Letter to the Editor: Virginia Mooney - Why I'm Running

I would like to take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for election to the Board of Selectmen, and to outline my qualifications or the most important positions I have been involved in for the past 38 years. I was elected 11 times and served as an active member of Town Meeting for 35years with a 100 percent attendance record. I was elected and served three years as your Selectwoman, 1 was appointed and served seven years on the Finance Committee.

I had the opportunity to work closely with all departments of town government and continue to serve you in many capacities on boards and committees. I am an active member of the Housing Partnership Committee, the B-Line Advisory committee, the BCAT Board of Directors. Some of the past committees I served on were the Growth Impact Task Force, The Core Committee on Responsible Education. If you would like more information on my activities you can e-mail me at vemooney@comcast.net  or 781-272 3644.

We, the citizens could change a lot of things in Burlington if we had the political will to make change. We have lived under the “Good Ole Boy System” for many years. It’s time to take our town back from the hands of those who would sell or give it away to the highest bidder. I have been in the forefront on many important issues including opposition to opening the Land Locked Land to developers, the TIF agreement with Sun Microsystems, which cost the town big money, the 3-Way Land Swap, where we gave away a 14.3 acre prime piece of property to a developer worth 6 to 8 million dollars. Also a 30,000,000-dollar debt exclusion override, which was defeated by a referendum vote. We must act responsibly when we make decisions like these and what the burden will be on our young families and senior citizens.

Although we all want to be optimistic about the future and the economy, the changes will be slow. As we well know many people have lost their jobs, the state revenues have dwindled, the cities and towns have lost millions of dollars in state funding Burlington has lost an abundance of state funding, and also hundreds of thousands if not millions in TIF agreements and tax abatements in our commercial and industrial businesses. This must change. The residents cannot afford it.

It is critical that you understand the situation we are creating with the over building, the overuse of our natural resources, our infrastructure and further contamination of our ground water supply, and the lowering of the quality of life for you and your families.

I believe I have the vision to look to the future and make the tough decisions that will be necessary to preserve the individual rights of all our citizens.

I am as concerned as you are about taxes, jobs, education, the elderly, the environment, public safety, land use, etc.

We are already inundated with several projects in the next several years that we, the citizens, don’t know much about or what the long-range problems might be that will affect all of us. There are still questions left unanswered about the benefits the town will receive from the Nordbloom Co. project. I was appalled at the Selectmen handing out 10 liquor licenses to the representatives of the Nordbloom Co. I would have voted “NO.” If elected, I will look into what can legally be done to take back the licenses that are not being used, and may never be used. I can’t see the need for 10 liquor licenses within the Nordbloom project, which will take several years to complete.

If elected I will do my best to eliminate the PDD from our zoning bylaws, they should never have been passed by the Town Meeting. The PDD was authored by the developer’s lawyers and passed by the Planning Board. I will vote No on any development on Muller Road that will cause more traffic and density problems.

The area at 129 and Middlesex Turnpike is already overloaded with traffic and near impossible to navigate at times and very dangerous. I believe the Dave & Busters project will add dramatically to the problems.

Last but not least I will engage the Legislature to support Burlington and other communities, to vote to give the towns the power to make changes in the Health Care Programs. We need to take control of our spending and one suggestion would be to join the state GIC Program. It would save the towns hundreds of thousands of dollars and the employees hundreds of dollars per year.

Once again I ask for your support. If I am elected to the Board of Selectmen, as always, I will be responsive to the community and your needs, not those of the developer and the developer’s lawyers.

See you at BHS on Saturday, April 9, and bring a friend with you to vote. Thank you for your past support.

Virginia E. Mooney