North Andover Selectman's Race
North Andover Selectman's
Race
>>Valley Patriot>> |
I’m Wendy Darwin Wakeman, and I’m running for a second term as a member of the Board of Selectmen. My husband Brad and I live near the library, in a house his grandparents bought nearly 70 years ago. We have one daughter, Millicent, 8 years old; she sleeps in the same bedroom her grandmother called her own. Brad works at Lucent Technologies, and I am a stay-at-home mother. Our family loves North Andover. Our commitment to our town led me to run for selectman three years ago. We plan to be here for at least another 70 years. The future of North Andover is our future. I’ve enjoyed serving as selectman. Among the successes of my first term in office are fiscal stability, watershed land conservation, and some tough choices made for the future of North Andover. When I first ran, North Andover’s future looked bleak. The economy was in decline, and state revenues were shrinking fast. As you may remember, a $10 million operating override was touted as the only solution to our town’s budget woes. Without it, they said we were doomed. I found that hard to believe, and so did many others in town. That override attempt failed, even after being pared down to $4 million. We cut back. We made difficult choices. And there has been no further discussion of operating overrides. Yet still, North Andover is healthier, financially speaking, for our fiscal prudence. Our bond rating has continued to get better every year. We’ve opened both a brand new, state-of-the-art high school and a newly-renovated town hall. We’ve been able to leverage millions of dollars from the state, by having opted in to the Community Preservation law. With local taxpayer dollars fully matched by state dollars, North Andover has purchased scores of acres around Lake Cochichewick. As our source of drinking water, the lake is a particularly crucial resource. Protecting the open land around the lake from development has also meant preserving some of the prettiest country vistas in town. Of course, any discussion of the last three years would be incomplete without a word about the Holt Road issue. We’ve talked endlessly about strip clubs and trash transfer stations. At times, the public debate on the plans for the site has been bitterly divisive. Yet, your Board of Selectmen has worked to make any outcome work for our town. We’ve negotiated a tough deal with the property owners, so that should a trash transfer station be built, North Andover would win tremendous benefits in terms of our own recycling needs. The owners of the site have agreed to tough environmental standards that would protect our quality of life. At the same time, we’ve enacted
stringent adult entertainment regulations. The courts
protect adult entertainment as free speech, but we must
and we will protect our town from the ancillary effects
of a strip club. I’m proud of my work as a
selectman. The conservative fiscal policies I support
work well for our town. North Andover will
continue to face difficult issues. As your selectman, I
will work to keep our town on the best possible course.
I ask for your vote March 29. Thank you. *Send your comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
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