Selectmen Candidate Discusses Town's Need to Collaborate

Current selectman Joshua Ostroff, who is this year against Rick Jennett, invited members of the community to Working Together for Natick Monday night, a campaign reception to discuss how government can better work with businesses to support town jobs and Natick’s public school system.

"When I think of how we need to grow as a community, I hear people talking about the need to contain costs and consolidate facilities maintenance. That is important to do that, but to really grow as a community and to be able to keep pace with what it's going cost to pay qualified educators to educate the next generation of leaders in this community...it's not going to be cheap, we can't do it all on the backs of residential taxpayers," said Ostroff, a board member of the MetroWest Regional Collaborative.

About 61 cents of every dollar the town spends goes towards the schools, according to Ostroff. Around 25 percent of tax revenue is reportedly paid by commercial properties like MathWorks, Boston Scientific and Cognex. Roughly 70 percent of those commercial properties are located along Route 9.

Natick native Rep. David Linsky said Natick residents are lucky to have to pay roughly half the property taxes that residents do in other towns with comparable housing because the town is home to businesses that are "carrying the load."

"We have development opportunities that we will need to pursue," Ostroff said. "We need it to be Fortune 500 companies; we need it to be the kind of people and organizations that will hire the best kids that can produce."