The Wrentham Times

Jim Anderson's Letter to Voters

By way of introduction to Wrentham voters and residents I’ve yet to meet, my name is Jim Anderson and I’m running for a seat on the Wrentham Board of Selectmen. I’m asking for your vote on Election Day, this Monday, April 2nd.

This past December, I retired as Wrentham Police Chief after serving on the force for 35 years. I was privileged to fulfill my career goal and dream to rise through the ranks and lead the Wrentham Police Department. During my police career, I dealt with many challenges and witnessed firsthand the best and worst life has to offer. In spite of the challenges, I focused on the positive and brought my very best to every situation. Resolving conflicts, finding solutions, dealing with crisis and leading was part of my everyday life in police work. I’ll bring that with me to the Board of Selectmen.

At the same time I was retiring from the Wrentham Police Department, I was asked to serve as Wrentham Interim Town Administrator while the Board of Selectmen searched for a full time person to fill the position. I accepted the appointment and, somewhat to my surprise, discovered I thoroughly enjoyed it. In very short time, I realized the training, experience and skills gained over my police career played perfectly into the Town Administrator role.

I am thoroughly invested in the Town of Wrentham, having raised my family here, enjoyed my 35 year career with the fine officers of the Wrentham Police Department and eagerly contributed my free time to D.A.R.E. Camp and other youth activities.

Regardless of the different roles I’ve played in Wrentham, I always strived to accomplish what’s best for the town I love, including a great school system, responsive public safety departments, arts and recreation, and a town government that truly represents the people of Wrentham.

My combined lifetime experience will serve me well as a member of the Board of Selectmen. I promise to focus on continued growth of our local economy which generates much needed revenue for the Town while also maintaining Wrentham’s charm which is what attracts people here in the first place.

I am asking for you to support my candidacy for the Board of Selectmen seat on Monday, April 2nd and I look forward to serving the residents of Wrentham, a town I will always love!

Bob Cohen's Letter to Voters

I’m running for my second term on the Board of Selectmen. When I successfully ran for this office in 2008, I was married to my best friend Bobbi for 25 years and our children were 12 and 7. Now we’re up to 35 years (and counting) and our kids are 22 and 17. Olivia will graduate college in May and plans to do graduate work in Post-Colonial Literature in the UK and Hunter is finishing up his junior year at King Philip and plans to study European history in Europe. I shuttered my web design business in 2012 to pursue my love of writing and literature. Now I teach writing at a college in Boston and I am working on two novels and a creative non-fiction book. I have served the town as a member and chair of the Board of Selectmen from 2008 – 2011 and a member and vice-chair of the Planning Board from 2005 – 2012.

During those years of service, Wrentham struggled to balance growth and its rural identity. Those challenges afforded me the privilege of being one of the principal architects of the transition. As a selectman, I played a principal role in hiring new department heads for Police, Fire, Public Works, Finance, and Recreation, and I united the board around the recently retired William Ketchum, who, being the longest tenured Town Manager in recent history, brought much needed stability to Town Hall. His steady hand changed the culture in town hall and empowered our staff to maintain services in an economically difficult situation.

As a member of the planning board, I worked with a great team to update our zoning bylaws after the politically divisive attempt in 2005. We opted for a transparent and incremental approach and in so doing created a bond of trust between the public and the board. I am especially proud of my contributions to the negotiations with the Outlet Mall to open up on Black Friday. At my suggestion, the board adopted the annual Black Friday review and planning process and I worked with the town planner to write the updated Special Permit.

In 2012 I stepped away from public service to focus on my family, career, and to give others space to build on the legacy of financial discipline and the framework for healthy growth that I helped to create. It’s important for people serving in leadership positions to step away from time to time to grow their wisdom, to develop new leadership tools, and to make room for other people and new ideas.

Two things draw me back to public service: My son and some of his friends are interested in politics. I want to teach them how to participate in their community as active citizens instead of consumers of government services by putting them front and center in my election campaign. I want them to understand experientially the relationship between asking for votes to win an election and the responsibilities implicit in the request.

What’s more there’s some unfinished business. When I left the board of selectmen, we created an Affordable Housing Committee to deal with the long term requirement to meet the Commonwealth’s affordable housing numbers. Also, dating back to the $100,000 Master Plan of 2004, Wrentham has been talking about how to develop South Street from Wampum Corner to Plainville and the Crosby Valve property. All these years later, the board never convened the committee. They opted for a short term affordable housing solution that burdens our infrastructure and our officials are still talking and planning rather than acting. I intend to bring some urgency to those conversations.

Developing the center of town and the Wampum Corner Corridor in harmony with the town’s rural character will set the stage for my top priorities, which are lowering the tax burden for seniors, finding new sources of revenue to maintain and improve services, and increasing public participation in town government.

I believe my expertise in communication and my experience serving on both the board of selectmen and the planning board will help achieve those goals and take Wrentham to the next level. Please vote for me on April 2, 2018. For more information about my ideas and to learn more about my campaign, visit me on Facebook @GoinWithCohen or email me at goinwithcohen@gmail.com.

Jerry McGovern's Letter to Voters

Dear Wrentham Voters,

Next Monday, April 2, is our annual town election. I am one of three candidates vying for two openings on the Board of Selectmen. Here is why I’m running, what I think lies ahead, and why I’d like your vote.

Why I’m Running:

I first ran for the Board of Selectmen in 2015 because Wrentham was just beginning to implement the new Town Charter. As someone who played a significant role in crafting the Charter and seeing it through the legislative process, I wanted to help ensure that it was implemented effectively. Now three years later, we’ve just recently hired a new town administrator who comes into the job with the full responsibilities and authorities of the Charter. My focus now is to help ensure that this building block transition is effective and energetic.

Our Board has accomplished quite a bit in the past three years and I want to continue to be part of that team. Through leadership and teamwork the Town has met and exceeded our quota for affordable housing as required by MGL 40B. We’ve received a MassWorks grant of over $2 million dollars to extend a water line on Route 1 that not only supports development but provides improved water infrastructure and fire safety. We instituted an innovative solid waste contract that saves the town $1.4 million.

In the last two years we’ve instituted a Town Alert Notification system. Residents can sign up on the Town’s web page and get alerts sent to their email or mobile phones regarding Town Meeting, elections, changes in trash pick-up, road closures, and other important messages. I can’t take credit for leadership in all of these accomplishments, but I can say I was very much a part of the teamwork.

There are two particular efforts that do provide direct examples of my leadership. After the significant challenge we had last spring to meet the funding assessment for the KP budget by all three towns, I organized and facilitated a series of meetings with reps of the three KP towns in order to start the budget process earlier and with more collaborative and definitive resourcing objectives. And when our town administrator retired in September of this past year, I led the effort to find the best possible replacement. This resulted in the first ever participation by our department heads in the selection process and a unanimous vote for selection by the BOS.

Challenges and Opportunities

Our capital and operating budgets will always be a challenge that need leadership and teamwork. Communication and collaboration is so important to this because it is at the core of our efforts to provide the best possible municipal services within our ever present and proper fiscal constraints. Communication and collaboration is how we make sure we are using our resources efficiently, it’s how we identify and share innovative ideas or opportunities, and it’s how we learn from our mistakes. Ultimately, it’s how we set priorities, balance our budget, make decisions about services and assets, and find revenue solutions other than property taxes. As our challenges in these efforts are continuous, our communication and collaboration capabilities must be continuously improving.

We need to get more residents to subscribe to the alert notification. I hope to see the service expanded so that residents can select the kind of messages that they’d like to receive, and ultimately have the ability to send messages back to Town Hall. I’d also like to see us gain a better ability to measure what works well and what needs to be focused on for improvement. The decisions and priorities we make regarding staffing, compensation, infrastructure, and development need to be made on data that measures changes to performance and value. We need to continue working closely with our economic development team and our state reps and agencies to find innovative revenue sources and solutions.

Wrentham has six potential development areas. The two most conspicuous areas are the Route 1 corridor and the vacant property in downtown. Our Town Planner has diligently been working two grants that are providing a comprehensive study on these areas that consider zoning, trafficability, infrastructure and best options for attracting the right kind of development. These ongoing studies provide a great example of teamwork and collaboration among the BOS, the Planning Board, the Economic Development Commission and town departments.

The BOS must be able to balance a spectrum of constituencies – households with school age children, senior citizens on fixed incomes, empty nesters, and small and not so small businesses. This balancing act to provide services within fiscal realities requires leadership and teamwork. In this balancing act the BOS must provide a significant role in vision, coordination, and behind the scenes support and encouragement. We have a lot of challenges and opportunities coming up in the next three years and I hope to contribute leadership and teamwork to those efforts.

After 22 years of service in the Marine Corps I’ve served every week of the past 16 years as a volunteer involved in our town’s government. I served on the FINCOM from 2002 – 2015; on the Town Government Study Committee from 2012 – 2015; and on the BOS from 2015-2018. These are three entities that cross the entire spectrum of municipal operations. I’ve served as chair for all three as well.

Through all of this I know full well that success does not happen as a matter of simple individual service. It happens collectively. Sometimes that requires individual leadership. But it always requires the ability to operate as a team. That’s the role I hope to continue serving in.

There are two openings on election day. I think that myself and Jim Anderson provide the best opportunity to continue the leadership and teamwork to meet Wrentham’s challenges and opportunities. I humbly ask for your vote on Monday, April 2.

Jerome (Jerry) McGovern
Candidate for Re-election to the Board of Selectmen

Wrentham election polls are in the Janelli Annex at Wrentham Elementary School, 120 Taunton St. Polls are open Monday April 2, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Getting the MBTA Back on Track

By Senator Richard J. Ross

This region has seen a difficult start to 2015. Historic amounts of snow this winter have impacted us all, but for those that use the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) service, it has meant limited service, crippling delays, and routine cancellations, and frankly it is unacceptable.

However, the events that have transpired over the last month were a long time coming and speak to much larger concerns regarding the Commonwealth’s transportation system as a whole. From irresponsible expansion proposals, an unsustainable pension system, and a severe lack of timely maintenance, it is shocking that a snow storm has only just brought to light what the Senate Republican Caucus has been trying to address for a very long time.

The failures of the transit system stem from a history of mismanagement on the part of the MBTA, as well as a lack of sufficient oversight measures from the legislature. According to financial statements taken from the MBTA’s website, by increasing the sales tax in 2009 and then raising the gas tax in 2013, the MBTA’s revenue grew from just over $1.1 billion in 2001 to over $1.9 billion in 2014. Despite an increase in funding and revenue, the Boston Herald reported that for the last five years the MBTA has neglected to file reports outlining the transportation systems’ maintenance needs. In the midst of constant performance failures, costly rail lines to the South Coast and Foxborough continue to be proposed, reflecting poor planning and a clear misallocation of resources.

The unprecedented levels of snow have only exacerbated the growing number of complications that have yet to be addressed with the aging infrastructure the MBTA currently uses. This level of service is unacceptable and it is only going to worsen for the people of the Commonwealth if immediate action is not taken.

For years, Senate Republicans have offered significant reforms to the MBTA to reel back expansion projects and promote more transparency in spending and oversight. From fare evasion studies, expansion limitation, financial and pension fund accountability proposals—the Senate Republicans have been at the forefront of fixing the MBTA, but these innovative proposals were routinely rejected in favor of increased taxes and fares.

In February, Senate Republicans put forward legislation to financially stabilize the MBTA by creating a seven member Finance Control Board that would gain immediate control of the MBTA’s finances. The Finance Control Board would first establish a plan to correct historical inefficiencies, and put the transit system back into full service operation as soon as possible. The legislation would also provide an interest free loan to the MBTA, to be repaid in full, so the newly established board can implement the necessary procedures and structural changes they feel are necessary to correct the direction of the organization.

If key benchmarks have not been met, the MBTA finance control board could ultimately be dissolved in favor of a receiver that would take over the board’s responsibilities. The proposed legislation would be a logical approach to fix a broken system in much need of repair.

This is by no means the only solution, but we cannot continue to throw money at a problem and expect it go away. Over the past decade, the MBTA’s expansion efforts have come at the expense of solving its current issues and the legislature’s answer to the MBTA’s mismanagement cannot be to burden our constituents with more taxes and fare increases. The legislature’s answer should be to tackle the issue directly and provide the public with the transportation system they have paid for and rightly deserve.

Senator Richard Ross represents the Norfolk, Bristol and Middlesex District, which consists of 12 cities and towns. He is currently serving as an Assistant Minority Leader for the Massachusetts Senate. Ross is a Wrentham resident.