As a community organizer I am a part of the team that created a proposal that was granted a $1M federal grant to create the first voucher accepting childcare center in Brookline's history. This is just the first step in increasing access to affordable childcare in Brookline and creating long overdue infrastructure to maintain this basic necessity that has been long overdue.
As a community organizer I have worked to create affordable housing programs that not only address the incredibly long waitlists, but also create rent to town opportunities for low income residents. One such program, HEEP (Housing Economic Equity Plan) proposed to the CPA aims to address the dire need for affordable housing as well as promote equitable homeownership for low-income residents in the Town of Brookline by creating affordable multifamily housing units with feasible rent to own options.
After doing this work at a community organizing level, I have seen the barriers community solutions face when those in governance that can't see the merit in an idea when it originates from someone their worldview doesn't deem as competent. We cannot claim to value lived experience but then empower only those that have studied about others' lived experiences.
As a community organizer I am a part of the team that created the only workforce development program in Brookline to successfully train residents to earn federal licenses to work. I have graduated from the program myself and earned my FAA Part 107 Rating or Commercial Drone Pilot License. Despite the program not being granted ARPA funding, and a Select Board Member saying they "can't see the public benefit", we have accomplished more than those programs that were funded.
One facet of my role in this workforce development program is outreach to and retaining a diverse student base that includes teenagers to those 50+, all ranges of academic backgrounds, and all levels of technology/computer proficiency. Another is being able to effectively make this content and training accessible to all of these students and prepare them to be able to confidently jump into a projected $5bn industry that has historically been closed to us. The success of the program is a testament to the community. It is a testament to how implementing community feedback will result in community buy in and measurable improvements in months not decades.
I stand firm on the value that the most effective solutions to barriers to equity and socioeconomic mobility come from folks that have lived experience with those barriers.
As an active Brookline resident, I was a part of the group of residents that wrote and petitioned WA19 to create a Black and Brown Commission. This warrant article brought out historic numbers of underrepresented and marginalized residents to participate civically. From speaking in support of the commission at town meetings across departments, speaking at Annual Town Meeting, to people voicing their decades long struggles to make change and the barriers they faced, Warrant Article 19 signaled the end of an era in Brookline. Our communities are hungry for change and are pleading to do the work themselves.
As a Select Board Member I will wholly support communities creating and implementing solutions that the Town has failed to.
Transparency, accountability, and the objective to make yourself obsolete are the basic tenants of a good public servant, and the office of Select Board is no exception.
I along with many members of the community have tried to increase transparency in governance, hold elected officials accountable for their words and actions, and realistically assess whether governance is effective at its purported goals. Being called aggressive and intimidating in response to these efforts is nothing new for any Black or Brown person that has stood up against injustice or inequality. This tactic is old and tired. Being doxxing and threatened are everyday realities I expected in this line of work. What is disappointing is that Brookline governance itself has treated those that want to improve transparency & accountability in governance, as a nuisance at best. At worst, they attack and defame those that challenge decisions made by the Town's executive and treat them like enemies. This has been not only my experience but the experience of those that have done this work for decades in Brookline.
We must embrace the principle that to love your home is to want to better it more than you want to protect its image. That includes getting answers to the many dubious ARPA Fund allocations, diving into discriminatory and outright unlawful statements made in Town Meeting Servers, bringing backdoor deals out of the shadows and into the light, and accurately assessing the town governance's ability to serve a community without discriminatory bias. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that there is a problem. We cannot afford to continue to make the same mistakes that resulted in the horrific treatment of Gerald Alston and the 11M settlement.
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