Pick Poch For Sudbury Select Board In 2022: Letter

The following letter to the editor does not reflect the views of Sudbury Patch

Eric Poch has served on various town committees such as Planning Board over decades, but let’s focus on his most recent service on the Finance Committee (FinCom). When the previous chair stopped attending meetings Eric stepped up to become acting chair of FinCom during the COVID spring of 2020. He then became a co-chair following Town Meeting. Under his leadership FinCom has focused not only on analyzing the town’s budget but on providing a clear, concise, and understandable summary of that budget and proposed capital articles to inform town meeting. Check out the Finance Section of the Annual Town Meeting Warrant for 2021. This is true transparency—not the opportunity to watch multiple five-hour meetings, or to go line-item by line-item through fifteen pages of financial reports which have already been reviewed by staff, or to review an exhaustive survey on “what other towns do”. To make good decisions, we as voters need a comprehensible distillation of information that allows us to make rational decisions in the time we have available. Eric understands that need and has shown he will address it.

Eric is consistently guided by the authority and responsibilities of the body on which he serves—FinCom or Planning Board or other. He focuses on pursuing that mandate to address the business which must be conducted by the board and politely but firmly resists straying into unproductive discussions. This is an extremely valuable skill for a Select Board member.

He is the only candidate for Select Board who has my vote.

—Pat Brown, Sudbury