Why do you want to represent District C on the City Council?
My reasons for wanting to serve our community are the same as when I first ran in 2007. I am running because I want to live in a vibrant, diverse, safe community with pretty tree-lined streets and great schools; because I want to live in a community that is financially well-run, avoiding ongoing fiscal crisis; and because I want to live in a community with engaged residents, where everyone feels like they belong.
Tell voters about your background and qualifications for being a City Councilor.
I’m an engineer, currently working as a Business Analyst, with 40 years business experience managing people, projects and budgets. I bring my experience with Best Management Practices to Watertown city government, improving our ability to make good decisions and resolve conflicts. I have a deep knowledge of Watertown from my long and varied involvement in community organizations. I have a willingness to listen to people with a range of viewpoints, and a commitment to thoroughly researching issues. This gives me the knowledge and judgement to be an effective Councilor.
What would you like to see built on the municipal parking lots in Watertown Square that are proposed to be redeveloped as part of the Watertown Square Redevelopment?
I would like to see the municipal parking lots redevelop to a higher, better use, using the City Council’s powers as the redevelopment agency, working with abutting landowners in public/private partnerships for a comprehensive, integrated development. I envision a range of housing from market rate to deeply affordable, with ground-floor retail, some structured parking, the continuation of the Community Path from Saltonstall Park to Taylor St and a park with open green space.
Residents often talk about rising property taxes. With the potential of declining commercial property values and cuts in State aid, how would you keep residential property taxes under control?
The Manager laid out the issue in the October 14, 2025 Preliminary Overview. The special legislation we obtained from the legislature to allow us to shift taxes to commercial at 175% of the residential rate expires this year. We filed a request for the legislature to extend this relief to next year and beyond. If the legislature comes through for us, FY27 residential taxes are projected to rise 4.22%. If they don’t, we are projecting an 18.35% increase in residential taxes, which is completely unacceptable. There are not a lot of options, because if we decrease tax revenue we need to decrease costs, meaning layoffs. Using cash reserves would only provide temporary relief, and would put the city in a precarious position as are facing troubling economic headwinds. If that happens, I believe the Budget & Fiscal Oversight Committee will have to do an in-depth analysis to identify options.
Watertown has an opportunity to completely renovate or rebuild Watertown Middle School and use the temporary school currently at Moxley Field. Would you like to see this happen and if so how would you like to see it financed?
As Vice Chair of the School Building Committee, I fully supported doing a feasibility study a year ago to see if it was possible to keep the modulars for 2 more years and replace the 1921 portion of WMS, but, unfortunately, it was not financially feasible to do so, without putting Watertown at financial risk during a time of great economic uncertainty.
Moving forward, I want to determine the appropriate level of renovations to improve the WMS learning environment, and the cost and schedule to do it, using the $17.5M already set aside in a Stabilization Fund. As part of our “Building for the Future” campaign we started in 2017, we never intended to build a new WMS, and since then we spent over $10M doing renovation. We also did a $3.8M MSBA project in 2016 to replace all the windows, and we signed an agreement with the MSBA to keep the school building for 20 years. I believe the most prudent approach is to do the needed renovations now, which will get us through the next 12 years, at which time we can begin planning for a completely new WMS building.
There are two unused City-owned buildings in District C — the old Police Station and the former North Branch Library. What would you like to see done with these buildings?
The former police station is being considered by the library as a potential location for expansion, incorporating Hatch which is outgrowing its leased space; however, the reuse is still under consideration as part of the Watertown Square study.
The former North Branch Library has been particularly vexing for me, and as a co-chair of the Former Branch Libraries Reuse Advisory Committee, we got multiple inquiries from potential tenants to lease the building, but all declined because of the cost of renovations. The cost (~$1M) combined with the small size (2,237 sq.ft. building on a lot of 14,900 sq.ft.) makes it hard to find a municipal use. I would prefer the building be preserved for community use, and the Planning Department examined doing this, however the operational issues still need to be resolved. We did consider using it for affordable housing, however because of the small size, it was not financially feasible.
During your campaign, what was the biggest issue or concern for voters when you spoke to them about District C?
The single biggest issue is all things traffic related: speeding, congestion, parking, insufficient public transit, and lack of safety for pedestrians. We have been approaching this on many fronts, including our Complete Streets program when we redo our streets & sidewalks, a Safe Streets & Roads for All grant from USDOT, and using ARPA funds for a Mobility Study to provide better options to get around Watertown without a car.