Andrea Kelley

Questions and Answers

Question 1: After 40+ years of Prop 2 ½, a very limited ability to pass overrides, steep increases in expenses such as employee benefits and utilities, and a relatively small commercial tax base, Newton faces fiscal challenges not encountered by our peer communities, making it increasingly difficult to adequately fund our schools and other city services. What are your ideas for raising revenues or otherwise addressing Newton’s fiscal challenges?

We will likely consider an override, operational and/or project specific. Incremental, smaller methods to reduce expenses and increase revenue all add up. Residents and tax payers are reticent to pay more taxes or fees for services (trash collection, school busing, water and utilities, infrastructure maintenance and repair, school sports and activities etc.). No one favors reducing programs or services, nor paying more for what is already available. I foresee fees for trash and recycling in our near future, and on school fees. 60B State Chapter allows Newton’s golf courses to pay only 25% of assessed land value; $1.75 tax dollars lost.

Question 2: What, specifically, can the City Council do to ensure that lower income residents, young families, and long-term residents looking to downsize, can afford housing in Newton?

The City could partner with developers, both for and non-profit, to make more housing affordable to residents and workers. Increase payments to the Affordable Housing Trust by developers. Set aside more subsidized units for those earning 30-50% of Area Median Income (AMI), not just for those at 80% AMI. Work with the Newton Housing Authority to encourage them to do better maintenance, oversight and provision of housing.

Question 3: What is Newton doing to address climate change, how effective are these efforts, and what else could/should we be doing?

Newton has a Climate Action Plan, Climate and Sustainability Team, Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Action Plan. As Climate Action Coordinator, Caroline Weiss’s role is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. That mainly addresses the residential sector and vehicular emissions. Additionally there is an Energy Commission, and volunteer groups Green Newton and Mothers Out Front address environmental and energy issues.

This multi-pronged approach staff and citizen effort is effective but more must be done as extreme climate events increase, eg. recent alert at Bullough’s Pond dam for potential overtopping, breaching, and flooding.

Question 4: Government transparency refers to the obligation of a government to proactively share information related to the management of public resources and decision-making; it’s indispensable to accountability and to an informed electorate. A recent initiative conducted by Newton’s LWV identified significant deficiencies in Newton’s local government transparency and specifically with respect to the City’s website. How do you think improved transparency could benefit our city? What improvements would you advocate for to the City website or transparency in general?

Trust and participation in democratic government depend on transparency. Residents, voters, taxpayers need to feel that deliberations and decisions are made in an open process, that they can be part of.

I look forward to a new IT Director to get the city website up to standard. It should be easy to look up a topic, application, project, past decision, future scheduled road paving, committee agenda and easily be able to locate that information.

It’s not just the public that has difficulty navigating how to access information such as these topics; City Councilors do too!

City Councilor voting records on every item ought to available.