sounded like they’re trying to please everyone.
– Ms. Norton names a long list of endorsements from national and local organizations, but fails to mention Right Size Newton.
– I’m interested in the endorsement from the Humane Society and what prompted it.
Essentially agree with ALL of Ms. Norton’s positions EXCEPT divestment in fossil fuel (and elimination of petro-based plastic bags vs. paper bags).
The world we live in is mostly man made using fossil fuels. No way to repave nearly 3 million miles of U.S. roads, parking lots and airports without fossil fuel since pavement is mostly made from the bottoms of distillation and processing equipment in the petroleum refineries. Each year we produce up to 400 million tons of asphalt and about 10 billion tons of concrete (almost all from fossil fuels).
If we do not use fossil fuels we would not be able to run our electric cars on the roads that will soon cease to exist. We could not make the electric cars. We could not make the solar cells or wind generators. If we use less oil, we have less asphalt. Without oil we have no concrete. Without coal and coke from coal we have no steel. No bridges, no roads, no shingles, no skyscrapers and no food! Without fossil fuel entailed ammonia production for fixed nitrogen, we have very little food — couldn’t feed a fraction of the population.
We have no choice but continue to use fossil fuels. Solar and wind will always be a fraction of the total energy use. Both solar and wind require an equally large power plant to be steamed up and running to fill in the dips when the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind briefly stops blowing.
With all due respect, to think solar and wind are a solution to our life style and expectations, have limited understanding of the larger picture.
@Newtoner Emily came across as a very strong candidate with a number of items that she highlights as personally bringing to the council. What jumps out to me is that only 9 out of 23 City Councilors [Emily being the 24th] are endorsing her. – one would think it would be the majority. Makes you stop and think…. Otherwise good job and kudos to Emily. She came across very professional and prepared. Should be an interested race to watch. – jack
Meh.
Given that the TAB is not publishing columns from the candidates this year, I had hoped that when Jerry offered to organize this feature for Village 14, that candidates would choose to submit a written columns here, or at least something original, rather than taking the lazy way out by submitting their NewTV video statement.
And this would have been a golden opportunity for Councilor Norton to respond to an issue that has always dogged her role as an environmental leader.
There are so few ways to reach the voters these days. Here’s hoping other candidates will be more imaginative and thoughtful.
“They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot”
Joni Mitchell
Good luck Emily.
The knives are out and the haters will be coming at you with both barrels loaded. There is money to be made, pictures to be taken, back slapping to do, and credit to be doled out.
The Joni Mitchell generation and their enablers want their uber-dense housing, but you are standing in their way, and they are going to make sure you pay for it. Dearly.
Everyone from some of the bitter old school councilors, to the Newton Chamber of Commerce to the “you are against housing so you are a racist” crowd, to the no last name posters is going to come after you from now until Election Day because you disagree with them. Either way the price of your house is going to continue to go through the roof in your neck of the woods so chin up.
If I were you, I would use every forum other than V14 to get your message out there. They are not your friends, never were, and never will be.
Hang in there…..
@Paul Green: I’ve never heard anyone suggest that Councilor Norton is racist.
I have heard — and I agree — with concerns that Councilor Norton has never adequately explained how she reckons her [otherwise] very commendable roles as an environmental leader with her record of opposing high density transit oriented development, a nearly universally recognized way to help curtail suburban sprawl and the generation of greenhouse gas.
Wanting an answer to that doesn’t make me a “hater.”
And it’s a question that I feel is very appropriate to ask, and apparently so does Norton since she was the one who stood on the steps of City Hall and said we should pressure her and her council colleagues to do more to combat climate change.
Greg,
I think Paul is referring to the suggestion that certain language has racist history that thoughtful people should avoid. As far as I know, nobody making that suggestion (me) has labelled any particular person a racist. But, it’s not terrible logic to connect calling someone out for language with racial undertones with calling them out as a racist. As the person who did the calling out, I feel like it’s a bit of a tendencious interpretation, but I’m not offended.
But, like you, I’d kinda like an answer to the simple question: is density in Newton, particularly near transit, a tool to combat climate change?
Paul Green:
FYI, I think Joni Mitchell didn’t want the parking lot. The parking lot is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu. The tree museum is the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. The DDT verse is self explanatory, and the final verse about the Big Yellow Taxi taking away her Old Man is biographical apparently.
So I would think the Joni Mitchell crowd would typically like Emily. 😉
As for V14, Emily has a ton of supporters on here. If you mean Sean and Greg, yes, they don’t seem to be fans. As for other forums, the only one I know of is Next Door Newton, which is kinda hard to parse through and read. Lots of folks post, but the message gets lost in the lost dog and free furniture posts.
The Emily/Bryan race and the Carolina/Julia ward races and the Bill Humphry/Kathy Winters are the most interesting to me. I wish I could vote in all of them.
@Fig
Thank you. Although I don’t know the whole back story of the song, I do know that the song is lamenting the parking lot, not celebrating it.
If someone had told me that the Mitchell generation(idealistic baby boomers) would transition from protesting parking lots to supporting highdensityhousingsowealllivethisclose in order to fight climate change, i never would have believed it.
It’s just so darn rich! Yes there are some good races, this one included.
I would love to vote in them all as well.
You realize Paul Green that the two large projects before Councilor Norton and her colleagues are already parking lots?
Greg,
You should get out more to hear the slander directed at Emily Norton. Of course Village14 is a contibutor to unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, but let’s not focus on that.
First, I’m sure you would acknowledge that Emily Norton is much more of an environmental champion than you are
You are a business promoter and promoting business is about making money. I assume you or your organization supported Trip Advisors’s headquarters in Needham? Is that development transit oriented or helping the environment? I don’t think so.
In fact wasn’t a new exit added to Rt. 128 to facilitate auto access? Not environment friendly!
We’re you speaking out against that development on environmental grounds? I don’t think so.
So I assume you are referencing Washington Place? Washington Place destroyed a number of perfectly usuable buildings. Was that environmentally friendly? I don’t think so.
Washington Place has 309 parking spaces!! 309!!! Transit oriented? I don’t think so!!! There’s no way that prior property had anywhere near 309 parking space .
So you and the rest of your fake environmentalists should stop this phony argument that Washington Place has anything to do with the environment! It’s all about the developer making money.
And by the way is there a single green area in the development? I don’t think so. Is the development using solar power? I don’t think so.
Is your comment credible? I don’t think so.
Arthur,
Speaking for the fake-environmentalists caucus, Washington Place is both environmentally responsible development and it has too many parking spaces. Washington Place allows 140 households to live car-lite. Walking distance to (sub-optimal) transit, schools, grocery stores, drug store, recreational facilities, &c. Three-hundred and nine parking spaces doesn’t change that. What 309 parking spaces do is reduce the urgency and allow for more driving than we might like, but you can blame others than the fake-environmental caucus for that.
Arthur,
I think Greg is talking about Riverside and Northland which are parking lots – before the city council. Washington Place is a done deal so not before the council now.
Also Arthur, please enlighten me on any slander going on in the Ward about Emily because living smack dab in the midst of it, I haven’t heard a word.
To Emily Norton’s supporters on V14,
1. This was a post for Emily to make a statement in an election.
2. She did, but didn’t provide much more info on why we should vote for her except to name her endorsers. I wish she had added more.
3. It wasn’t a written statement
which is what was asked for. No biggy exceptbut this is a recycled video and she could have elaborated more in a new statement.4. No bias was expressed in the post – all candidates in contested races are being asked to post a statement.
5. Emily’s supporters here don’t seem to respect that she is a strong woman, raising 2 kids, with a full time job, a volunteer and a busy ward city councilor – and doing a good job at all of it.
That’s an amazing feat in and of itself. She certainly has my respect.
She doesn’t need your protection. She isn’t a victim. She can and does speak for herself. She chooses what questions to answer and which to ignore – the answers to questions asked of candidates and incumbents is one way voters make decisions.
Stop acting like helicopter parents and treating her like a child who needs you to defend her – treat her with the respect she so rightly deserves. She is more than up for challenge.
Curious how much mud slinging Emily takes here compared to the other 23 council members. Also interesting how very, very active her opponent is on all social media platforms compared to the other contested races in this year’s election. She’s trying to take the high road and continue doing her various jobs well while letting her record speak for itself. We’ve seen this before and sometimes the online noise becomes the louder, more pervasive message. Luckily for Emily it won’t happen that way. Among the users of Facebook, Nextdoor, and Village14, we’re still looking at a small cross section of Newton voters with a lot of overlap. It may seem like the negative noise is loud, but it’s not. I remember Emily from her years prior to running for council when she kept her school blog and kept us all in the loop with the schools and the school committee meetings. I respected her then for doing that hard, thankless work, and I respect her now. I don’t respect Internet noise and I don’t mistake it for actual anything more than what it is.
@Marty Bowen –
Thanks Jerry – fixed my comment. And it’s Marti.
@Casey,@Arthur Jackson – Are we reading the same thread? I just re-read the entire thread. I didn’t see any “mudslinging” or “slander”, “rumor” or “innuendo”.
I see praise of her accomplishments
I see disappointment that her post was not new material
I see an observation that she didn’t mention one of her endorsers (Right Size Newton)
I see a wish that she would comment of the issue of housing density vs environmental protection
I see various comments on the semiotics and meanings of Big Yellow Taxi lyrics
Most of the posts that raised any issues or questions, posed those questions within the context of general praise for Emily Norton’s accomplishments.
The only significantly unpleasant comments I can see here are references by you that seem to bear no relation to the comments in the thread. “the knives are out”. “the haters are coming” “bitter old school councilors”, “you are against housing so you are a racist”,”unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo”.
Emily Norton is a very popular, well known incumbent running for re-election to the City Council. If constituents ask questions or raise concerns or issues within the context of her candidate post to Village14, and do it politely, and civilly – why all the outrage and vitriol? Your keystrokes could be put to much better use on Emily Norton’s behalf by commenting on her many accomplishments and singing her virtues.
Tell us why you’ll be voting for her and why she would be a good choice for other Ward 2 voters.
Casey and Arthur:
I’m with Marti. I live in the ward, hence my name. My issues I post about tend to be Newtonville issues, hence why I rarely post about Riverside. I get the various visits from both sets of supporters. Everyone has been great. Had a great conversation with an Emily supporter this week at dinner, and Bryan has been by my house multiple times.
Emily has done some good things as a city councilor and some not so great things in my view. I’ve come around on some of them like the plastic bag ban. But I certainly don’t see any type of concerted “smear” campaign, in fact even folks who oppose her start with praising her typically.
I think Emily is a Newton leader. She was the literal face and voice of the “no” campaign on charter reform. She has been the driving force behind the environmental focus of the counsel, as well as the “no big developments” wing of the council (I’d maintain it is the “keep Newton the same” council). The reason the focus tends to be on her is because of that, not some massive developer cabal. Or because Greg opposes her due to business reasons, etc, etc.
It would certainly help if she engaged in more debate, here and elsewhere. I’m hoping to make the event where we get to ask her questions, but I may have a conflict.
Could anyone provide some examples of the negative behavior? Arthur, you mention slander. Casey, mudslinging. Can you provide examples? I certainly get the frustration when folks don’t appreciate the amazing awesomeness of my chosen political candidate, but I also don’t go around whining about how unfair life is when someone criticizes their positions. If I disagree with Emily on development, or Cabot School, or even the plastic bag ban, that is my right, both on this forum and in the political arena. Calling out her or Bryan for inconsistent positions is my right as well. That’s not slander or mudslinging, that’s our political system.
And I’ll note that Emily doesn’t seem opposed to mixing it up on the political side. She said that Bryan was influenced by lobbyists and “big pot” in the debate, but as far as I could tell that was basically a red herring argument. (Does anyone really believe Bryan is in the pocket for Big Pot?) That was as close to a smear as I’ve seen in Newton ward politics. But I haven’t seen Bryan’s supporters reacting the same way.
Look, there are a lot of interesting issues facing our ward. Emily has a lot of issues to run on. So does Bryan. I’m just sick of the noise and complaining.
And a video posting is fine in my view. I’d prefer both the video and the written posting as well, but these campaigns are exercises in time management…
One other point:
This forum tends to focus too much on development. It is a hot button issue for sure. But in this race it isn’t even in my top 5 issues.
Why? Because from what I can tell, one ward councilor has limited influence on development in Newton. At least in Newtonville that has been the case.
Austin Street was built. Washington Place was built. The Old Barn shoe store project is a 40B and is moving forward. The Santandar bank building is moving forward.
I keep telling folks this: Until we meet our obligations under 40B or the 40B requirement goes away statewide, our political process has limited options.
Emily opposed all of the above. Did any of it matter? That’s not a criticism, I wasn’t happy with some of those projects as well (Washington Place and Santandar, specifically), I did support Austin Street, and I know nothing about the barn project yet.
My point is that my vote won’t be on development, because Emily or Bryan won’t be able to do much regarding development. It will be on other issues, like support of the schools, the village redo, ability to compromise, communication, environment issues etc. I know some of you won’t believe that, but it is the truth. The built environment is just one part of what the city council does.
Fig, I agree with almost all of your post. I have asked many of my neighbors around Newtonville since the comments about “haters” and “slander” toward Emily were posted. No one I have asked, including Emily’s supporters, has heard anything like that so I’m with you on wanting examples.
Emily is a good Ward councilor. There are many ways voters, including me, can sing her praises without making anything up so why not stick to that.
I don’t ever vote for any “one issue” candidate or any candidate that negatively disrespects or spreads lies about his or her opponent. Neither of the candidates in the Ward 2 race are one issue candidates. I hope this race can make it to the finish line without any more rash statements about or from either candidate.
On the other hand, I have had my lawn sign for Bryan stolen so Emily’s supporters are up to their childish tricks again.
@fignewtonville
Yes I yearn for the good old days when we were all leafblowers, all the time 😉
It makes me want to create a historical graphic highlighting the waxing and waning of various Village14 topics over time – dog parks,Engine 6, election,parking ban, swimming in Crystal Lake, election, plastic bag ban, Zervas School rebuilding, election, ….
Jerry & Fig,
Yes it would be nice not having to focus on the development issue. However, I believe that Newton residents correctly perceive over-development, or overly dense new development, currently as the single largest threat to quality of life in Newton — for a host of reasons.
And to the extent that our civic leaders read this site, I believe it serves to convey these concerns of residents throughout Newton.
And if certain City Council candidates or repeat V14 posters have their way, I think Newton would quickly have to drop its moniker as the “Garden City” in order to serve the “Social Justice Warriors”.
It’s disingenuous to suggest that any of major projects –recently approved or pending — are eroding Newton’s Garden Cityness. Austin Street was an ugly parking lot. Washington Place a collection of old, ugly buildings. Northland’s 24 acres is almost all permeable surface and would create more than ten acres of open space (including a central common where hundreds of people can gather, a splash park, dog park and the historic mill park featuring a restored South Meadow Brook water feature). Riverside? totally a parking lot. And Mark Development’s vision for the Barn and nearby parcels creates a park along Cheesecake Brook.
That’s why these projects haven’t just been embraced by housing advocates and economic development advocates but by environmentalists too.
Well supported by about 99.9 percent of local environmentalists anyway.
Jerry:
Dear Lord. Not the leafblower discussions. That was worse. I’m done posting about that particular topic. Folks got ANGRY.
The dog park discussion seems rather quaint now, right?
You know what I’d like for a discussion, my favorite restaurant in Newton. I need to try some new places. Maybe a breakfast/lunch division and a dinner division.
Did folks know there is a secret way to get chicken or salmon full takeout from Lumiere in West Newton. I’m talking a full meal for a set price? Only available certain days? Or that Rox will do egg sandwiches on take-out so you just walk by to the train and pick up breakfast for under $7?
Seriously, I’m hungry. And waiting on a call. This is a bad combination.
Jim, no criticism on your posts or others posts on development, I realize how it stirs the interests of a lot of posters. I’m just not using it to make political decisions myself. You can feel free to do so of course.
As for the Garden City moniker, I think they was a lie for the past 20 years. It is like calling New Jersey the Garden State.
But hey, I’m all for renewing our landscaping reputation. More trees, more flowers, better care of our parks. Let’s fund it!
Re-fig-erator,
Two questions for you:
What are your top three issues?
What distinguishes Bryan from Councilor Norton, in your mind?
I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.
Greg, IMHO it would be disingenuous to compare “garden cityness” to ugly parking lots or old, ugly buildings. The comparison would be between various developments (more or less “garden cityness”) which could have replaced the ugly parking lots and old, ugly buildings.
In this precedent-breaking year when Newton is seriously proposing putting a building on a park for the first time in a quarter century, Emily Norton was the only sitting councilor to firmly oppose building on any parkland — with none of the chatter about “Hardscape v. Greenspace” — for months. She is, thankfully, joined by an increasing list of fellow councilors — but she was the first. She’s not my councilor, but I wish she was, for she is responsive, driven, thoughtful, honest, and real. Newton is lucky to have her. She doesn’t need to write or video anything for us – we can just look at what she’s actually doing. As any vote for her opponent is a vote to remove her from the council, I’ve been disappointed by the irresponsible whispers that some city leaders have initiated against her. I think thoughtful development can be a great thing, but she seems to think that as well; the fact that she’s a thorn in the side of developers doesn’t bother me. Each initiative needs to be considered critically.
I’m just glad for her ability to lead as an independent thinker who is forthright, has integrity, and looks at a wide range of angles and perspectives on any given issue. If she can’t keep doing that, it will be a real loss for this city.
Seriously, can anyone clue us clueless people in regarding the whispers or slander? I feel like I’m the only person not in the know, and I live in the freaking ward. What irresponsible whispers Cedar?
Sean:
Hmm…my top 3 issues for ward counselor. That’s tougher than it sounds. Tomorrow perhaps.
Wished I was here for the leaf blower issue. Sounds like fun. Who got the award for most intellectual argument that included the word, “blow”? 😉
As a Ward 5 resident, I have zero skin in this game (voting wise at least), and Emily’s work and popularity does not need defending from little old me.
But it is CLEAR, that she is a target on V14. More than any other councilor or candidate – by far – and that’s a pile of methane emitting bull (poopy).
I wish all Councilors would take a balanced, measured approach development as Emily has. Yes, you can be BOTH pro-environment and mindful of not over-densification.
If you guys don’t want her in Ward 2, she’d win Ward 5 at Large by a landslide!!