 Hello everyone I'm James Milan and this is one of a series of one-on-one conversations we are having with candidates for local office. Today I am talking to Julie Brazil who is a candidate for town clerk in the elections this year 2020. Julie welcome and thanks for joining us. So I want to just basically engage in a conversation with you that enables you to get perhaps a little bit more of your views and perspectives than would have been available to you in the constraints of the debate and also just follow up on some of the things that that came up there but we're talking about of course the clerk's office job and everybody's mind right now is on our first our local election coming up very imminently on June 6th and in the process that we are having to develop for that so why don't you just take us through that process really quickly and then let us know what you think you know of the way that the that the clerk's office has performed and and the things they've had to deal with right now. Sure so yes it's it's funny candidates are so focused on the election date and now you know I feel that I don't want to say June 6th because people have to people have to vote before June 6th if they're voting by mail so where we are now is we're waiting for the postcards the town is mailing a postcard to every registered voter I'm hoping to get mine today and and that postcard will let you add your name and your address and sign it and send it back and get a ballot in the mail the postcards prepaid so they've they've tried to make that as simple for people as possible you don't have to find a stamp um so that's been you know it was a great decision on the part of the town the clerk's office will then um you know process all those requests and the first wave of ballots is due to be mailed out um on Friday late this week um they've already processed requests you know the absentee requests that come in um I mean absentee requests came in in February when we thought the election was in April um so they the last I heard they have about a thousand to mail out and then they'll just keep mailing them in waves um and people should probably be prepared to um you know kind of stick I'm telling people to get you know June 1st in your head that's when you should really put your ballot in the mail so it's safe and there's um you know if your mailman's having a weird day you're not risking right you're not risking your vote not being counted people should understand it's not a postmark the physical ballot has to be um processed on election day and the town's been doing this for a long time there's a long history of that late afternoon call around four to the post office are there any ballots um you know still there and then somebody goes over and and gets them and takes them to the precincts um so that your vote is counted um so that's it's not actually a hard process but it's going to feel complicated for people and that is something that I think the town is um is worried about is a community um changes hard people are creatures of habit and we've been learning a lot of new habits um through this whole you know self-isolation process um and I just I do worry about people who will find this confusing um so yeah so I understood how do you feel that do you have anything that you want to say about the performance of the clerk's office so far in this you know again granted that these are unprecedented circumstances we're all making it up as we go along etc do you have any observations about the clerk's office and how it would run if you were in charge that might be illustrative um you know sure in this example so the plan is um is solid I'm the clerk's office has been working closely with town manager and uh select board staff and all of the planning and I think um the planning is good I haven't seen the postcard um and one thing that's that I have learned over the years because you know working on the town survey um that in vision Arlington does um it's really hard to get the wording right when space is limited and on this postcard there's not a lot of time to explain and so you know the instructions will have to be clear um and um and so I'm hopeful given all of the thoughtful planning that's been happening so far that that postcard will be straightforward and not too confusing for people just because it is you know it's going to confuse people um and so um trying to make sure that the town has um a sort of a robust communication plan um way for people who are confused by it to to get an answer quickly um so that they're not stressed out and that they're not their confusion isn't slowing down their ability to participate vote or engagements um the whole reason we're doing this much work is a town um and uh so that follow through is really important um and I think community-wide this is a great chance to activate um all the networks uh you know Arlington Help and Mutual Aid Arlington and Amazing Arlington there are lots and lots of volunteers and I think we want to make sure that they all understand the questions that have been coming up so that if they're talking with people um you know face-to-face or you know dealing with a shut-in who needs help that they're helping them navigate um one more detail so that they can vote you you mentioned voter engagement and I know that you know increasing access uh to voting and um you know is an important component for you and the other candidates I'm sure um and we're all aware that there's generally lower turnout than we would like especially for purely local elections etc how do you think this is going to affect um you know that concern access to voting this is a huge experiment yes it's always so sad for people who follow politics in Arlington closely who feel like you know voter turnout is um is so low um and and that's that's sad for people um and so there's always a discussion on the Arlington list and and social media after an election um you know what can we do and sometimes the answer is oh well we should be mailing things to every registered voter and now we're doing that so it will be interesting to see if that in fact increases voter participation um I hope it does um there are a lot of contested races and this is um you know this is the timing is fortuitous in that um it would be we'd still have to do this um this vote by mail process because the health crisis um even if there were no contested races so at least um you know we're getting the the most bang for our buck um and I think more people will engage because there are so many decisions that voters get to make right now and assuming for a second or maybe even for the balance of this conversation that conditions were more normal and that we weren't just you know dealing always under the looming shadow of the pandemic um assuming that is this step of mailing into everybody's home is that something that you would do as clerk to engage voters if so you know why and what else what would you do at the clerk to further engage a voting population so yes I mean it's it's it's controlled by the legalities so um to do vote by mail um will require um changes at the the state uh the legislators will have to enable that they have planned to do that um it hasn't been voted on but the legislation looks reasonable for continuing vote by mail for the september primary and the november general elections and I certainly support that um I will be on the phone um following up hard um uh in my capacity as a as a voter in a person either way um this is this is really important um to uh to expand voter engagement and I hope that the numbers in Arlington prove that um that it's worth the cost and and the change um and so I mean and then I think the s um we have to explore that we have to figure out what the clerk's office can do but the clerk does not have unilateral um control over elections that's a definitely a partnership um with the select board um and so uh there's uh I would want to explore all possible methods to to reach voters um and increase engagement um working within the framework um that were given by the state okay you know in the five minutes we have left in this conversation it's flying by of course um I wanted to ask just follow up on a few things that came up in the debate one of them is that you were citing your experience working with volunteer as a volunteer in town over decades and organizing volunteers you were cited that experience as a you know as your proxy for being qualified for this this job you know for some of the the work entailed by the job um is that an apt truly an apt analogy compared to the resumes of the of the other candidates which seem to be more you know be filled with more relevant experience I guess it depends on um on how you can define relevant um uh yes Janice is currently um supervising the the staff in the clerk's office um so she is um you know acting in some sense um in the current role so uh you know we can consider her for the purpose of the of the conversation unincumbent um um yeah I'm not sure that Patty has a significant management experience she's coordinated things um you know in the same way that I've coordinated um things so I'm not sure that that's not highly relevant um I'm not sure there's a really big difference between Patty and myself in terms of resumes and some of the solutions that um that I think we're going to have to use in the clerk's office in order to um continue outreach and continue engagement may involve that partnership that's developed with the clerk's office and the league women voters um and indigent Arlington in order to use volunteers to do some of the work um there there is a distinction apparently legally between the kinds of information that the town can provide to residents on town meeting candidates um that's that's a different um kind of democracy and those are different races than um that elected townwide offices so um the the partnership the the gathering of the information and the candidate statements and making those available to people um has been something that the league and indigent Arlington have done and I think that is going to have to continue until we can um uh yeah because that's really an important source of information for people and um town meeting candidates are um are always uh struggling to figure out how to reach voters because you it's really hard to knock on every door um that you know 4 000 residents in in a precinct so um so yeah so I mean I think that that those partnerships are very important um and that collaborative um you know the elections like I said before our collaborative process so I think um being um you know being part of the team is really how on approaching it this is not a unilateral role right well speaking of that um wanted to uh ask you to just give us a sense of what your own leadership and management style would be uh within the office and also um one other thing in this because we may not have time to get beyond this question um so that your management style and also um how you would get more resources or money um uh janis was citing that that was an issue for her just not having money you know do you have plans for that so management style and how to get more resources okay so yes um so as a volunteer leader I've been managing volunteers for a really long time and yes um so that you know that style of making sure that people are supported that they um that they have the information and the resources they need to do their job well um that certainly carries through um people need responsibility um they need to feel like they're really contributing um and I think that's important um with paid staff in the office we're we're building a team um and um and I'm sure that there will be um well there will be changes um and I'm excited to um to use their expertise um yeah they're they're doing the work now and I'm sure they have ideas and I really hope that they will share those ideas and that we can build on that um improvements um should bubble up from the people doing the work um and I would certainly want to listen to their ideas about how to improve things um the flow of information and the paperwork in the office I would never want to create a system that made it harder um for the office to do its work um just because I had an idea um that would be foolish you know um amazingly we're out of time okay so we're not going to be able to get to the other question but um appreciate the fact that you absolutely filled the 15 minutes we have with content and hopefully uh make it easier for people to make their decisions uh here coming up thank you so much for doing this again you guys have been great thank you um I'm James Milan this has been a one-on-one conversation with Julie Brazell candidate four town clerk uh we appreciate your being here we'll see you next time