 All right, Patty, we're live. Good evening. Welcome to Arlington's Candidate's Night for Townelection on Saturday, September 10th, 2021. Candidate's Night is jointly sponsored by Envision Arlington and the League of Women Voters of Arlington. Tonight's video program is being broadcast live by Arlington Community Media, ACMI. We'll mention that if you want to vote by mail, you have until April 6th to apply for a ballot and you can do that via the town website. We would like to thank the staff at ACMI, Norm MacLeod, Executive Director, Jeff Monroe, Operations Manager, Katie Chang, Productions Manager, Jared Sweet, Editor, Sean Keane, Government Coordinator, and Anim Osmani, Senior News Producer. Thank you for broadcasting tonight's event. It will also be rebroadcast on ACMI's government channels, Comcast Channel 22, RCN Channel 15, RCN High Definition Channel 614, Verizon Channel 26, and ACMI's Facebook page and YouTube channel. For those watching later, it is now 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31st, 2021, and this forum is being presented virtually during the ongoing pandemic. My name is Patty Muldoon with the League of Women Voters of Arlington. It is my pleasure to introduce Candidate's Night, which presents candidates for local office. Candidate's Night is a non-partisan service providing information to the voters. Membership in the LWVA is open to people of all genders. Throughout its 101-year history, the League has built a nationally respected reputation for providing candidate forums and debates for the benefit of voters and for supporting informed participation and understanding of government and major policy issues. Based on grassroots membership input, the League also seeks to invoke influence public policy through education and advocacy. The League of Women Voters takes action on specific issues that we've studied, but we never support or oppose candidates. Tonight's program will include statements from candidates and a question and answer period. Residents of Arlington have submitted questions in advance of the evening. The questions were reviewed by a committee of League members and representatives from Envision Arlington to represent the issues of concern to the audience. The moderator will present the questions to the candidates. And I'd now like to introduce our guest moderator, Margaret Cope of the League of Women Voters of Lexington. Margaret. Good evening. Thank you, Patty, and thank you for inviting me again to moderate the Arlington candidates night. I thank everyone for watching. First, I'd like to outline the procedures and rules for this evening. The candidates for town offices will appear in this order this evening. School committee, assessor, and select board. The housing authority candidates were unable to make tonight's forum. Each candidate will make an introductory statement with two minutes allowed. The candidates will speak in the order in which they appear on the ballot. After the candidates have finished their statements, we will have questions and answers. As mentioned before, questions have been submitted in advance. All candidates will have the opportunity to answer each question for their office. The candidate with second place on the ballot will be the first to answer the first question, and we will continue to rotate through the ballot order for each question. Each candidate will have one minute to answer questions. After the question and answer, each candidate may make a one minute closing statement. The candidates will speak in reverse ballot order for their closing statements. To ensure fairness, a time warning will appear on the screen when 20 seconds remains. The timer will then count down to zero. At that point, the candidate should only finish a short sentence and stop. We ask for the cooperation of all candidates following these rules so that everyone will have a fair chance. As a reminder, because this program is carried live and will be rebroadcast, we ask that candidates speak clearly into their computer microphones to be heard. We will now hear from the candidates for school committee. There are two candidates for two seats, each for a three-year term. The candidates are Jane Pierce Morgan and Jeffrey D. Thielman. The seven members of the school committee serve three-year overlapping terms. They set policies for Arlington's public school system and appoint staff to implement these under the state laws and the policies of the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The committee appoints a superintendent as Chief Administrator of the school department to make recommendations on personnel and programs. The school committee is responsible for the school department's annual budget and represents the town and collective bargaining with the teachers. We will now hear opening statements from the candidates in the order in which they appear on the ballot. The first candidate is Ms. Morgan. Ms. Morgan, you have two minutes. Thank you so much. Hi, everybody. My name is Jane Morgan. I am running for my second three-year term on the Arlington School Committee. I am a mother of four. I have a son at Stratton. I have twin sons at the Gibbs and I have a daughter who's an eighth grader at the Ottison. We've been in Arlington since 2003. I've served as a town meeting member from the mighty precinct 15. And in my spare time, I work, I am an associate dean for STEM at Southern New Hampshire University where I work with faculty and students. I also teach statistics online, which online education is having a bit of a moment. So it's been a really interesting year. Over the last three years that I've been on the committee, I've been on the budget subcommittee, community relations. I've chaired the curriculum subcommittee. I've also served on the policy subcommittee. And since last June, I've been the chair of the school committee. It's really been quite a year for the schools. I took over from Lynn Cardin in June of 2020 as chair when our schools were closed. We have moved through a hybrid and remote program and we are moving towards full return of all students. My second grader will be back in person on Monday. But we've also maintained a robust remote academy all year. So it's been very busy. I am looking forward to, in the next three years, engaging with the town over the FY23 budget. There's a lot of uncertainty right now, so it makes it a tricky time. Supporting our new superintendent who I'm looking forward to working with and preparing for post-pandemic remediation. So thank you for listening tonight and I'm looking forward to the question. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. Mr. Thielman, you have two minutes. Thank you very much. And thanks to the legal women voters and ACMI for hosting tonight's forum. I'm honored to be running for re-election of the school committee. I've enjoyed serving on the committee for many years now. I enjoy the back and forth and conversations with voters and parents and stakeholders. And I try to get back to as many of you as possible. I learn a lot in those dialogues. I also have had the privilege of playing a role as a member of the school committee and many important issues in town including the building and the rebuilding of the Gibbs school, the building of the Thompson school, the expansion of the Thompson and the Hardy schools. And of course I chair the high school building committee and have enjoyed playing that role for a project that is on time and under budget. I've been an advocate like my colleague Jane and others on the committee for returning as many students as possible to school for in-person learning safely this year. And I've been proud of that position. I work with my colleagues on the plan for the year. So the plan to have a hybrid option for students and a remote option for those who wanted it. I think that was the best solution for the year. We learned a lot in COVID-19 and I hope to build on that experience over the next three years. Elections are about the future and what I wanna focus on over the next three years are really five things. First and foremost, safely reopening the schools and ensuring that we have remediation in place for many children who fell behind during this pandemic. Secondly, I wanna support the new superintendent of schools. I was proud to cast a vote for her. I'm excited about her superintendent since she brings a lot to Arlington. I was very proud and I've been very proud to work with Dr. Vody over the past several years. I look forward to working with the new superintendent. I wanna continue ahead the high school building project. I wanna advocate for our schools as we begin discussions about the next five year plan. And finally, I wanna start a conversation about improving the Addison Middle School's facilities either through a repair, a rebuild or renovation addition. Thank you, Mr. Thielman. We'll now go to the first question which Mr. Thielman will be first. What measures should be in place to safely reopen schools for in-person learning? Please comment on any changes that have been made already. Mr. Thielman, one minute. Well, I mean, I think first of all, the district has done a very good job of getting ready for reopening to full in-person learning, but also we've done a good job with hybrid learning over the course of the year and we've learned a lot. So we've kept the students are actually very good, better than adults in my experience of keeping their masks on and taking direction from adults. It's actually in the younger grades, they're better than the older grades. We had pool testing in Arlington. We were the first district to do pool testing with Ginko Bioworks, the company in the Seaport, I guess they are. That has worked well in giving us good data. We show there's not a spread in the schools and we offered testing to our teachers right away. Also, the school committee advocated for teachers to get vaccinated. So we have a situation now where students are gonna come back to school, the majority of teachers will be vaccinated, desks will be three feet apart, masks will be worn and we have a lot of experience, especially in grades K through eight with actual in-person hybrid learning. And we have protocols in place in case there is a COVID situation. Thank you, Mr. Thielman, Ms. Morgan. So like Jeff, I think we've addressed a lot of these issues since July. There's been a lot of planning and it's been a really collaborative process. So I think ventilation and issues with the facilities were addressed over the summer and continue to be addressed as they come up. Ventilation is a big deal. Testing for both students and staff, that's going really well. The school committee continues to encourage people to sign up for pool testing, the more people who participate, the safer we are. And it also just gives us good data about what's happening in our schools, especially if we come back at three feet spacing. Really careful planning that's being taken on by most of our administrative team and a really collaborative process with our faculty and with our staff, I think has been really important. The school committee has been really committed to engaging really publicly about these questions. And so I think that we're ready to make this happen. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. And another question too, and we'll be starting with Ms. Morgan. What do you plan to do as school committee member to transition to the new superintendent, considering the special challenges we are now facing? Ms. Morgan, you have one minute. So I think that's a great question. You know, the school committee worked really hard, both Jeff and I have been on the committee for the last three years. And this was something that we really knew was going to happen. Dr. Bodie gave us a lot of notice about her retirement. We had a really careful, thoughtful and proactive process and had Dr. Holman under contract by early December of 2020. So that gave us a lot of time to come up with a thoughtful transition plan. She is under contract with the district for transition planning already. She is in communication with the administrative teams, with the sixth floor staff, with the school committee, and obviously with Dr. Bodie, who has been incredibly supportive and engaged in having a thoughtful transition. I think we will certainly be meeting with her as a committee over the summer, which we're used to after last summer. And I'm really looking forward to engaging with her next year. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. I'll now go to the next question, which will be the last question before we go to your closing statements. Do I get to answer? No. Oh, you do? I'm so sorry. Okay, I'll be brief. Okay, no problem. No, no, you have one minute. Okay, thank you. You know, the first, I want to echo what Jane said. And also I want to say that under, it was because of Jane's leadership this year as our chair that we went to the market very early in the year and we hired a superintendent. We were probably the first district in the state to hire a superintendent. So we really think we got a highly qualified superintendent early in the process. And as Jane said, we put her on, she's under contract, she has to have meetings with Dr. Bodie and the administrative staff. She's met with every member of the school committee. She and I have had a number of different conversations. She's very accessible and she's doing everything she possibly can to learn as much as possible about Arlington and this district. So she's ready to go. And I think the district leadership and administration have been helpful in orienting her to Arlington. Mr. Thielman, I apologize again. We're going to go to the next question, which will be the last question before we go to closing statements. And Mr. Thielman, you will start with this one. How would you influence the Arlington Public Schools efforts to support students of diverse backgrounds and identities? Would you bring specific skills and or experiences that make you effective in this role? You have one minute. Well, you know, I guess my specific experience is my entire professional career has been in the field of equity. So I was with a network of schools that they're called the Creaster Race Schools that serve low-income students. We have 20,000 alumni, 95% of those young people are young people of color. My teaching career was all with young people with low-income students. My school administrative career was all with low-income students of color. So I bring that perspective. The organization I lead, my day job I'm the CEO of an organization that serves immigrants and refugees, 2,500 immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, all young people, all people of color, not all young. And you know, in my day job, we have a diversity equity and inclusion consultant on retainer that works with me personally and also with our staff. So I get a unique perspective on that issue that I try to bring into school committee discussions. Thank you, Mr. Thielman. When I'm in the closing stage and in reverse order from the beginning, I did it again. I'm sorry, I'm so anxious here. You're doing a great job. No, you guys are, you're keeping me on track. So I'll go ahead and take that one as well. So I work, I'm an associate dean for STEM at Southern New Hampshire University. And for those who don't know much about SNHU, we really cater, not exclusively, but to non-traditional learners, right? So we bring in students who are post-military, older learners, learners who had good, bad, ugly experiences in high school. And we work to develop programs that serve our students and make sure that we're supporting them to be successful. So that is the lens that I bring to the committee around serving our diverse populations in Arlington. I have a lot of experience with where students may end up when they're done with a K-12 education someplace like Arlington. And so then I work to sort of bring that back. And it's certainly an area of growth, both for me personally and for the district. So I look forward to working on that in the years ahead. Thank you, Ms. Morgan. We will now hear closing statements in reverse order from the opening statements. Remember, you each have one minute to speak and we will start with Mr. Thielman. Mr. Thielman. So I wanna thank the League of Women Voters and ACMI for hosting tonight's conversation. I enjoy serving on the school committee. I feel it's a privilege. It's allowed me to participate in the community and help in concrete ways. As I mentioned, I chair the high school building committee. It's one of the things, one of the reasons why I'm running for reelection is to see that project through. It were, as I said earlier, under budget and on time, slightly under budget. And so I look forward to the next three years. There are a lot of things that we need to work on together as a community. I enjoy the engagement with members of the community. And if reelected on April 10th, I look forward to serving with my colleagues to help the new superintendent and our district move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thielman. Ms. Morgan. So thank you also to the League and to ACMI for all of their thoughtful preparation of this evening and of us candidates. We feel really well. I feel really well taken care of. Also thank you to the community for your support of our schools, for your support of the school committee. It has been a really extraordinary last 10 months where I've been chair of the committee, but even an extraordinary last three years. So I am grateful for all of the messages of support that we have received collectively and I have received privately. I hope that you'll come out on April 10th and vote for me and Jeff and for lots of other excellent candidates up and down the ballot. So thank you again. Have a great night. Thank you. Ms. Morgan and Mr. Thielman. Our next candidates tonight are for the Board of Assessors. There is one seat open for a three year term and there are three candidates, Kevin P. Feely, Guillermo S. Hamlin and Phillip P. Lownes. The Board of Assessors is composed of three members. The mission of the Board of Assessors is to assess all property in the town of Arlington in a fair, equitable and consistent manner in accordance with the laws, rules and regulations of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the requirements and guidelines of the Department of Revenue. We will now hear opening statements from the candidates in the order in which they appear on the ballot. The first candidate is Mr. Feely. Mr. Feely, you have two minutes. Thank you very much. I'm Kevin Feely, I'm a candidate for reelection to the Board of Assessors. I would like to begin by thanking the League of Women Voters and Envision Arlington and ACMI for hosting this event. I think it's very helpful to the people of the town, to the voters of the town to get as much information about the candidates as they can. I think that a, I believe that a member, an effective member of the Board of Assessors should include three prime qualifications. One is naturally as background as education and as life experience. Two is as experience in real estate and three is as dedication to the town and as dedication to the field of real estate. I feel that I fulfill all those three qualifications fully. I'm a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, I'm a graduate of, I have a JD from New England Law School and a Certificate of Achievement from the Sloan School at MIT. I have been in upper management in public sector positions for many years. I originally served as a town meeting member in Arlington many years ago. And then I went on to the youth service board and many other commissions. And also the recreation commission and the Board of Select. So I feel that those are the three important issues. I believe I've shown my experience just by my service on the Board and my dedication by the number of years that I have been involved in public service, which is a very high number, let's say. In the assessment department, we have only four full-time members. As you could hear from the moderator's description of the job, there is a lot of responsibility. Plains done just four. Mr. Feely. Four and pointy. I'm sorry, I didn't see the clock. It's hard to watch. Can you just wrap up your last thought? Yeah, that's fine. I will go on and make my final statement later and look forward to questions. Thank you so much. Mr. Hamlin, you have two minutes. Thank you. I would like to thank the League of Women Voters in Vision Arlington, ACMI, and I would also like to thank Kevin Feely for his years of service. My name is Guillermo S. Hamlin. I am an existing town meeting member for Precinct 14 and I'm a candidate for Board of Assessors. What got me into this race was, believe it or not, finances, fiduciary responsibility. When I first ran for town meeting, I was looking to get involved in town government because I wanted to make a difference and a change. Everything prior to that looked as though I was gonna focus on small business, housing, and just being involved in direct representation in town government. After everything changed with COVID-19, it's very clear that we need to be ready for the next shift. My background is in government access television. My education background is that I have a bachelor's from Harvard University Extension School. My background is that of an immigrant. My lived experience informs that of a young child in New Jersey from Paraguay, first moving into an apartment building, living with my parents onto their first condo, eventually achieving home ownership. However, they weren't well off. They either were on a fixed income, my father even lost his job. This story informs me in the way that it informs a great many number of other people. There's a disparity in outreach when it comes to our low income homeowners and seniors on a fixed income. I believe that if you were to give me the opportunity to serve on the board of assessors, I'll use my experience in town government. Very short experience in town government has been filled with making sure I was a courier for other town meeting members and to make sure that I'm getting the word out. I look forward to expanding on my background qualifications and I look forward to reaching you today and ask you for your vote ahead of town election. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. Mr. Lourdes, you have two minutes. Good evening. I also would like to thank Envision Arlington League of Women Voters and ACMI. In particular, ACMI has been helping the candidates navigate all the trickiness of doing this remote thing. Thank you for making this possible. And also I wanna thank everybody who's viewing because you're taking your time and investing in improving the quality of your vote by knowing what the issues are and who represents what. Homeowners have questions. They wanna know why their property taxes go up. Is the assessment fair? And if they perceive it not to be fair, how to fix it? And what they really want is transparency. Most people are more than willing to pay their fair share in taxes, but they always have questions. Now, my background is in finance and I'm the director of finance for a tech company. I'm also the head of HR. What that means is yes, I do the projections and the numbers and the budget, but I also help people navigate the trickiness of 401Ks and the myriad of medical insurance possibilities so they can get what's best for them. The point there is that I can take something that's complex and explain it in clear language that lets people get on doing what they need to do. As we all know, our home is our biggest investment and our property tax is the single biggest source of revenue in the town. By experience, I actually started my first job working in an appraisers office. So I can take my communication of complex issues along with some experience in real estate assessment and bring them to help people understand and see the fairness. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lonez. We will now go to the questions and we will start with Mr. Hamlin. Question is, though it's an elected office, the Board of Assessors is a highly technical role that requires specified financial and real estate knowledge. What professional education, certifications and or experience qualifies you for this role? Mr. Hamlin, you have one minute. Thank you. So I'm the first to admit that I'm admittedly not the most qualified for this role, but it's predicated on what it is we're actually trying to achieve. If we're looking to continue to overly represent CPAs and lawyers in the Board of Assessors, feel free to vote for any of the two candidates beside myself here today. If you're looking to increase outreach, to address communication visually, meaning promote ahead of time the rates to make sure that our residents, seniors on a fixed income, low income first time homeowners or homeowners that have recently lost a job, they need to be able to get ahead of this increase in rate. They also need to be able to address the Board of Assessors to seek relief. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to do the latter, to promote, to outreach, to speak to our residents so they can have a fighting chance to seek relief. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. Mr. Lones, you have one minute. Okay, as I said in my opening statement, obviously I'm a numbers guy. I am a CPA, so I understand how things work. I had the privilege when I left college to do a tech startup that put all the city of Cambridge online for a real estate appraiser. And that was in the 1980s when that was unheard of. In doing that, I've learned an awful lot and got my hands on an awful lot of the data and understood how to put it in and compartmentalize it so that it was easily understandable because it can be overwhelming. I also have a degree in information systems, so I will probably be very facile in meeting with the outside forum, Firm, excuse me, that does the actual calculation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lones. Mr. Feely, you have one minute. Thank you. I think that the assessor's office has shown that they do a fair and equitable job on establishing the tax rates among the values in the town. We do have, I agree, a communication problem, especially with the COVID experience now, and we should be able to improve on that. We do now work closely with the council on the aging and the senior citizen groups and the veteran group to get as much of our information out as we possibly can. It is the assessor is not necessarily a policy position. It's a position where you have to perform properly according to the DOI laws and regulations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feely. We will now go to the second question, which will begin with Mr. Lones. What is the process for an individual homeowner to question the assessment of their home and how might it be improved? Mr. Lones, one minute. Okay, I don't know this with precision. My understanding is that first of all, you have to have a basis on which you do it, and then you apply to the assessor's office to consider an abatement. They can then either accept or reject that, and then you have the opportunity to go to land court after that. There's a lot of things that could be done to make that simpler. First of all, simply on their website, outlining the process and perhaps making it available online. And it would be possible to give people more information about it and also to have the office be customer-focused. And I can't say whether they are or not, but that is something that's also in my background. Again, in my financial background, I helped develop some forecasting software, and I was actually on the front lines of supporting that software when it first went out. And very rarely for early software, the service was actually more highly rated than the software, which was actually quite highly rated. Thank you, Mr. Lones. Mr. Feely, you have one minute. Yes, the process for applying for an application is for an abatement. It's basically spelled out in the general laws and the procedures adopted by the Department of Revenue. This year, with over 15,000 parcels of land in the town, we only received 44 applications for abatements, which to us means that our values were right in line with where they should be. There is a process where the assessment will then grant interview or a meeting with the aggrieved party. They can make their case, we will review it. And if we deny it again, it then they can then have the right to take it to the tax appellate board at the state level. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feely. Mr. Hamlin, you have one minute. Thank you. So I'm not gonna repeat what my two of the colleagues said today. There's a process by which to see if you're eligible, there's an application, and should you not be successful, you can repeal. By the time the first go-around has happened, they've already experienced a financial loss, an increase in rate that they were not expected for, whether it be a resident homeowner of any kind. There is a likelihood that they're gonna be dissuaded overall disenchanted with the process. I believe that is incumbent upon us on the board of assessors, not only to serve in this historically advisory role, to return the information back to the residents, to make sure that they can duly prepare for this whole process, rather than seek their eligibility, find out that they had no opportunity, no real viability to get this repeal or relief. I believe it's best to educate them ahead of time so they can prepare and know what they can be eligible for. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. We will now go to question three, which will be the last question before we go to closing statements. And for question three, we will be starting with Mr. Feely, explain the different responsibilities of the board and the town's assessor and how they interact. Mr. Feely, you have one minute. Well, I think there's some confusion on the titles. The board of assessors is the elected board under the general laws. They then hire a director of assessing who was a paid employee and basically a non-decisional employee so that he does counteract with the staff of the various departments of the town and then if there is a decision to be made, policy decision to be made, he brings it back to the board for action. One point is he spends a lot of time meeting with taxpayers and explaining why their application or appeals have not been granted. And when we feel that is one of our obligations to the taxpayers, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feely. Mr. Hamlin, you have one minute. Thank you. So I believe that as my colleague, Kevin Feely said, we have the town hire someone to run the assessor's office and then there, I believe there's three other staffers with the exception of the director. It's best to be able to reach our obligation to the taxpayer by, in my opinion, making sure that we are resourcing the assessor's office accordingly to meet the demand, the silent demand that comes from a great many number of homeowners, especially those on a fixed income, whether they're senior or not, being able to seek relief properly, seek and determine their eligibility. The division of revenue and its division of local services have a YouTube page because they understand that's best to show, not tell. I would like to carry this tradition to town government to be able to visually demonstrate information, its rates and how best to seek relief and be eligible. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. Mr. Lonus, you have one minute. Okay, as Mr. Feely expressed, there is some confusion. There is a professional assessor who runs the staff and then there is a board of assessors who sets policy and direction. All of them also have some knowledge, in fact, of assessment and probably in real terms, pitch in when needed. I'm looking forward to setting a policy direction of openness and an empathy for the taxpayer. At the same time, when I say empathy, that means everybody is treated fairly. And yes, one thing that has concerned me is I see that we have a number of rates and help for seniors, veterans and people on fixed income. But those rates have been static since they were set a number of years ago and inflation certainly hasn't been. That needs to be examined. Thank you, Mr. Lonus. With that, I'm going to go to the closing statements. They will be in the reverse ballot order. Remember, you each have one minute to speak and we will begin with Mr. Lonus. Thank you. This is kind of an interesting thing that we do here. What this really is, is a job interview. And I express it that way because you folks that are watching are trying to decide who you're going to hire. And why I say it that way is because you're asking me to work for you. I am to be your servant and that's what I'm looking forward to doing. I'm looking forward to doing that in a way that represents everybody very well and understands that the town needs to raise money. So balancing those things and making sure people are treated fairly and those who are most vulnerable are particularly treated fairly. Again, my name is Phil Lonus and I would really appreciate your vote and I also again wanna thank ACMI and Vision Arlington and the League of Women Voters for doing this for us all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lonus. Mr. Hamlin, you have one minute. Thank you. Again, for those of you home who don't know, my name is Guillermo Hamlin. I'm a candidate for Board of Assessors and I respectfully ask for your vote by Saturday, April 10th, whether it be by mail, in person, absentee. And the reason is because we need to be able to actually explain to our residents what it is that we're doing. To substantiate whether or not our service to the public is beneficial. I'd like to thank Kevin Feely for his years of service and should he win again, his continued service. I'd like to thank him for the work that he's done. I wish that I knew more of the good work that he has done and I believe that the town would benefit if they had known a great deal about what the Board of Assessors has done. My background is that I'm Paraguayan-born, Harvard-educated, camera operator, but also I have a background in housing nonprofits. I serve in government and access television and I'm a town meeting member. I'm already in town with government and I'm looking to expand financial relief wherever possible. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Feely, you have one minute. Thank you. I'm not gonna repeat everything I said earlier but I am qualified for the job. I've been doing the job for a number of years. I have a real interest in it. I have real interest in town government and I like everybody's consideration and vote on April 10th and the important thing is for people to vote. We've seen that in the local, in the national election this year. Every vote counts so please get out and vote. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Feely. We will now hear from the candidates for select board. There are two seats open each for a three-year term. There are three candidates, Eric D. Helmuth, Jennifer R. Seuss, and John V. Herd. The five members of the select board serve three-year overlapping terms. They act as the town's executive branch to formulate town policy, ensure compliance with state laws and administer many town meeting decisions. The board appoints the town manager to be the professional manager of town services and departments except for the schools. The select board members also serve as the board of public works and the board of survey compiled the warrant, grant licenses and permits, appoint election officers, review budgets and settle claims against the town. The members announce all elections, attend hearings and other town functions and deal with traffic and safety matters. We will now hear opening statements for the candidates in the order in which they appear on the ballot. The first candidate is Mr. Helmuth. Mr. Helmuth, you have two minutes to speak. Good evening. Thank you to the League of Women Voters and ACMI for this forum. And thanks to you who are watching for caring about your government enough to spend your time with us this evening. My name is Eric Helmuth and I'm running for select board to bring my experience in our town government and my passion for bringing people together to help meet our challenges and move Arlington forward. My husband and I moved to Arlington 14 years ago and I quickly discovered Arlington is a place where people get involved. I got involved too. And over the past 11 years, I've learned how town government works and how you get things done. As a town meeting member, I introduced the idea of using electronic voting in town meeting and I led the team effort to change our bylaws and get it set up. It was a big change, but now you can see how your own town meeting members vote on the issues you care about. As chair of the Community Preservation Act Committee, I've led the process to fund millions of dollars in affordable housing, open space, recreation and historic preservation projects all across Arlington. Working closely with many town departments, the finance committee, the town manager's office, capital planning, commissions and finally town meeting to choose and agree on good projects that everybody wins with. In these and in many other roles in our government, I've earned a reputation as a good listener, as a team player and importantly as a consensus builder. And I'd like to bring these skills to the select board. I'm grateful to have supporters from many walks of life, people who've lived here over 50 years or less than five parents and seniors, people from every neighborhood, elected leaders, including several members of the select board and school committee, many town meeting members and others. Local government can make a real difference in people's lives. I look forward to talking tonight about how we can work together to make Arlington a better place for everyone. Thank you, Mr. Halmuth. We will now hear from Ms. Seuss. You have a minute. Yes, I'd like to thank the League of Women Voters, ACMI, Envision Arlington for giving us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and talk about the issues that we care about. My name is Jennifer Seuss and I'm running for seat on the Arlington Select Board. I have served the town in a wide range of capacities, including town meeting, school committee, election modernization committee and long range planning committee. I've had leadership roles in multiple ballot question campaigns and I've been an active volunteer with many different community organizations. As a member of the school committee, I advocate strongly for transparent decision making and community dialogue. I organize public forums to hear from stakeholders during difficult decisions. I initiated office hours, a webpage and an email newsletter. Other efforts I was involved in include an 8.30 a.m. start time at the secondary level, standardizing the after-school application process, the five-year strategic plan, reports on school suspensions broken up by race and implicit bias training for all administrators and staff. I am running for a select board because as I gained experience through my varied roles in town, I became more invested and involved in issues that went beyond the school committee work, including housing, the environment and racial justice. On housing, I believe that every city and town in the Boston area has a responsibility to do its part to increase affordable housing, housing diversity and housing supply more generally. But the particulars of how that looks need to emerge from a larger community-wide conversation. On the environment, Arlington's doing a good job. I support the goals of the Net Zero Action Plan and the proposal to declare a climate emergency. We're on the right track, but we need to stay vigilant. Finally, on issues of racial justice, equity and inclusion, I believe that we need to consider those in everything that we do. And as the town develops its multi-year equity plan, we need to make sure that all voices are heard from and represented. Thank you for listening. I look forward to the debate. Thank you, Ms. Seuss. Mr. Hart, you have two minutes. Thank you. My name is John Hurd and I'm a candidate for reelection to the Slack board. First, I wanna thank the League of Women Voters in Vision Arlington and ACMI for facilitating this debate. And my fellow candidates, Jennifer and Eric, for running positive issue-based campaigns. I am currently wrapping up my first term on the Slack board. It has been a privilege and honor to serve the residents of Arlington over the past three years. I continue to learn from my colleagues and town residents and grow as a Slack board member each day. Over the last term, Arlington faced a number of challenges. We had to maintain our town's fiscal stability, heal the visions in town relative to systemic, structural and individual racism, create solutions to our housing affordability crisis and deal with a pandemic that threatened the lives of our residents and businesses. All of these efforts ran alongside our continued work to promote sustainability, update our transportation system and protect our town's natural resources. I am proud to say that through collaboration among both board members and residents, we're able to address these issues. And I was happy to play a critical role in the solutions. However, despite these achievements, there is significant work ahead of us. I am committed to continuing to work with residents and town staff to build on the progress that we have made. And I look forward to a friendly discussion about these issues tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hearth. We will now move on to the questions. And with the questions, we will be starting with Ms. Seuss, the first question. What does affordable housing mean to you? What can the select board do and not do to increase affordable housing while addressing neighborhood concerns about wetlands, traffic and existing home sizes? Do you have any specific comments about the proposed development, Thorndike Place on the MuGar property? You have one minute, Ms. Seuss. Great, those are a lot of questions. They're really important questions. The select board doesn't deal directly with housing issues. However, for any issue that is important in town, the select board as a main political body should be involved. Housing and housing production is something in which the community has some anxiety around. There's a lot of different ideas. The select board should play the role, the liaison role between the town administrators and the community. We don't have enough affordable housing. What you asked me what affordable housing meant. There's deed restricted affordable housing, which is questions about percentage of area median income. But there's also that sort of middle income housing that we also don't have enough of. We need to actually produce housing of all type and we need to be a leader in the community in producing housing to be an inspiration to other communities. Because if we each do our part, not totally transforming ourselves, but doing our part, we can make a difference. Thank you, Ms. Seuss. Mr. Herd, you have one minute. Thank you. In order to maintain our efforts to increase diversity in town, we have to promote policies that create more actual affordable housing units. And in the past few years, it generally wasn't the select board's role to deal with issues of housing and zoning. But in the past year, we've stepped up our role and I've worked with the chair of the Ontario Development Board. You started to identify issues that both of our boards could work together to promote new changes that will promote affordable housing in town. And these efforts are ongoing, but we planted the seed and I look forward to where these efforts will go. As far as the Thondai Place project, we as a board have been vehemently against this project since the start. We've committed to fighting this project in any way that the board is able to do so with recent efforts to try to get mass housing to re-look at their decisions to approve the project. So we're committed as a select board to fighting that project. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Helmuth, you have one minute. Yeah, thank you. Fundamentally affordable housing to me means economic diversity. And we are a better community if our fabric is economic and social diversity. I have been privileged to be part of helping to fund specific affordable housing through my role as the chair of the CPA Committee through Housing Corporation of Arlington. And we need to do a lot more of that. I think I'm a big fan of the new affordable housing trust that's kind of China Community meeting just created. We need to fund that robustly and I wanna help do that. I think it also means looking at how we can have more in different kinds of housing so that more in different kinds of people can live here. Some of that does mean lower cost market rate housing. And for me, it means putting it in the right place. I'd like to see us do more with mixed use housing and business development on commercial spines. I think it also means not putting it in the wrong place. And for me, that does mean the Mugar Development and Thorndoc Dyke Place just because of the flooding environmental and water issues. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Now I'll go to the next question and Mr. Herd will be the first one on this one. Pick the most important issue on which your position differs substantively from those of your challengers and explain your stance. Mr. Herd, you have one minute. So I mean, I think this is gonna be a difficult question for any of us to answer because I think we do have pretty substantial substantially the same views on a lot of issues in town. I'm one of the things that's really been important for me has been investing in our business districts. This is something that I've been talking about since my last campaign. I am a business owner in town, so I have the perspective of someone that operates a business right downtown and I can see how issues of parking and just really the beautification of our business districts can affect the type of commerce that we can do here in town. So that's certainly an issue where I have a unique perspective. I don't know that my view on where we go is dramatically different from my fellow candidates, but that's only one area that I'm committed to working with in town. Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Held, if you have one minute. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not sure that I see a lot of daylight and how we would vote on most of the issues between the three of us. I think that I would like to talk a little bit about my unique background. My training was in mental health. My first job was a mental health counselor and the social worker. And I think that has framed my approach of looking at the needs of people and be proactive at that and really working to collaborate and bring people together, make sure all voices are heard in a way that protects the interests of the minority. And I would look at, use that as the lens of everything that I wanna do, whether that's working on equity and inclusion, which is really important to me. I think the town has made some great strides in the last couple of years, but we are not done. And I think that we need to really listen and not be satisfied with action plans as important as they are, not be actually satisfied with trainings, but to really hold ourselves accountable with metrics and always focus on the people. And that's what I would like to do as a member of the select board. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Ms. Seuss, you have a point. Yeah, I'm gonna give a similar answer, which is that I do think that we have many of the same views. We have different strengths, however, and different emphasis for sure. I have a school committee background, which I think is helpful. We've lost the one person who had a school committee background. 43% of our budget is the schools, so I think that's helpful to have. When I was on the school committee, the thing I focused the most on was this sort of community outreach and transparent decision making. What I realized actually is that being on a board, your most powerful role is that liaison role between the community and the board. Partly that's because when you're on a board, you can't actually talk to each other because of a mean-law issues, so that what you can do, what you're really powerful doing is that kind of relationship to the community. So when community has been anxious about something, like over-the-gives decision, I was able to do that kind of outreach and show our decision process and help to people, I think. Thank you, Mrs. Wendango. The next question, and we'll be starting with Mr. Helmuth this time. What would you do to ensure that new hires and appointees to various public bodies made by the select board and town manager promote diversity, equity, and inclusion? What challenges to increasing diversity in these positions would be outside of your control as a select board member? Mr. Helmuth, you have one minute. Yeah, thank you. I think that you have to do more than set opportunities. Anyone who can join a committee and a commission, and I think it's a lot harder to make sure that people who are underrepresented feel welcome, feel like that they would have a voice and be believed and be empowered, and I think we need to ask them what they need. We need to make sure that the opportunities, the logistical opportunities are open to them. I also think it's really important to measure. I spent 23 years working in the academic public health field, working with people who measure everything they do, because if you don't measure it, it doesn't happen. So I would be, as a select board member, really interested in holding the town government accountable for getting from point A to point B to setting the right yardstick and then not losing sight of that yardstick. So it's a big, complicated question. It's one of the things I cared the most about as I said in my prior answer, but that would be part of my approach. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. Ms. Seuss. Yeah, so actually I said in the last debate that people who show up at public meetings are often wealthier and whiter and older. I think that's also true, but people who volunteer to serve on committees and the way to sort of potentially counteract that is to develop those relationships over time, that you can't just fly in and sort of do a one-off and say, hey, you know, can we have a diverse group of people here, right? It has to be going to the community, talking to people with diverse backgrounds and sort of, you know, over time, establishing relationships, making connections so that when a position does become open, you already have that sort of trust that people feel comfortable coming to you. So that's what I think is important. Thank you, Mr. Heard, you have one minute. Thank you. We as a town have made great strides with diversity in our population over the past few years, but diversity in our town leadership has certainly lagged those increases. So I think what's really important is instead of just waiting, sitting and waiting for it and seeing who applies, who wants to get involved, we have to be proactive in order to go out and recruit good quality candidates from diverse backgrounds to come serve and then make them feel comfortable and make them feel welcomed into the discussion. And when you do that, when someone actually gets a call from a town leader saying, we love you to serve on this role, we think you really can bring some perspective that we is lacking right now. I think it makes people comfortable and it makes them feel wanted and it's a good way to increase some diversity in our commissions and, you know, certainly invite more diverse candidates in our election cycles. Thank you, Mr. Heard. The next question, we will start with Missouce. Do you think that Arlington needs a social media policy and a code of conduct for employees, including the police department? Why or why not? Missouce, you have one minute. Wow, that's a hard question. So I don't honestly know enough about what, I assume we don't have a policy. So I'm just, I don't know enough about what policies we have. I think it's worth considering to figure out what would make sense in terms of our values. Obviously, that has to be something that is well vetted by lawyers to make sure that we have the authority to do that. We also potentially have to renegotiate contracts, which I know from my school committee work is a very long-term process. Anytime you have to go back and renegotiate a contract, you have to, it's just a long process. So I say yes, but I suspect it's not easy to do something that would make sense and be what we want. Thank you, Missouce. Mr. Hurd, one minute. Yes, I mean, I think it's a great idea within the bounds of the law and the restrictions that we're able to do it. But I think we have a lot of smart people working in town who can come up with social media policy and a code of conduct. A code of conduct is something that came up a number of times in the wake of Lieutenant Padrini's writings. And it's something that I know the town is committed to working on. And I'd be happy to work on this. And I think it's, this is another area that takes diversity of perspectives to come up with the appropriate policy that we can have that will help us have productive, respectful discussions, but won't infringe on people's rights. So I think it's a good idea. Thank you, Mr. Hurd. Mr. Helm. Yes, I do think we need that policy. And, you know, this is a really good example of why, it's not just the choice that you make that's important, but how you make those decisions. And I think it has to be a collaborative process, not only with our town employees, but with the community. And the reason I think that everyone has a stake in this is because when an employee lets down themselves in the town with a post that reflects poorly on their colleagues and on the town, everybody loses. They lose, their peers lose, other police officers or other school department employees and the community loses trust. So we all need to, all of us need to be at that table and say, what can we do to restore the trust that has been lost in the last couple of years? And what kind of policy can we put together that the unions will embrace because it protects everyone? And I think that's for me the way to do it. Thank you, Mr. Helm. We're now going to the last question before we go to the closing statements. And with this one, we will be starting with Mr. Hurd. Cities and towns served by the MBTA will need to have a multifamily zoning district near a transit station or risk losing state grants. How do you think this will affect Arlington? Mr. Hurd, you have one minute. So I'm not familiar with the policy, but I certainly know up and down, most of our transit goes along Mass Ave and Arlington certainly relies on bus transit in order to, particularly before the pandemic and we'll continue again. Arlington residents rely on public transit in order to get to work, in order to get to the grocery store. So we as a town have to commit to comply with any regulations that the MBTA puts forth to make sure that we don't lose any drop, any service. There's been service cuts in the past year that the board has come together. We wrote a letter to the MBTA to make sure that they can, that they'll restore those services once they're able to do so. But Arlington really relies on public transit and it's something that public transportation has been a key issue for this luck board on the past term. Thank you, Mr. Halmuth. Yeah, I think we're gonna need to do that in order to preserve our access to state funding that we're going to probably be pretty motivated to comply with that regulation and that Governor's Economic Development Bill that was passed I believe in December. And I think that it's an opportunity for us, something I said in an early answer that with housing, where you put it really matters. Putting it in the right place really matters. So this is gonna be an opportunity to try something and find out where multifamily housing can work and we're gonna have to go through a process with people to have those discussions and to negotiate and maybe to compromise people in the community, especially of course, but everybody who has a stake in this will need to be involved. Again, that process is really important. The location is important. And frankly, I'd like to think that it can work. I think that Arlington can manage more than one kind of housing and more than one kind of neighborhood. I think people want more than one kind of neighborhood. So I'd like to look at it as an opportunity. Thank you, Mrs. Seuss. Yes, I am really excited about this. This is Chapter 40A of the Academic Development Bill and I think it's Section 3A. And this is the requirement that in any MTBA community, there would be a district of reasonable size within half a mile of a transit that has 15 units per acre, at least. So I'm excited about it and if we don't do it, we lose things like the MassWorks grants which are super important to our town. But how we do it should be a result of a community process. So we shouldn't have the planning department come up with an idea and sort of present it to us as FEDA complete, right? We need to have a community discussion about how that looks because there's lots of different ways we can do this. We can sort of put three families in. We can put larger units in. And there's just lots of ways to satisfy the requirements and it really needs to come out of a community-wide process. But it's great. Thank you, Mrs. We will now hear closing statements from the candidates for select board. We will have, they will speak in the reverse ballot order and they have one minute for their statement and we will start with Mr. Heard. Mr. Heard. Thank you. I wanna again thank the legal women voters and Vision Arlington, ACMI and I'm moderated for hosting this debate and my fellow candidates for the positive discussion. I'm a lifelong resident of Arlington and I understand the history and traditions of this wonderful town, but I'm also a progressive and I have been happy to champion issues as a select board member that appeal to all Arlington residents, both new and old. This dual perspective makes me uniquely qualified to serve in this important role. I enjoy working collaboratively with my fellow board members and residents to address the important issues facing our town. I am proud and honored to have received the public endorsement of all of the select board members that I have served with, except of course my friend and mentor, Kevin Greeley. I look forward to continuing to discuss the issues facing our town with our residents over the next few weeks and I respectfully ask for one of your two votes on Saturday, April 10th. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Heard. Ms. Su, you have one minute. Once again, I'd like to thank the League of Women Voters, ACMI and Vision Arlington for giving us the opportunity to talk about ourselves and to talk about our visions for the town. I'd like to thank my fellow candidates for running positive and thoughtful campaigns. It's been a pleasure to campaign both against and alongside such people I like and respect so much. The current COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need for greater community conversations on matters before the select board. I believe I can help here as I have a track record of just such work. I want to thank you, the voters for listening and getting involved in the campaign. I hope you and your family are safe and well. I want to thank my supporters, including the 33% of town meeting members who have publicly endorsed my campaign. To learn more about me and the issues I care about, I encourage you to go to SUSE for a select board. It's SUSSE.com. And finally, don't forget to vote on Saturday, April 10th or earlier by absentee valid. And when you do, I hope to earn one of your two votes for the Arlington Select Board. Thank you, Ms. SUSE and Mr. Halmuth. Thank you once again for watching this debate. Thanks to my fellow candidates for being willing to serve and for running such a positive campaign. The select board is the link between the community and its government. The job of a select board member is not to solve everybody's problems. It's to bring people together, to work on our challenges, to compromise and to find the best path forward together. I have broad experience in Arlington's government, strong relationships with our local leaders and with our state house delegation and a track record of getting things done the right way by listening to others, by being open to criticism and by building consensus. If you entrust me with this role, this is what I promise. I will work hard. I will always listen carefully and honestly consider your views and you will always know where I stand. Please visit eric4selectboard.com to learn more about my experience, my priorities, the community leaders who support me and I ask for one of your two votes on Saturday, April 10th. Thank you, Mr. Helmuth. This brings tonight's candidate form to a close. I wanna thank all the candidates for running for office and for adhering to the timing scheduled tonight made my job easier. And I wanna thank again, the Arlington League women voters for once again honoring me by inviting me to be the moderator. Patti Meldood will close the program now. Patti. Thanks, Margaret. We wanna thank you so much for being our moderator and like everyone else, we also wanna thank the candidates for participating tonight, all those who could and our viewing audience. Thank you to Arlington Community Media Inc. for broadcasting this forum. If you are interested in the activities of either Envision Arlington or the League of Women Voters of Arlington, information is available on our respective websites. In addition, a government primer previously compiled based upon six Citizen Corner articles published in the Arlington Advocate is also available through the town's website. And as a reminder, you have until April 6th to request an absentee ballot so that you can vote by mail. The town election will be on Saturday, April 10th for all of those who wanna vote in person. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Candidates night has been broadcast live virtually starting at 7.30 p.m. on March 31st, 2021. Please visit acmi.tv for rebroadcast information. Thank you for coming tonight and for watching. Voters, please vote. The forum has been sponsored by Envision Arlington and the League of Women Voters of Arlington.