 Hello, my name is Patty Angelis and I am running for a District 2 Town Council seat. I hope that by taking a moment to view this video you'll find reasons to support my candidacy. I moved to Amherst with my partner Carol and our son Jesse 25 years ago for two very important reasons, the quality of the Amherst public schools and our desire to live in a diverse and collaborative community, the Pomeroy Lane Cooperative, which was conceived by abodes whose members were parents of physically and cognitively challenged adults. Our family along with 24 other families moved into the co-op. We were intentionally diverse. Our households were labeled low-income, section 8 and market rate. We were Asian, European, African and Latinx Americans. We were gay and straight. We had varying degrees of understanding about issues of social, economic and environmental justice. We were ordinary people embarking on an extraordinary adventure and along the way we changed. The assumptions that we held about each other were blown apart and we began to see the strength and creativity inherent in our community. We learned to see and acknowledge our differences and find ways to collaboratively solve the problems that arose. This experience, this community showed me what Amherst could be, provided lessons I've carried forward into my work as a teacher, an activist, a town meeting member and now a council candidate. We face a variety of issues as a town, perhaps the most challenging being the divisions that have occurred over our schools, our form of government and who gets heard, divisions that need to be bridged. As candidates we talk about appropriate development, sustainability, social justice, funding capital projects and preserving the character of our town, but we often mean very different things. We talk, but we need to start listening. We need to find what binds us and build out from there. So how would I look at the challenges we are facing as a town? What values would support my decision-making and ability to collaborate with other counselors as we look at economic and development issues, create policies and procedures that foster sustainability, focus on the quality of our schools while balancing issues of social, economic and environmental justice. One of the most important lessons I learned living in the co-op and also as a classroom teacher was the need for all voices to be heard, for all ideas to be considered, researched, analyzed and reconsidered. I expect to be actively involved in using citizen advisory groups composed of the people who would be most impacted by our decisions as well as other stakeholders. The goal of the committees would be to truly reflect the values and meet the needs of the community we serve. My son Jesse went through the Amherst public schools finding himself challenged, listened to and taken seriously, which was not the case for all of his classmates. As a teacher and learner, I care deeply about the educational, emotional and physical spaces where our children learn. As an educator, I hope to be involved in meetings with the school committee, teachers, administrators and most importantly our students and their parents to get a clear understanding of need and to find ways to provide that need. I feel strongly that we need to continue to develop downtown areas and village centers so that they meet the needs of homeowners and renters, students, young families and the elderly as well as residents who are physically challenged and residents who are homeless or find themselves in need. And I believe that we can work with developers, business people and neighborhood people to both preserve the character of our town and make sustainable changes, changes that are green, creative, long lasting and that benefit all the members of our town community now and in the future. And I will bring to the, what I will bring to the council is curiosity, a willingness to research issues in multiple ways and a belief in collaboration. I am a person of integrity and determination who will foster progressive change and amours, change that rests on the best of what we have already created and the ways we are growing and challenging our community. Thank you.