VOTE TOMOROW - Tuesday, November 3

[ron_newman]

If you live in Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, or Boston, you are having a municipal election tomorrow. Polls are open from 7 am to 8 pm. To find out where your polling place is, fill out this form.

The rest of this post is about Somerville, because I don't know much about elections in the other cities.

Mayor Joe Curtatone is unopposed. Six of the seven incumbent ward aldermen are unopposed. Four of the incumbent School Committee members are unopposed.

In Ward 6, where incumbent Rebekah Gewirtz is stepping down, the choice is between Lance Davis and Elizabeth Weinbloom. Click on the local politics tag for extensive previous discussion of that race.

All four aldermen-at-large are running for re-election: Jack Connolly, Mary Jo Rossetti**, Dennis Sullivan, and Bill White. Only one challenger is running, Sean Fitzgerald, who also ran in 2011 and 2013. You can vote for up to four candidates. Here's a SCATV interview show with all five candidates (thanks, dougo!)

Three wards have School Committee contests. For more information on them, you may want to look at the Somerville Times' recent Meet the Candidates article.

Ward 1: Steve Roix (incumbent) vs Ken Salvato*. Salvato has unsuccessfully run for office at least four times, including for School Committee in both 2003 and 2013. He doesn't appear to have a web site.

Ward 3: Lee Erica Palmer vs Vivaldo Meneses Jr*. (Incumbent Adam Sweeting is not running for re-election)

Ward 4: Jamie O'Leary vs Andre Green. (Incumbent Christine Rafal is not running for re-election)

* I couldn't find any web site for these candidates
** links to a Facebook page, because I couldn't find a real web site for this candidate

Comments

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Here's a guide to the Cambridge city council candidates: http://www.abettercambridge.org/election2015

ABC rates candidates on smart-growth and sustainable transit policies, which leads to high scores for Leland Cheung, Denise Simmons, Marc McGovern, and David Maher, among others.

Note that the elections in Cambridge have gotten pretty hotly contested, and that the Cambridge Residents Alliance has almost exactly the opposite views about candidates- they generally oppose additional development in the city and support candidates including Nadeem Mazen and Dennis Carlone. The anti-development opinions are often couched as "we need to finish the master plan first" but many will in fact state that all development in Cambridge should stop. Many of their supporters are suspicious of all construction, or feel that Cambridge has no part in solving the regional housing crisis because it is a regional housing crisis and not a merely municipal one.

Lots of people on both sides groups claim to advocate for "affordable housing" without specifying whether they ean subsidized (Section 8, CHA, or inclusionary-zoning requirements) or merely "housing that regular people can afford on regular income." So, when reading a statement of support for one candidate or another, make sure you know what their actual policies are. Everyone says "I want housing to be affordable" but not everyone's policies will actually achieve that goal.

[gingicat]

Medford is having a real mayoral election for the first time in a while - Mayor McGlynn was in office for so long!

Here's more info on Medford candidates and the hotly contested ballot question on the Community Preservation Act.

http://medfordforma.org/

[mem-winterhill.livejournal.com]

I just saw a note that the city needs election workers tomorrow, if anyone is interested/available: https://twitter.com/SomervilleCity/status/661246750250934272

[gruene.livejournal.com]

This is because we are splitting all the books in every precinct! That is, we'll have two people signing voters in and out rather than just one.

We don't anticipate long lines for this election, but it will be a big help next year and this will be nice dry run for the new system.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Because all those vacant high-rises near Kendall have done wonders for city, which is now cheap and affordable due to the surplus of luxury units.

I'm sorry, but the "everything for the rich and peanuts for the poor" approach is worse than building nothing, especially for the middle class who is getting increasing priced out. We desperately need new construction, but Cambridge's policies are a textbook example of "what not to do".

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Can you provide a citation about the vacancy rates in those high-rises?

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Not a perfect citation, since it's about Boston and a year and half old, but here:

http://www.boston.com/business/blogs/global-business-hub/2014/03/will_boston_pro.html
"buildings that opened in 2009 or later carry a collective 70% vacancy rate"

I doubt the numbers are substantially different for Cambridge. If you ever go to the Third St area on the weekend, it is dead, dead, dead. Most of the cafes there are only open business hours Monday through Friday, despite being surrounded by (theoretically) dense housing.

Presumably that 70% number doesn't even account for units that have been sold but are owned as second homes, which many high end units are. On any given night, I would doubt that more than 10% of the units have someone sleeping in them.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Here's an interview with all five Alderman-at-Large candidates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ega1V65xocs

Any other info about this race?

[ckd]

A quick Zillow look shows some of those buildings with 20+ open rental units, which may not be 70% but still seems a bit high.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your note/summary. I'm not exactly sure where I fall in my opinion, and I'll be reading both sources listed carefully to see what I think overall, but I wanted to note I agree that everyone lists very vague things they are for "affordable housing", "closing the achievement gap" (school council), etc, but very few give a more in depth summary of how they actually plan to get those things done. I find it very confusing at best.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

It's a lot less dead than when I lived on 3rd st in 2001, I'll tell you that.