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Dear Sudbury Friends and Neighbors,
As a resident of Sudbury for 33 years, it saddens me that our community has become a microcosm of our country and our world at large. All sense of civil discourse and neighborliness has left the building, a truth that is on display in very ugly ways as we prepare to head to the polls later this month.
I don’t believe we should be characterizing our fellow townspeople, candidates or otherwise, as progressive or conservative, red or blue, and then creating broad-based and aggressively dismissive assumptions about each other. When it comes to town governance, what matters is that we are first and foremost Sudbury residents and we should be thinking, collectively, about what our town needs to grow stronger and to thrive in the years to follow.
I have been working hard, both publicly and privately, for 9 months to have our community center opened for the entire town to enjoy. While there are many hurdles to be cleared the biggest one – the one upon which all others hinge – is lack of financial resources. This issue is not confined solely to the community center; our town offices, senior center, library, public safety building, police and fire departments all have similar constraints hampering their abilities. Even something as trivial as our July 4th Parade, once a pinnacle community event, is negatively impacted by the limited availability of public funding.
The question I will ask myself on March 31st is an easy one: which candidate(s) will put fiscal accountability and transparency at the forefront of his or her mind when making decisions that will impact all town residents? For our town to be solvent in the not-too-distant future, and to provide for the many programs and resources from which we would all benefit without continually asking taxpayers for endless overrides, we must get a handle on where our money is going. Candidates with that same focus would be a great start.