Leadership for Brookline

Brookline Civic Association endorses Robert Allen and Betsy DeWitt for Selectman

The Brookline Civic Association (BCA) announces its unanimous endorsement of Robert Allen and Betsy DeWitt for Selectman. Continued...

Letters of support to the TAB

Letters of endorsement submitted to the tab. Continued...

We, the People

Brookline TAB, February 2, 2006

Betsy De Witt to run for selectman

Brookline TAB, February 2, 2006

DeWitt says goodbye after 20 years

By Monica Deady
Brookline TAB, Nov. 3, 2005

If there's something you need to know about Brookline, a call to Betsy DeWitt will probably lead to an answer.

"If you want to know something, or want to know the history of someone, you call Betsy and chances are she knows, and if not, she'll tell you who to call," said Caroline Hoppin, chairman of the Brookline Community Foundation's board of directors.

DeWitt, 62, has been the executive director of the foundation for two decades, using her extensive knowledge of Brookline to usher it from a service-oriented organization to a fund-raising one, with a more than $5 million endowment, that each year, awards about $200,000 in grants and runs other community programs.

But after 20 years in her job, DeWitt is planning to hand over the reins at the end of June. Continued...

Development, budgets top candidates' agendas

By Michael Slind
Boston GLOBE, March 19, 2006

Development and how to manage it. Budgets and how to balance them. Those issues highlight the campaigns now getting underway for two open seats on Brookline's Board of Selectmen. The race includes an incumbent selectman, a longtime community leader, a Boston University law professor, a political organizer, and two others.

''There's a lot of unfinished business, and I want to be a part of it," said Robert L. Allen, chairman of the board, who recently decided to run for a third term. He noted his role in creating the Brookline Comprehensive Plan for 2005-2015, and said he wants to help implement that plan in a way that promotes ''the continued fiscal integrity of the town."

''I'm very concerned that we continue to have the quality of life that people come to this town for," said Betsy DeWitt, a 22-year Town Meeting member who retired this year as executive director of the Brookline Community Foundation. Her priority as selectwoman, she said, would be to build consensus around the best way to deal with ''enormous pressure from developers." Continued...