Trees cool the air, clean the air, sequester carbon dioxide, and provide mental health benefits. Yet Newton has lost tree canopy over the last several decades. Especially as climate change brings hotter summers, it is even more important to have tree canopy in areas of the city with more asphalt, to combat heat island effect. (Check out your neighborhood in this “tree equity index.”)  An informal survey I conducted in July found that most Newton residents support strengthening our tree ordinance, and I look forward to building support for this among other councilors in my next term.

Our environment is awash in plastic pollution. Microplastics have been found at the top of the highest mountains, and at the deepest depths of the ocean. Truly tackling this problem requires action at the state, national and international levels, but Newton can take steps to demonstrate what can be done. We have already banned single use plastic bags and many forms of polystyrene. I have filed legislation to ban nip bottles, which litter our roads and parks. We can also do more to restrict single use plastic bottles.

I support requiring that new construction and major renovations be heated and cooled with electricity rather than fossil fuels such as oil or gas. (This article explains why that is so important.) I have served on a working group that drafted and filed a home rule petition that would accomplish this.

I am working to strengthen building standards to protect new and existing homes against flooding. Historically Newton had many streams and wetlands that have been diverted, culverted or simply filled in. These areas are at higher risk of flooding from the more intense rainstorms that climate change is bringing. Every time we replace natural cover with asphalt or other paved surfaces, we increase the risk of flooding, and also impair water quality in the Charles River, from polluted stormwater runoff.

The Newton City Council voted unanimously to create a Police Reform Task Force, and allocated $200K to a consultant to work with the Task Force. The Task Force held several hearings and conducted surveys and issued a final report with numerous recommendations. I look forward to working with our new Police Chief and the Mayor and City Council to implement the recommendations.

We must change our protocol around frivolous 911 calls about “suspicious persons”. Too often these calls are made about black residents without any cause or justification.  I am pleased to report that our new Police Chief Carmichael said at a May 2021 Zoom meeting (starting at 1:10) that he takes this issue seriously, and that it’s just a matter of training dispatchers.

The Newton Coalition of Black Residents has called for the hiring of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director and I support that investment. Such a position could look across our operations and policies and make recommendations on how best to serve all residents.

I led on lowering the local preference percentage in affordable housing lotteries. The application process for the local preference units is weighted toward current Newton residents, municipal employees, local business employees, and households with children attending Newton schools. Because Newton’s population is less diverse than the Massachusetts average, our local preference policy has the unintended impact of favoring white applicants over applicants of color. 

I have advocated for the City to play a more robust role in partnering with nonprofit housing developers, for example to replicate the Austin Street model of putting a development over a municipal parking lot, but instead of partnering with a for-profit company (which is what we did at Austin St) we should partner with a nonprofit so that we would yield more affordable units. I have co-sponsored an ordinance that would create an Affordable Housing Trust, which is something many other communities have done. As this August 2021 Jacobin article notes, “the private market on its own never supplies an adequate number of affordable homes for the lowest-income renters.

Commercial development is much more lucrative for the City than residential development, and this is an important consideration as Newton carries unfunded liabilities of over $1B in employee pension and retiree health care costs. The FY21 residential tax rate is $10.76 per thousand of assessed value, while the FY21 commercial tax rate is $20.12. Nearly twice the rate! For this reason we should be doing much more to prioritize commercial development. 

It is critically important to be transparent with our residents about how much housing growth we are seeking. In 2010 we had ~32K units of housing in the city. By 2020, we had slightly over 33K, with another 2K+ on the way in already-approved developments. We should be upfront with our residents about how many more units we want, where we want to put them, and our plan to make sure that they’re affordable and preserve Newton’s green space.