Meet the Candidates for Westwood's Select Board

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Early voting is ongoing and in-person voting is upcoming on Wednesday, April 28, 2021, Election Day, but do you know your candidates?  

Below are the answers that two of three candidates for Westwood's Select Board, Robert Gotti and David Akins, provided in response to the Westwood Minute's Question and Answer form.  The third candidate, Bill McLaughlin, also agreed to participate, but as of noon on Election Day, his response has not yet been received.  The Westwood Minute understands that a recent medical issue has arisen with a member of the McLaughlin family and sends its wishes that there will be a full and speedy recovery.  The Westwood Minute will update this article when Mr. McLaughlin's response is received.  

The Westwood Minute takes no position on the candidates.  The sole purpose of this article is to help Westwood voters make their own informed choice.  Presentation of the interviews and layout of this article is limited by the online platform used by Westwood Minute and placement of text or photos should not be taken as any endorsement of one candidate over another. 

David Atkins and Robert Gotti Answer Westwood Minute Questions in their own words.

Q: What in your background prepared you for this position?

Atkins: I’ve been engaging residents in conversations about their priorities for Westwood since I started a website, the WestwoodBlog, back in 2007.  I identified an issue I cared strongly about, making Westwood more walkable, and worked with town departments and residents to create the Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Committee.  As we met over the years, I learned more about the ins and outs of town government and administration and ran for Housing Authority and then Planning Board, which I have chaired for 2 years, running dozens of public meetings and working to listen to residents and ensure their voices are heard.  I also have a technology background, graduated [from] MIT, and also law school, so I have strong analytical skills to apply to any issue that comes to the Select Board.

Gotti: Education at Williams, where I really learned how to learn and be intellectually curious.  One of the most transformative experiences I had there was a study abroad program that took me to Cairo, Egypt for 5 weeks.  [It] helped expand my perspective to a global perspective and understand how our country is seen by others who have had very different life experiences.

Thirty years in marketing and strategic communication help me distill complex issues to relatable, easier to understand framing of the issues, options, and choices before us collectively.

Those experiences converge in form of creative problem solving.  At Williams, we had a course on strategic negotiations that focused on state-to-state treaties.  At Boston Beer, [I became] certified in Ideation Facilitation.  Ideas are fragile things.  This taught me a whole new language designed to suspend judgment and expand possibility.

Profit and loss management in all my roles has taught me one thing . . . it’s all math.  You can’t have a viable business unless the math works.  Understanding the nuance of the interrelationships of budgeting and the hard choices that accompany that will serve me well as the next Select Board member.

Q: What are the top 3 things you want to accomplish as a Board Member?

Atkins: First, expand protection of our conservation land and implement key action items in the Sustainability and Resiliency section of our Comprehensive Plan to protect our health, by protecting our environment.  

Second, bring the Gay Street Sidewalk project to a town meeting vote and break ground before the end of my term to construct a sidewalk from Deerfield to Pine Lane.

Third, conduct a community exercise in budgeting to engage residents in developing a comprehensive financial plan to prioritize spending over the next 5 years and enact tax relief measures that help balance the tax burden on families and seniors.

Gotti: Implementation of the Comprehensive Plan -- that is an incredibly well thought out document and provides great direction for what residents want in town.  Specifically:

First,  I want vibrant town centers that add to our commercial tax base.

Second,  I want to see a Sustainability Plan put forward similar to the thought leadership shown by Ipswich over a decade ago.  They provided a great road map for all sectors of town: municipal, schools, commercial, residential, etc.  I’d like to have a plan as well thought out for Westwood based on new technologies and lessons learned last decade.  Governor Baker signed Senate Bill 9 on March 26th laying out a program towns could opt into that sets aggressive standards for GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions both near term (2030) and longer term (2050).  Change is coming and I’m more inclined to controlling our destiny than being forced to comply with others' plans.

Third, I want to bring an end to the divisive nature of some of the conversation in town.  I hear a lot of “us versus them.”  We need more civility in our civic conversations.  We are all in this together.  Rising tides in town will lift all boats, and while we won’t all agree on every issue, we can disagree without being disagreeable.

Q: If you could change one thing in our zoning code, what would it be and why?

Atkins: There are many areas for incremental improvements outlined in the Comprehensive Plan, particularly to protect our resources and to encourage more sustainable development and affordable housing.  But if I had to pick one specific item I would like to see addressed, it would be our historical demolition delay bylaw.  There are not many historic properties left and we are powerless to stop their demolition.  We could craft bylaw revisions to create incentives to stop these teardowns of historic structures and promote their adaptive re-use.

Gotti: I’d like to see an overlay district created to allow for a viable commercial use for the Obed Baker House on High Street.  I’d like to see this historic building put to good use and help contribute to the commercial tax base.

Q: How do you plan to involve residents in decision-making in Westwood?

Atkins: I will start a monthly office hours/open Zoom meeting and invite the School Committee and Planning Board to send a representative to field questions from residents.  I will work with the town IT department to implement a “help desk” ticketing system so that residents can easily report problems that would be tracked to resolution and publicly searchable.  I will convene a budget workshop over the summer to engage residents in setting priorities for spending and learning what tradeoffs would be needed to provide tax relief.  I will be accessible by phone, email, or social media and respond to residents, meeting in person to see their concerns as desired and view my job as a service role to the community.

Gotti: All Select Board and Planning Board meetings are broadcast live [by] Westwood Media Center.  The combination of Open Meeting Law and WMC ensures transparency.  Any resident concerned about transparency is welcome to attend these meetings and participate in the dialogue during periods of public participation.  In fact, I’d like to see some form of virtual participation continue even after the pandemic is over, as Zoom has allowed more people to be engaged than might otherwise turnout for a live meeting.

When you hear calls for transparency, I think the real desire is for better communication and public engagement.  What do I mean by that?  People lead busy lives.  They have limited bandwidth to attend meetings or sift through meeting minutes.  I believe we’d benefit from simpler communication (think Schoolhouse Rock, if you’re old enough to remember) - quick, digestible videos or animations that lay out [the] issue, options, decision, process, [and] timing. This is why I suggested we add a recommendation for a Communications Director to the Comprehensive Plan.

Q: What do you most want Westwood to know about you?

Atkins: I’ve lived in several different houses in Islington neighborhoods since we moved to Westwood in 2005 and rented for a while with my whole family in a 2 bedroom apartment on Fairview Street while I was between jobs and houses.  We recently moved to an old historic house on High Street.  We moved my mother from Virginia to Westwood about 5 years ago, and she lived in Highland Glen until she passed away last year.  Although I did not grow up in the town, I have made Westwood my home, not only because of the great schools that my children attend, but because of the great community of friends I have made.  I’m committed to working to serve this town and be a part of making and keeping it the wonderful place we have chosen to live.

Gotti: I’m running for Select Board because I care about Westwood, as demonstrated through my long involvement in various town boards and activities over the past two decades.  I’m a problem solver who gets things done.  I listen, consider, explore options, and work to enroll people behind ideas.  I never run from a difficult conversation.

Thanks to Robert Gotti and David Atkins for their contributions to this article.  To make sure you don't miss stories like this, you can have them sent directly to your email by subscribing to the Westwood Minute's free electronic newsletter. Just click on the blue "Sign up" button below to subscribe for free.