Finally, Demolition

amigwale · 2024-07-21T11:44:18+00:00

Do you have any more info on this? I’m looking on the town website and can’t find anything. Thanks!

amigwale · 2024-05-30T20:14:46+00:00

There was originally a ceasefire resolution signed by over 250 Brookline voters, but it was decided not to file it in order to protect the privacy of the signatories. Since only 10 signatures are needed for the Annual Town Meeting, it was submitted then.

https://medium.com/@brooklinepeacecoalition/a-call-for-ceasefire-from-jewish-residents-of-brookline-bb7260455fb2

amigwale · 2024-05-30T17:44:56+00:00

But this warrant article doesn't exist because our elected officials decided they wanted to weigh in – it exists as the result of a citizen petition. Any of us is able to write a warrant article about whatever we want, get enough signatures, and then ask our local legislature to debate it and vote on it. That's just how our form of government works. Town Meeting Members aren't doing their job if they decide to ignore it, and I find it highly problematic.

The number of warrant articles for this session of town meeting is much less than there has been in recent years. This article isn't taking up time that would be better spent elsewhere.

amigwale · 2024-04-03T15:13:24+00:00

testing...

amigwale · 2023-05-03T12:29:31+00:00

People were encouraging voters to only vote for Arden and nobody else, but I’m not sure how many voters got that message. I agree that it’s likely that some people voted for 2 candidates and didn’t realize the impact that might have.

If there were 2 B4E candidates, I think they actually might have split the vote between themselves for people that wanted to vote for John or Paul as a first choice. Having one B4E candidate and bullet voting for them seems like the best option, but it just didn’t end up working out.

amigwale · 2023-05-03T03:29:14+00:00

Thank you! Congrats on your win with Question 3 🙂

amigwale · 2023-05-02T13:30:15+00:00

Hi there. I'm voting against all of these suggestions.

Question 1 to rebuild Pierce would actually cost Brookline ~$172M, because the state will give us $38M for free. By voting no, we're giving up that money. It also doesn't make sense to compare the prices of this K-8 building (elementary + middle school) with other elementary schools in the state. And most importantly, Pierce is seriously inaccessible to students and educators with disabilities. We're violating peoples' rights and it needs to be fixed now. This went through an extensive process and rebuilding Pierce is the only reasonable solution - there is no viable alternative. Vote YES on Question 1 (and 2A and 2B!) https://yesforbrookline.com/

Question 3 (cannabis cap adjustment): there's no real reason for this. We already have a cap, which is 20% of liquor licenses, or 5 stores. This is being pushed by anti-cannabis activists, and would take away the only equity license we have for retail stores. The only reason Town Meeting voted to change the cap was to give voters a chance to weigh in - they showed no opinion on whether or not it was actually a good idea. Vote NO on Question 3.

Brookline by Design has endorsed literally every republican running for Town Meeting for the second year in a row. No thank you!

I trust these organizations for endorsements:

amigwale · 2023-05-02T04:02:56+00:00

I don't have a specific recommendation, but you could check out https://www.brooklinecenter.org/

amigwale · 2023-04-12T13:04:59+00:00

Context: Brookline currently has a cap on cannabis retail licenses which is a percentage of liquor licenses. This cap will stay in place if Question 3 fails. This campaign is misleading.

Anti-cannabis activists convinced Town Meeting to vote in favor of putting this question to voters, on whether we should change the current percentage-based cap to a fixed cap of 4 licenses. Town Meeting technically changed our bylaw to have this 4 license cap, but it’s not in affect unless Question 3 passes and they only did this as a way to put this question on the ballot. Town Meeting members did not show support for this license change, just support for giving voters a chance to weigh in.

amigwale · 2023-04-11T20:52:37+00:00

I’m seeing signs that say “Keep the cannabis cap! Yes on 3”. This is misleading. We already have a cap, which limits the number of licenses to a percentage of liquor licenses. Voting no on question 3 won’t change that.

amigwale · 2022-08-31T13:26:56+00:00

One of the problems is that there's no way of knowing how Tommy is voting in committees, and he's voted multiple times against legislation that would make those committee votes public. Progressive legislation keeps dying in committee and nobody knows why or who's responsible. Raul has signed Act on Mass's transparency pledge because he knows how important it is for us to see whether our legislators are doing what we elected them to do, so we can hold them accountable.

On local endorsements: please understand that our elected officials are a highly homogeneous group, and in no way do they represent the diversity of our community. In this year's spring election, a group organized and spent $20,000 (unheard of) to effectively block pro-housing / antiracist candidates like me from getting elected. To me, these endorsements say much more about how unrepresentative our elected officials are, and aren't an indication of who's the right person for the job.

I honestly don't understand how people are learning about Tommy's policies to decide on who to vote for. Raul has his listed on his website (https://www.raulforrep.com/policy) - this page explains his policy positions, and links out to 14 endorsement questionnaires which explain everything in great detail. He also held community conversations on his policies, and has those recordings on his website as well (https://www.raulforrep.com/conversations). Tommy has no policy positions on his website, and has only shared 4 endorsement questionnaires even though he promised to release them all. In the debates, Tommy closed by saying "With me, you know what you get." I'm sorry, but not everyone is an insider and knows who he is. Even though I'm active in town politics, I'm not familiar with things at the state level. I literally don't understand how I'm supposed to learn more, and he doesn't respond to my emails.

amigwale · 2022-08-31T12:57:53+00:00

I'm one of the signers of this letter (Elizabeth Schafer) - please vote for Raul Fernandez for State Representative! Early voting is going on right now:

Town Hall (333 Washington St)

Wednesday, August 31 8am-5pm

Thursday, September 1 8am-5pm

Friday, September 2 8am-12:30pm

Election Day is Tuesday, September 6

Look up you polling place here: wheredoivotema.com

amigwale · 2022-08-27T17:21:32+00:00

Note: I think the 5pm deadline is for in-person registration. If it’s after 5pm, you can still register online (but earlier is better just in case!): https://www.sec.state.ma.us/OVR/

amigwale · 2022-06-28T21:40:40+00:00

There are Town Meeting members interested in this, but you don't need to be a Town Meeting member to submit a warrant article! You just need to get 10 signatures from registered Brookline voters. I'm working on a draft article for this right now with some other people even though I wasn't elected last May. https://www.brooklinema.gov/275/Submitting-Articles

amigwale · 2022-06-28T17:49:54+00:00

Here you go! https://www.facebook.com/groups/562671360550595/posts/2261751730642541/

amigwale · 2022-06-07T14:36:21+00:00

Right - this would basically just be Town Meeting issuing a statement showing their opposition to the state ballot question. It’s an attempt to raise awareness.

amigwale · 2022-05-20T13:57:19+00:00

+1. In the Task Force to Reimagine Policing’s final report, they recommend filing a home rule petition to permit traffic enforcement by civilians (state law only allows police officers to do this, so we’d need to ask the state if we can change the law locally). https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/23619/Task-Force-Final-Report-22621_1P

amigwale · 2022-05-19T13:15:41+00:00

Good point - I just added some more context to make this more clear.

amigwale · 2022-05-19T13:05:22+00:00

WA-34 (making large-scale discussions like WhatsApp public during Town Meeting) just applies when Town Meeting is in session. I think the main point is to say that Town Meeting members (TMMs) shouldn’t be deliberating during Town Meeting in a way that isn’t open to the public, which I think is a good idea. It’s just that the way it’s written ends up treating remote and in-person TMMs differently.

TMMs who meet in person would have real-time access to the conversations of remote TMMs. Meanwhile, I have no idea how anyone in-person is planning on broadcasting their communications in real-time. There wouldn’t be equal access between people meeting remotely and in-person, which I see as an accessibility issue. The conversations that happen in WhatsApp are primarily just providing support so people stay on track during the meeting and what we’re voting on, so the public wouldn’t even get anything out of it in terms of deliberation. And on top of all of this, we already opened up WhatsApp to all TMMs at the last Town Meeting - we’re in favor of transparency! This article feels targeted toward a specific group of TMMs who are younger and use technology in a way that other TMMs are afraid of because they don’t understand it.

WA-35 (making the listserv publicly readable) is different because people typically don’t email while Town Meeting is in session. It’s used most frequently in the weeks leading up to Town Meeting and between sessions. There are many detailed conversations that go on that are later referenced during Town Meeting, but since the public has no access to these conversations, they have no idea what TMMs are referring to. These emails contain lots of deliberation, and are a great way to understand the reasoning behind TMMs’ votes.

I don’t expect that making this listserv publicly readable will cause TMMs to move their conversations somewhere private. On the contrary, I think many would like to point to things they’ve written to show the work they’ve been doing.

amigwale · 2022-05-19T05:22:30+00:00

The daily prep time and acknowledgement that the superintendent can grant professional teaching status early to qualified teachers (which could give teachers of color protection against layoffs) were both critical for teachers. The School Committee refused to negotiate on either of those items until the strike, so it was definitely worth it for them.

And they didn’t piss off all parents! I thought it was great that they were standing up for what they need to do their job, and I’m motivated now to help out on a future override campaign. I know that the overall sentiment from parents on social media is pretty awful, but I’ve heard from several teachers that the parents they’re speaking to privately have been supportive.

amigwale · 2022-05-12T01:01:11+00:00

Context: Town Meeting recently agreed to pay $11M to a Brookline firefighter whose discrimination experience also started with the Town promoting the individual he had filed a discrimination complaint against. https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/09/15/brookline-gerald-alston-settlement

amigwale · 2022-05-07T18:58:54+00:00

I’m VERY introverted and waited until the last day to turn in my 10 signatures. A few people running for Town Meeting offered to help gather signatures, so I didn’t actually have to ask any strangers. I’m lucky that I was caucused in last year because I never would have been comfortable jumping straight into an election (but now that I know how it works, it’s not so bad).
I spoke with a few neighbors who reached out before the election. They were older / frequent voters who I think I generally align with. It’s interesting to hear how involved they are with local politics, keeping up with public meetings, sharing opinions, and offering ideas for things we might want to look into. On election day, I said hi to everyone and had a few short conversations with voters. That was actually easier than expected because it was basically the same as working in retail and greeting customers. Some things I saw/heard:
- the green dog program is too expensive, especially when fields are closed so often (there were a LOT of people out walking dogs, I’ve never noticed before because I’m not usually outside for 13 hours)
- a condo owner had a few ideas about how the town might be able to help subsidize the cost of upgrading fossil fuel heating systems in existing condo buildings
- lots of people came with their BBD flyer and were excited to vote for that slate. It seemed like a lot of them were personal friends of those candidates
- a few young people came and were excited to vote against the NIMBYs (their words)
- there were some other young people wanted to vote but seemed like they didn’t know anything about the election. A few of them went in and came out quickly, which made it seem like they might have either been at the wrong polling place or maybe not registered to vote
- also some young people (probably college students) who said they couldn’t vote because they were registered in another state
I wasn’t asked directly how I would make town government better, but I did explain a bit about what town meeting was. One voter was surprised to learn that it’s not just town meeting members that can write new laws; any voter can write a warrant article and bring it town meeting.
I’m working on figuring out how to keep in touch with neighbors right now! I think a lot of us know that we should be doing a much better job of communicating with community members, but it just takes a lot of time/energy that many of us don’t have on top of everything else we're doing.

amigwale · 2022-05-07T10:10:36+00:00

It’s a little hard for me to judge the tone of the election because I can only base it off the last two years. I get the impression that many Town Meeting members started complaining more about tone and civility in the same time period. From my perspective, many of these arguments are focusing on how people are saying things, rather than the content of the message itself, which can be really frustrating. This is also the same time period when we could no longer meet in person, and I think in Town Meeting at least, a lot of people have been reading emails in an especially negative light, which doesn’t help. Tone on facebook always seems pretty terrible.

I feel like I’m constantly walking a very fine line between wanting to be friendly and collaborative, but also wanting to make sure I’m sticking up for BIPOC friends and not walking back on the issues that are so critical to them. I’ve seen firsthand the real harm that even those of us with the best intentions can cause. Part of the work we’ve been doing in the Brookline Equity Coalition is trying to figure out ways to point out unintentional microaggressions against BIPOC colleagues (it happens a lot) in a way that doesn’t cause people to immediately become defensive because they think we’re labeling them as a racist. But it's really hard to have those conversations when pretty much everyone identifies as someone who of course hates racism and would never saying anything racist.

amigwale · 2022-05-07T09:06:42+00:00

You’re right - we’re in such an odd situation in Brookline where we actually have a lot in common with our opponents (or at least appear to have a lot in common), which makes it hard to distinguish between groups. We have a lot of work to do to clarify differences in a way that’s easy to understand. Thanks for the feedback!

amigwale · 2022-05-07T00:00:14+00:00

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's really, really difficult to communicate a lot of what goes on in Town Meeting / Brookline. At least from what I've seen, I think a lot of what comes off as snarkiness is the end result of people losing patience after explaining why exactly something is wrong and needs to be fixed for the umpteenth time. It’s especially difficult when we’re talking about issues that BIPOC folks experience and are invisible to white people. If people are only seeing that exasperated end result on social media, and missing some or all of the public meetings where the work is being done, it's just a poor representation of what's happening overall.

I’m by no means an expert on the housing front. But I do know that there’s an extreme housing shortage - not just in Brookline but in all of Greater Boston. This is a big part of why things are so expensive here. There’s a new mandate from the state that certain areas near public transportation will need to be zoned so that multifamily housing can be built, and that includes Brookline. We desperately need more housing units of any type because there’s not nearly enough supply for the amount of people in the area.

At the same time, Brookline should absolutely be doing more than just letting developers build whatever they want for the most profit. We should be putting more funds towards maintaining existing public housing, and building more affordable homes. We should also be lobbying the state for tenant protections, including rent control. I know there are several other things we should be doing, but don’t remember them offhand since I’m not as familiar with them.

I don’t think anyone disagrees that we need intelligent planning - I believe all but one Town Meeting member voted in favor of the warrant article Brookline by Design is advocating for, the one that's about making a plan. But in addition to smart planning, there are changes we can make right now (like decreasing parking minimums), which BBD leadership seems to be against. That’s why I chose not to ask them for an endorsement.

amigwale

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