Public Safety

Annie believes we must fund our core public safety services adequately. That means the right staffing level to respond to the kinds of problems that arise in Arlington. It also means balancing the financial efficiency of overtime against the problem of stress and exhaustion. Most of the calls our fire department receives are medical calls – so we should be looking at investing in an advanced life saving ambulance and the upgrading of our firefighters medical skills from EMT to paramedic.

This year we used data to assess whether or not the police departments shift staffing levels match the calls received at all times day. This project confirmed for us that our staffing per shift is correct but it also showed that we are understaffed. Annie championed this technique and the result was the addition of a police officer in the current budget.

Public safety is not just police and fire, however, well maintained infrastructure and a human services safety net also contribute to public safety. Annie firmly believes that we need to protect senior services and the Arlington Youth Consultation center budgets as well. These are important preventative measures.

And well maintained streets and sidewalks are also important to protecting the public safety. Over the past few years we began a systematic effort to look at safety issues around our schools in an effort to make walking to school safer and easier. Thru TAC the school committee and the board of selectmen have taken this on together – an important cooperative step. Plowing the bike path has been a great boon to making Arlington walkable this winter. It has also made it clear by contrast that we need to work on making our major streets and school routes walkable as well. Annie has been working with the town manager to find ways to solve this problem within our budget constraints.

  • Protecting public safety – Annie championed the analysis of police department data to assess shifts, calls and staffing and confirmed the need to add another officer to the force. The result: an additional officer was funded in the budget.
  • Sound management practices – The needs of the community should directly impact the staffing and training of our police and fire departments. For instance, we should look at investing in an advanced life-saving ambulance and upgrading firefighter medical skills to meet the high number of medical calls.
  • Enhancing quality of life – Public safety also means safe and well-maintained roads and public places.

Education

Annie and her family chose to make their home in Arlington 20 years ago. In short order, she got involved in volunteering at her daughters’ school and helping lead the campaigns to secure funding to rebuild all seven elementary schools. She played a key role in the successful 2005 override campaign to provide urgently needed funds for the operating budgets of the town and schools.

Despite tough fiscal times for the schools, Annie also championed the cause of full-day kindergarten. Collaborating with parents town-wide, she worked to gather the data necessary to make the case for a longer kindergarten day. She met with School Committee members to allay concerns about cost and access. The result was the expansion of kindergarten opportunities for all children.

In her three years as a Selectman, Annie has worked hard to expand collaboration between the Selectmen and the School Committee, encouraging the boards to meet together frequently. Historically, the relationship between the two boards has been strained by the notion of competition between “town side” and “school side.” Annie seeks to create an atmosphere that is safe and conducive to real discussion, rather than competition.

Because Annie is so deeply committed to the quality of education, we know we can count on her to do all she can to meet the needs of the schools, despite continuing fiscal challenges. She shares these important goals:

  • keeping class sizes small
  • supporting excellence in teaching
  • strengthening school libraries
  • providing adequate support staff such as school nurses
  • supporting our middle and high schools in offering academic and extracurricular programs to shape well-rounded young adults in a fast-changing world.

Communication

Annie believes that transparency is central to good government. To ensure all residents get the information they need and can easily access services and report issues, Annie has :

  • Encouraged the town to create an online sign up for email alerts, encouraging open and transparent government , community safety, and timely communication of the both practical and urgent information to anyone who signs up.
  • Worked to institute an online complaint tracking system, launched 2/08, that allows residents to report their issue any time of night or day and to track the response via the web. This system creates a new way to communicate with Town Hall and makes it easy to find out how and when problems are being addressed.
  • Created more opportunities for open communication through community input on issues like our financial future, plowing the minuteman bikeway and the direction of development in town.

Finances

Annie believes that our budget should reflect our common values.

Annie’s work has saved jobs and money, while ensuring that town revenues are spent on the real business of running our town: protecting our residents, educating our children, and maintaining our streets and infrastructure. She has:

  • Worked with the town manager to institute performance management projects that, for example, look at when crimes are committed and the types of crimes to match the staffing in the police department with the actual town’s needs. This has resulted in an increase to our police force.
  • Created opportunities for community input into the next long term financial plan that resulted in specific actionable suggestions from the community that will save the town money. Many of these suggestions are being explored and/or implemented by town departments this year.
  • The consolidation of the town and school IT departments that saved the town $50,000.00 in annual operating costs. The successful effort has lead to the examination of more such consolidations that may offer future savings.
  • Encouraged the town manager to look for more opportunities for regional cooperation that will result in the same services at a lower in cost for Arlington and her neighbors now and in the future.

Town Employees

Annie believes that the Town’s employees are one of its greatest assets. She knows that they are not motivated by their compensation alone. They believe in the importance of their work and take great pride in doing it well. Indeed, some of them, such as our fire and police forces, take great risks for the sake of the town’s residents. As a selectman she has:

  • Served as the Board’s representative on the Health Insurance Advisory Committee. In this position, she worked with the town’s consultant and the members to make sure everyone – employees and management – had the same understanding of the method used to project the change in rates each year. This resulted in greater consensus among all parties about the necessary rise in premiums for 2008 and an agreement to meet more often to monitor the drivers that affect the rates.
  • Encouraged the town manager to seek employee input into the next long term financial plan.
  • Championed the use of a new approach – interest based bargaining – that creates a partnership between management and labor as we consider the pros and cons of moving the Town’s health insurance to the state’s Group Insurance Commission.

The town government and the town employees all have the same goal: keeping Arlington a great place to live. Annie’s efforts have helped build a bridge that will let them work together more effectively. But there are still greater challenges in the future as health insurance costs continue to rise, and we need Annie there for the next three years to make sure our community can cross this bridge together.

Environment

Annie believes that reducing human impact on the global climate is crucial to our future.

So Annie has . . .

  • Become a Member of Sustainable Arlington and helped pass Arlington’s sustainable action plan, establishing an energy management working group, tasked with finding ways to reduce the town’s energy use and save the town money
  • Agreed to chair the leadership council for the “Energy Smackdown,” a community based program to help people learn how to reduce their energy footprint and save money through friendly competition
  • Supported a low cost trial plowing of the Minuteman bikeway this winter—that encourages the use of public transportation, walking and biking. This trial has been successful and we were able to plow the bikeway for a much lower cost than expect
  • Been instrumental in obtaining state grant funding to help Arlington examine ways to apply smart growth techniques to development in Arlington. This grant was used to solicit community input into the goals for future development in the town.