All candidates running for contested seats in the upcoming election were invited to submit a post in support of their candidacy to Village14. 

Note: The deadline for these posts was noon on Friday.  The Sangiolo post didn’t arrive until many hours after the deadline.  Rather than just ‘stick to the rules’ a compromise was struck where both mayoral campaigns would have until a new deadline today to submit a post.  This is Ruthanne Fuller’s

I promised four years ago that Newton would meet the moment, and we did, even in this crisis.

In the last four years, we instituted full day Kindergarten, designed our new Senior Center, created and expanded NewMo, and saved Webster Woods.

During COVID, I did everything under my direct control to support the critical needs of our schools: ventilation, testing, technology, vaccinations. We are supporting fully the needs of NPS as we focus on academic excellence, educational equity and the social and emotional well being of our students and the needs of our educators.

During the difficult days of the pandemic, we supported our residents, employees, and small businesses.

I authorized $610,000 in 50+ grants to assist small businesses across all our village centers through the pandemic.

We partnered with local entrepreneur Allison Yee for Project Pop-Up to bring innovative start-ups, most of which are women and minority owned, to vacant storefronts. We extended Project Pop Up through 2021, and look forward to many finding permanent homes in Newton.

We created NewtonHires which is attracting the unemployed/underemployed to work here helping locally owned businesses.

We permitted 515 units of affordable housing, the most of any administration in City history, and the Newton Housing Authority recently broke ground at Haywood House to provide affordable housing opportunities for older residents. Yesterday, I announced the purchase of four homes next to the Williams Elementary School for permanent affordable housing. I championed the West Newton Armory from day one and we are well on our way to making this a home for so many.

We invested $150 million in our roads, sidewalks, parks, open space (including Webster Woods), and infrastructure.

From Newton PowerChoice to saving Webster Woods, we made Newton a leader on Climate Action with our first-ever Climate Action Plan. Soon, municipal buildings will have 40% of their power generated from solar panels on our schools and at the Library. We’ve created a new, full time position of an Energy Coach to help all of us transition to “green” homes, businesses and vehicles and have the wonderful support of many of our residents serving as Coaches as well.

We’ve kept everyone well informed with timely, transparent, and useful newsletters. The newsletter has been a wonderful two-way communication vehicle; when we send one out, residents are quick to respond with ideas, concerns, questions, and even compliments.

We listened carefully to concerns. Starting in January 2018, I’ve held open office hours every few weeks to make sure everyone can easily talk to me directly.

More work is ahead, and we’re taking concrete steps to fulfill our values of a Newton that is inclusive and welcoming. We’re institutionalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re prioritizing funding for our school’s and our city’s critical needs, investing in our roads, sidewalks, parks, open spaces, athletic fields and infrastructure. We’re focusing on building complete streets and sidewalks with more bike lanes to support multimodal transportation. We’re moving forward with buildings for our pre-school, Lincoln-Eliot, Horace Mann, Countryside and Franklin communities. We’ve started the design process for the Gath Pool.

Together, we will move Newton forward.