News and Events

 

School Committee Chairman Judy Meyers, center, and Selectman Betsy Dewitt, left, both co-chairmen of the Yes for Brookline, celebrate as they prepare to give a victory speech late on May 6. The $6.2 million override was approved by a solid margin.

BROOKLINE - By a solid margin, Brookline voters said “yes” twice on May 6. Both override questions — a $5.4 million option and a $6.2 million option — received a majority of votes, according to unofficial returns. Under state law, the larger, $6.2 million option prevails over the smaller question. “I’m happy to say I think the enormous team effort paid off,” said Selectman Betsy DeWitt, who co-chaired the Yes for Brookline campaign with School Committee Chairman Judy Meyers. “I’m feeling quite, quite pleased about the results.”

According to preliminary returns, the $6.2 million option received 5,236 “yes” votes compared to 4,305 “no” votes.

 Approximately 53 percent of voters approved the question. The funding package includes $2.1 million to close a school and town deficit; $1.5 million for deferred street maintenance; $1.5 million for lengthening the school day; and $800,000 to launch a foreign language program in the elementary schools.

 With the extra revenue, the town will avoid cutting four teaching positions, four social workers and guidance counselors, five library assistants and a fourth-grade instrumental music program from the schools.

The town will keep four police positions slated for elimination, and avoid cuts to the library, fire department and maintenance budgets. In addition, two new spending initiatives in the package will extend the school day by 20 minutes and bring Spanish and Chinese language instruction to the elementary schools.

DeWitt credited the pro-override campaign’s massive volunteer base, bolstered primarily by a network of school supporters, with the override’s success. “The success literally depended on all the volunteers who worked first to educate themselves about the issues, and then to education others about the issues and also about the two-part ballot question,” she said.

The campaign was marked by a sometimes-heated back-and-forth between supporters and opponents of the override. The “yes” campaign accused their opponents of being pro-development, while the anti-override camp accused the other side of exaggerating potential service cuts and employing scare tactics to win votes. The “yes” campaign also raised an impressive war chest, with in $38,763 in donations reported to the Town Clerk’s office by April 27. The Coalition Against Unfair Taxation has not filed its campaign finance reports with the town. Co-Chairman Roger Blood could not provide an exact figure, but said his campaign had much less money available.

 “The Yes campaign had the resources to bring forward one townwide mailing right after another,” he said. Blood said he was disappointed with the results, particularly the approval of $800,000 in new spending in the $6.2 million question. But with the override approved, Blood said the coalition will continue watching town government to make sure officials follow through on their pledge to rein in spending and find new revenue sources in order to avoid a future override. “I think the ball is in their court now,” he said. “They also need to make good on their word and not bring back another general override in the foreseeable future.” He added that concern over the override brought many new members into the coalition’s ranks.

 “The more people who are interested in keeping spending under control, the more likely there will be the political will to keep spending under control,” he said. A smaller $5.4 million package, which would not have funded the language program, received 5,999 “yes” votes to 3,591 “no” votes. Approximately 61 percent of voters approved the question. According to unofficial returns, 9,799 residents voted in the election. The number represents 34 percent of registered voters in Brookline.

 

Panel hashes out housing proposal
Andreae Downs Globe Correspondent
July 27, 2008

It could be called the miracle of Fisher Hill: Brookline now has an agreed-upon development plan for 24 affordable-housing units (and several more market-rate homes) on the crest of this mansion-studded, Olmsted-designed neighborhood.

"It was clear from the start" of the committee meetings "that there was very little room for agreement," said Kevin Lang, a longtime School Committee member who described himself as a neutral party in the meetings that led up to the agreement. "We got a plan that is acceptable to all sides. Nobody loves it. You need to be very cautious about altering the plan."

But, the result is a detailed document that specifies the look and location of all structures near the periphery of the 4.8-acre site of a former underground reservoir, as well as the driveway's location and configuration.

Selectmen reviewing the plan, devised over 18 months by a committee of 20, were skeptical about its restrictions.

"It is very restrictive, and it is intended to be so by the drafters," said Jennifer Dopazo, town counsel.

"The developer would have a number of hurdles under this document," said Nancy Daly, chairwoman of the board. "I'm not sure a developer could do that."

The draft, which could be the basis of bids to build the complex on what is now town-owned land, is called a request for proposals.

But all was not sweetness and light between the plan's crafters, who included both affordable-housing advocates and abutters.

One committee member and abutter, Laurie Union, showed up at the selectmen's presentation with a lawyer. Jeffrey Allen, the attorney and a former selectman, praised the project while also demanding a landscape buffer for Union's property.

"This is the exact opposite of NIMBY," he said. "In the plan there are protections for a lot of the abutters. We ask for similar protection for Ms. Union." Allen, who was also the attorney for the abutting Longyear Estates, which neighbors contend was built beyond what the town approved, mentioned the housing development at the former St. Aidan's parish, which was delayed roughly three years and cost the town an additional $6 million as a result of litigation.

 But committee members who spoke to selectmen opposed the buffer. "Laurie Union is the only dissenting opinion," said Roger Tackeff, a committee member and Fisher Hill neighbor. "We're concerned that her family's protection will cost more than $400,000 to the project and will jeopardize its viability. Yet we want her house protected."

Union argued that she was the closest single-family abutter and would be losing the most from the project. "Now I see 60- to 80-foot trees from my house, and a green field beyond it," she said. "The landscaping just mitigates that loss."

 Selectwoman Betsy DeWitt, who led the committee through the past year-plus of work, said the issue of protecting Union's property is minor. "I hope this is a side issue, and that folks see it that way," she said in a later interview.

 More troubling to DeWitt was the possibility that the other four selectmen might substantially change the proposed bidding document and unravel the committee's agreement.

Selectmen Robert Allen and Dick Benka said they were troubled by an apparent contradiction in the document, which allowed the sale of two properties abutting Union's house on one page, while requiring that single-family homes be built on those two lots on another.

But DeWitt felt that the deletion of the possible sale would not be a deal-breaker. If revisions are limited to such items, the board could vote on the request for proposals by its meeting on Tuesday.

As the agreement specifies a number of committees, processes, and written agreements that committee members hope will ensure that the development fits the neighborhood, construction could be months, if not years, away. "Frankly, I think this is such a terrific location that we will find a willing developer," DeWitt said.