Everything Newton Voters Need to Know About Municipal Politics

I just read Ed Prisby’s blog post “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Newton Politics* (*but were afraid to ask)”.  Although Prisby is a staunch left-wing Democrat, he has a marvelous sense of humor, which was on display in his 2013 Town of Grafton Planning Board campaign.  I only hope that he followed through on sending Jeff Seideman a note congratulating him for being true to his word. Seideman always said he would support an override if it were justified. Prisby never believed him. Sure enough, Seideman proved him wrong.  I only hope that Jeff & Kate Seideman are having their mail forwarded to their new home in Waltham so they do not miss Prisby’s congratulatory note.  Maybe that is why the anti-override guy supported that one?

With Ed Prisby moving to Grafton in 2011, I think I will take a crack at the 2013 Edition of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Newton Politics.  It is my intention to maintain the basic style of his report while making applicable updates.

It is the beginning of November and it is a municipal election year.  You know what that means.  It is hardcore campaign season, with Newton’s General Election slated for November 5!  And what better way to kick it off the big push to the finish line than with a wide-angle lens view of Newton’s political spectrum?  

The first thing you have to understand about our local political spectrum is that municipal elections are officially non-partisan.  As such, conventional “left” and “right” labels do not necessarily apply to local politics.  One curiosity of Newton politics is that while many voters are staunch liberals and leftists when it comes to national politics yet take a more jaundiced eye towards when city hall asks for more money.  We found that as a surprise because Mitt Romney’s presidential platform included a reference to cutting taxes and those tax cuts would have been worth more to Newton residents than a few hundred bucks in extra property taxes.  If Newton residents were making those calculations, they would have voted 71-26 for Romney instead of Obama.

In addition, it should be noted that Proposition 2½ has limited the amount of tax revenue municipal governments can raise before they have to go to the voters so even hard-core left-wing ideologues must attempt to exercise some semblance of fiscal responsibility and stewardship.  While they say, “There’s nothing left-wing or conservative about a pot hole”, the response to the pothole varies wildly along Newton’s own left-to-right political spectrum.

The left-to-right Newton political spectrum is bookended on the extreme ends, left-to-right respectively, by what Prisby called “Blissfully Unaware Newton,” and “Angry Newton.”  You know Blissfully Unaware Newtonites.  They do not read the Newton TAB editorial page, do not blog, will not read this article, and certainly would not have any idea what I was talking about if they did.  They live in Newton, the happiest, prettiest, most crime-free community around, and would not have it any other way.

You also know Angry Newton.  Everything here sucks to Angry Newton.  Our well-known school system does their children a tremendous disservice.  It is because of former Newton Public Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Young that their kids end up attending lowered-tiered colleges like Northeastern and BU.  Not only do they read the TAB editorial page, they are skipping this column right now to search for the letter they submitted this week. These guys used to breed on the TAB Blog but seem to have vanished from the scene.

Betwixt the two is political reality, and Newton’s four, previously unlabeled political parties (from left to right): the Old Guard/Traditionalists, the Traditional Reformists, the Fiscal Watchdog Reformers, and the Anti-Establishment Party.

The Old Guard/Traditionalists are the party of choice for Blissfully Unaware Newton.  A cadre of dogmatic leftists has ably represented them over the years, most recently by David Cohen.  That is, until he went and built the $200 million dollar high school they wanted.  Alas.  While no Traditionalist is running in this year’s election, current Mayor Setti Warren and his challenger Ted Hess-Mahan have a record of results that would posit them between the Traditionalist and Traditional Reformist camps.  Former Move Newton Forward Rob Gifford and his wife Claire Sokoloff are the ultimate Old Guard power couple.  Matt Hills is a reliable Old Guardsman and Claire’s likely successor as School Committee Chair.  Ward 7 Democrat Boss Professor Lisle Baker is the Old Guard President Emeritus of the Board of Aldermen.  The Newton School Committee is a long-time redoubt of the Old Guard and the Newton Democratic City Committee reliably provides the Old Guard with foot-soldiers for its campaigns. 

In 2013’s competitive elections, Old Guard supported candidates include Andrea Steenstrup (Ward 2 School Committee), Eve Tapper (Ward 2 Ward Alderman), and Alison Leary (Ward 1 Ward Alderman).  Ward 5 features a Traditionalist-on-Traditionalist matchup pitting Brian Yates against Deb Crossley and Chris Steele.  Rob Gifford and his clique back Crossley and Steele.  Will Yates’ devoted long-time constituents help him pull out a difficult victory like in 2009? Old Guard supported candidates running unopposed in this year’s elections include Ellen Gibson (Ward 1 School Committee), Ruth Goldman (Ward 6 School Committee) and Rick Lipof (Ward 8 Alderman At-Large).

On the right, Angry Newton was firmly Anti-Establishment.  If you wanted Anti-Establishment bonafides in 2009, the place to be was the Newton Parents listserv or the Newton TAB blog so you could rip apart the aforementioned Jeffrey Young, David Cohen & Newton’s elected officials.  The ranks of the Anti-Establishment Party have dropped significantly since 2009, so we will have to look back to 2009 to find well-known Newton activists that would be best described as Anti-Establishmentarians back then. 

If we go back to 2009, the most notable Angry Newton Anti-Establishmentarians would be Tom Mountain and Dan Fahey.  Everyone remembers Tom Mountain’s iconoclastic record as a TAB columnist.  However people aren’t aware of Dan Fahey regularly publishing his TAB columns calling for cuts to budgetary sacred cows like employee compensation & health benefits, a leaner school budget and dealing with Newton’s retirement benefit liabilities. This earned him the nom de guerre of “Mr. Pensions” by former President of the Newton Taxpayers Association Jeff Seideman. 

Both Fahey and Mountain played a pivotal role in getting Setti Warren elected in 2009.  Since Setti Warren was elected as Newton’s Mayor, Tom Mountain has maintained a lower profile in Newton civic affairs and Dan Fahey has been an enthusiastic supporter of Mayor Warren.  Dan Fahey even served as the Honorary Co-Chairman for the 2013 pro-override group with his new friend Rob Gifford even though the issues he raised in 2009 have only gotten worse.

Things start to get more serious as you move toward the center of the spectrum.  A quiet, but growing, revolution is underway on the center of the spectrum through a group of people committed to reforming Newton government with ideas largely borrowed from New Public Management political theorist David Osborne.  These Fiscal Watchdog Reformers seem to have coalesced under the banner of the Newton Taxpayers Association fiscal watchdog group.

Like New Public Management theorists, these activists draw on the free-market principles, and seek to replace Newton’s traditional bureaucratic model with cheaper, leaner methods of providing services.  They emphasize measurable outcomes over qualitative conclusions.  Former Mayoral candidate William Heck is an ardent Osborne fan as is NTA strategic guru David Spier.  West Newton resident and financial planner Sam Robbins was the inspiration behind Proposition 2½.  Robbins is especially concerned about how tax bills have risen significantly over the years yet the city keeps asking for more money.  Joshua Norman brings an analytical mind and strong research skills to slice and dice Newton’s financial reports and emphasizes a thoughtful objective of moving Newton forward towards fiscal responsibility.   Long-time fiscal watchdog Al Cecchinelli has raised the issue about how Newton’s many out-of-district student programs cost Newton taxpayers $5-$7 Million annually and causes overcrowding and cuts in programs. Former NTA Vice President George Foord served on the Blue Ribbon Commission and the Citizens Advisory Group and has expressed concerns about unfunded retirement benefit liabilities.  Aldermanic Candidate Jim Cote would bolster the Fiscal Watchdog Reformer presence in the community if elected to the Board based on his experience as a financial advisor.

Not to be outdone, refugees from the Traditionalist camp are also seeking to reform municipal government in Newton by seeking to improve the efficiency of municipal government while preserving the mission of public service in government.  These “Traditional Reformists” seem to borrow from “New Public Service” theory, which recognizes that in public service there are considerations that sometimes come before cost efficiency.  While committed to innovative programs like NewtonStat, Full-Day-Kindergarten and digital education, they can acknowledge that there are times that Newton may need to raise revenues, either by overrides or new avenues of revenue (such as reforming accessory apartment regulations, commercial development zoning reforms or the city becoming its own dealer for its motor pool vehicle registrations and disposing of surplus vehicles).  Tom Sheff is the quintessential thoughtfully concerned Traditional Reformist who is earnest, sincere and whose heart bleeds for the city.  However, his platform of debt exclusion overrides, MIIA Tax Surcharges and traffic cameras as well as his belief that the only logical solution to solve OPEB so far that he has heard was a debt exclusion override ended up costing him voter support in his six electoral campaigns for office.  As we previously mentioned Alderman Ted Hess-Mahan and Mayor Setti Warren have characteristics that would endear them to Traditionalists as well as Traditional Reformists.  Traditional Reformists running in contested races against the Old Guard include Former Alderman Allan Ciccone Senior (Ward 1 Ward Alderman), Emily Norton (Ward 2 Ward Alderman) and Margaret Albright (Ward 2 School Committee). 

So, there you have it.  The battle lines have been drawn.  Unfortunately, Newton’s 2013 general election will not be as competitive as the 2003 and 2009 elections were though.