By Adam Swift
Candidates for Town Council, Council President, Library Trustee, and the Housing Authority took part in a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Republican Town Forum and hosted by WBZ investigative reporter Cheryl Fiandaca last week.
The library trustee and housing committee candidates were given an opportunity to talk about why they were seeking office.
The council candidates fielded several questions, mainly revolving around the MBTA 3A Communities Act, the budget, and the town charter, in addition to making a closing statement. Town Council President candidates Hannah Belcher and Jim Letterie, were also asked several questions about the schools. The council president also serves as a voting member of the school committee.
The council president candidates were asked about the budget challenges the schools are facing, and how the growing number of students whose first language is not English has affected the budget.
Letterie said those budget challenges for education are consistent throughout the state.
“We are incredibly fortunate that recently the residents of Winthrop, the taxpayers of Winthrop stepped up and passed a $4.9 million override,” said Letterie. “That was $3.5 million to go to the operating budget and another $1.4 million which almost more importantly created an education stabilization fund that we have been trying to do for years. This will help the ongoing challenges that every school district is going to face.”
Belcher noted that there is a large variety of specialized education that Winthrop offers and that it is expensive, but that it is the town’s legal and ethical obligation to ensure that every student is given the same level of opportunity, care, and attention.
“This is a challenge with finite budgetary constraints,” said Belcher. “We are very grateful that the residents came out and supported the override. I think that we need to model the cost of these specialized education areas well into the future to ensure that we’re not looking for five million dollar overrides, that we can do things on a more sustainable level and we can preplan for expenses as they come up.”
Fiandaca asked each of the council candidates their position on the MBTA 3A Communities Act. Currently, the town is in noncompliance with the state zoning law.
Precinct 5 Council incumbent Joseph Aiello voted to support the 3A compliance plan forwarded by the Planning Board when it came before the council.
“One of the things that you learn as a councilor is that on almost any broad issue, there are going to be people on both sides of the dividing line for who is for something or who’s against something,” said Aiello. “That’s natural, that is a good part of democracy … that good debate when it is good and honest. The is when you’re on this side of the table and you have taken an oath of office to uphold the laws and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you have a different obligation and that is to look at the facts and understand things that are coming at you.
“It is very dangerous to begin to pick and choose which laws we are going to agree to and which laws we are not.”
Precinct 5 Council challenger Paul Reardon said 3A is a poorly written law that the state has tried to make apply to too many towns.
“It puts an undue burden on us,” said Reardon. “I’m not saying we should be fighting against a law, but we should not give up until we have exhausted all of our legal options. The town itself … has budget constraints, this will impact the budget dramatically, not only that, but it will impact the way of life in this town.”
Precinct 3 Council candidate Joseph Romano said 3A is an example of state overreach.
“The state is trying to force a blanket zoning law on all communities that the MBTA services, including Winthrop, and we know Winthrop better than the state knows Winthrop,” said Romano. “We need to continue to fight for our own rights and our own zoning. If 3A were to come to our community, the cost in extra infrastructure you would have to provide for schools, that would completely destroy our budget.”
Precinct 3 Council candidate Elizabeth “Betsy” Shane said 3A is a difficult discussion, but that she believes that the town should comply with the law.
“I think the planning board has done an incredible job of coming up with a creative way to have little building that will happen due to the zoning plan,” said Shane. “I understand the people who are not interested in 3A and want to repeal it or find a way to get exempted from it. If that is the case, please go do that, I think that’s fine. But in the meantime, while we are waiting to find out that decision, I think grant money is important, we are talking a tight budget here across the board, we need all that funding that we can get in order to help us going forward.”
Precinct 2 Council candidate Kim Dimes said 3A is a one-size-fits-all law that is not right for Winthrop.
“Our aged and undersized infrastructure, our density, and our limited egress are justifiable reasons for an exemption from 3A,” said Dimes. “If elected, I would share my views actively with my constituents, but also listen and incorporate community input into this decision making.”
Council-at-Large candidate Kurt Millar said 3A is a bad law.
“It is written poorly and it is a cookiecutter type of concept,” said Millar. “It is not only our state that has implemented this, I have mentioned at many council meetings and at discussions throughout town with other people, California has been doing this for awhile now, and they have failed epically. They keep putting additional laws in place to keep trying to fix all the loopholes and issues with this type of law.
“I am for an exemption for our town, and our state should appreciate all the work that this town has done over the years being ahead of the curve.”
Council-at-Large candidate Celeste Riberio-Hewitt that when it comes to any proposal or initiative that comes before the council, the only two things the council should be looking at are obligations and outcomes.
“Our obligations to our constituents to upholding the law, upholding the oath that we take, and our outcomes for our constituents,” she said. “I believe we have arrived at a point in time with not one, but two unique proposals on 3A that we are hitting pretty much everyone’s desired outcome, which is zero additional housing units. The exemption path is available, and so this paper compliance is essentially the equivalent of an exemption.”
Belcher said she is not for adding density to Winthrop.
“If we had anything else besides the plan in front of us that objectively resulted in no units being built, I think I would feel very differently on this,” said Belcher. “We do have a plan, we did advocate to the state. We went and met with Secretary Augustus of the Executive Office of Housing and Community Development and we advocated for our current density and for our limited ingress and egress out of town.
“They are not offering exemptions to communities by this methodology,” Belcher continued. “There are exemption cases in court, we understand that those are ongoing, but it is our job as councilors to uphold the laws of the state and we luckily have a planning board that put in the time, effort, and energy to listen to the community and develop a plan that resulted in no new building.”
Letterie said he has consistently opposed 3A.
“You have to be strong, you have to stand up for your community,” said Letterie. “I don’t dodge this, I don’t abstain from voting on this; my job is to protect the residents of Winthrop and Winthrop’s future. The purpose of 3A is quite simple, it is to increase density and to increase units.
“If we can be as naive to believe that the state is going to uphold zero units, that is a disservice to the citizens of Winthrop,” Letterie continued. “We need to control our own building in the future, we need to control how we are going to develop the town.”
Also taking part in the forum were Library Trustee candidates Cynthia Hastings, Bill Schmidt, Grace Kingsberry, and Gillian Teixeira.