After two terms on the council I’ve shown myself to be a thoughtful voice, used selectively who likes to get stuff done. I am newer to the nuances of municipal government than the others who are running for chair. I have been privileged to learn and work alongside most of you for the last four years.

The role of the chair is to both to set the agenda and the tone of the meetings. As a former middle school educator, I am good at setting boundaries and sticking to them. Middle schoolers have their quirks, and notions of fairness is often high on their radar. They have held me accountable for year and shaped my desire for clarity and consistency in my group facilitation. 

I take seriously the idea that council acts as a check and balance with the administration and we’ve seen this relationship swing in the last 4 years here in Framingham.

I like putting systems into place. I want to engage in long term agenda planning – and structure and promote an annual cycle, so that we can do a better job of highlighting items both for councilors and for residents and be prepared for these intense conversations. 

I look forward to working with the mayors office to make the Mayors report at Council meetings a productive conversation and not a series of unanswered questions or requests for further discussion. Also flush out the 5th Tuesday of the month meetings. Our rules call for these meetings to be “for the exclusive purpose of brainstorming and strategizing with the mayor, community leaders and residents on specific topics as selected by the mayor.”  We’re being given opportunity as a council to engage in the big conversations that I believe we want to have, we need to actualize them. We have big budget conversations moving forward and will likely need to make hard decisions.

As a council, we must establish our role as a respectful, co-equal branch of government based on municipal checks and balances and our operational structures – not personalities.

I will work to move us forward, work collaboratively with the administration, school committee, SIFOC, city staff, and residents to get things done in a respectful, welcoming, and engaging process. We might each have slightly different ideas of what it means to be a city councilor in our fledgling city government, based on our various experiences, strengths and abilities. That makes us a powerful force if we can commit to moving together. I do not believe we will always find consensus, nor do I think we should. Healthy discussion and disagreements are part of making decisions.

We talk a lot on council about raising up new voices in our community to engage and to serve- and it’s time to practice what we preach and vote in new leadership. We heard it in the inauguration. We’ve not a lot of turnover in membership in this term- so if change makes you uncomfortable, now is a good time, with a solid and experienced council base, to empower new leadership willing to do the work and refine the systems that make our legislative body, and our government work for all of our residents, business community and metrowest region.

I get the sense that coming into this meeting without a clear sense of what leadership would be and forward direction was unsettling for some. This is an opportunity for us desiring leadership to present ourselves, and for us as a council to discuss what we want in our leadership and in this next council term. 

Thank you for your engagement in this conversation now – and for your consideration of voting for me as Chair.