Questions To Ask Candidates When They Knock On Your Door

When you run into local candidates running for office it is
time to get a sense of who you want to vote for. Here are the first 3 of many
questions to ask:

Question #1 for School committee
and Town Council:

 Ask the candidate if they win, who they will
vote for chairman or president of their board or organization.

The most important vote most town officials make is the
first one. They are asked to vote for the leadership of their board. The Town
Council President and School Committee Chair have great power to set the agenda
and moderate any discussion on any line item for 2 years. They are the prime
contact with town and school administration. The first vote is very important.
And not everyone is cut out to lead these groups, some people, myself included
are very good people to have on a committee but are much better and presenting
one side of an opinion or the other. The president of a board must be fair and
a consensus builder. It should be who the candidate thinks would be best for
that specific job. Not the person with the most votes. Or the member of their
party who has been there the longest. So if a candidate says Person’s name
because they have been there six years and no other reason than they are either
the longest serving Democrat or Republican then that is not the candidate to
vote for. You want someone who will use their best judgment not just follow the
party line. It could be the best person is the longest serving person; you just
need to ask why.

Question #2 For Town Council:
Are you for more affordable housing and
what kind?

Really everyone wants the town to fulfill the 10% affordable
housing that the town requires. But that number can be met in many ways. First
there is a lot more affordable housing than there was 5 years ago. But does the
candidate want workforce housing that is sold (or unsold as the case with the
properties on the trail) or maybe senior housing. Do they support the high
density projects like Sweet Briar and the proposed Palmer Point which would be
a great influx of section 8 housing filled largely with people from out of town?

And If the Candidate opposes Palmer Pointe are they prepared
to fight it in court, which would be inevitable. And if they fight it how much
will we pay in legal fees when we probably lose again like with did with Sweet
Briar. No easy answer to this one, but depending on your position you probably
want to know how the candidates stand.

Question#3 For School Committee: Are you for more
honor’s and AP Classes in the high school, or are you for more classes and help
for the students who have special needs or are just slow or average learners?

Most candidates will say both, but that is too easy. It is
easy for school committee members to say they want to start new classes and
programs, and so many candidates state they want more honors and AP classes,
but the fact is Barrington already has more than pretty much every school in
the state. And next year new testing will deny high school diplomas to students
who don’t rank proficient. That may be 6-10% of Barrington students or about 3
times the number who attend Ivy League schools. Do we not owe these students
the best chance to graduate high school? For if you don’t go to Harvard your
life is not a failure but if you don’t graduate high school your life is
incredibly harder. Both programs cost money, money that come financial meeting
time any elected official will find is in short supply. As a member of the school
committee member, you have the obligation to make hard choices of where to
spend finite resources. Ask the candidate where their priorities are.

This is not intended to tell you who to vote for just
questions you might want to ask. I’ll have more questions in a few days.