A forty plus year perspective.

March 7, 2019

Forty-three years ago we discovered Melrose. Around that time, the Victorian Society was established, which refurbished the downtown area and promoted our Victorian heritage with house tours. This, in effect, increased our property values. Today we have one of the hottest zip codes in the country. Melrose is a beautiful residential city surrounded by parks, the fells, and centered by Ell Pond and her swans. And yet, in spite of Melrose's beauty, or should I say because of it, we are almost 90% residential, with very few businesses to help support it. Thus our very residential nature leaves much of cost of maintaining it to us, its citizens. If we had more commercial sprawl, like many of the neighboring cities, our tax base would have more businesses to support it.

I understand that in order to keep Melrose the viable, vibrant city it is capable of being, we need to
support it with our taxes. When our city employees, the teachers, administration and school committee, the firemen, policemen and librarians urge us to vote for the override because of the critical needs of our infrastructure, schools and other city departments, I believe them.

Let me share some of my experiences visiting many classrooms as a school psychologist when I
worked in nearby cities. I was often appalled when I saw what these children had in comparison to
what my children, and, years later, my grandchildren had, in Melrose. These children had librarians in all of their schools, up to date curricula in most areas, and often smaller classes and newer buildings. Once when I commented to a 3rd grade teacher about the materials she had for MCAS preparation, she offered to give me some to take to Melrose. When I gave them to our third grade teacher, she was so grateful to share them with her students. The following year, she proudly told me that she had written a grant to get more of these materials for her class. This is the kind of teachers we have in Melrose – they go above and beyond their classroom duties, and make do with limited resources, and we reward them with paltry salaries, some of the lowest in in the Commonwealth. Is it any doubt why some of our best young teachers have no choice but to leave Melrose?

One night not many years ago, I sat in the city chambers saddened and disgusted that we would not increase our mayor's salary to bring it in line with those administrators of surrounding cities. This was the mayor who brought us through the financial crisis starting in 2008 by finding creative, fiscally sound ways of consolidating equipment and jobs with nearby municipalities, finding a less expensive health plan for city employees, and writing countless grants to bring services and programs to Melrose, among many other things. Shortly we will be having another election for mayor. Tell me, who will want to govern Melrose, knowing that the salary will probably be close to $50,000 less than those of surrounding cities, and promises a workload of seven days a week as well as nights and weekends?

In the years since Proposition 2 1⁄2 began, we have passed only one override – to build our middle
school. This replaced our junior high school – the very one my daughters attended and often had days off when it rained, because of the sewage that seeped into the cafeteria. I am hoping that we do the right thing on April 2nd and pass the override, and not wait for the proverbial sewage to swamp us, causing Melrose to dwindle and decay, rather than grow and flourish as it should.

Lastly, I will be at the polls on April 2nd, voting for the override, because, even though I am a senior citizen on a limited budget, even more limited after losing my job recently, I want the Melrose I have known these many years to provide the best possible education and services for the children and adults now and in the future.