Westwood politics and candidates

Westwood politics and candidates, where the value of recycling is questionable.

Unlike the old Sy Syms slogan where an educated buyer is their best customer; an educated voter is a politician’s worst nightmare. We receive mailers adorned with fanciful reasons for our votes. Only, how do you determine what’s fact or fiction?

The public tends to only notice that which affects them; taxes, pot holes, sewer backup, flooding, schools, direct impact issues. The peripheral factors that shape these concerns tend to be overlooked. Factors that include the theater of politics and inapt politicians.

In 2001 through 2003, Westwood was operating with loans against future tax receipts using Tax Anticipation Notes. The governing body was performing in harmony. The town was experiencing new highs in long term debt, open over-budget projects and delayed infrastructure repairs. The town had over a million dollar deficit and just the governing body supposedly knew; only they didn’t.

Council members are liaisons to specific areas of concerns; usually the Mayor and finance liaison are the elected officials most acutely aware of a town’s financial condition. Back then there was little in serious debate; resulting in synchronized thinking. Hence no one was attentive to the community’s declining financial health until it started to affect property taxes.

From 2004 through 2007 there was turmoil as Westwood’s fiscal house was restored. It required a lot of dialogue to address over-budget projects and neglected infrastructure. The discussions were at times heated. Yet they resulted in ideas and solutions. It affected that period’s final outcome; taxes stabilized, renewed surplus, reduced long term debt, projects closed in-budget, and an annual infrastructure program instituted.

Once a political crisis is addressed we tend to forget and move on, not caring how a problem was solved; only that it was solved. Then as a new wave of politicians flow through the governing body the cycle begins again.

Westwood again has debt rising, surplus declining, infrastructure repairs delayed, and this in a period where the tax base grew. Instead of that growth shoring up the town’s financial future, it was used to offset increased spending. We have projects over-budget and newer problems smoldering, attributable in part to a harmonized lack of engaged dialogue and leadership. Yet, it’s election time and we’re offered by some, recycled rhetoric alleging the opposite.

Westwood’s council election choices aren’t Republican or Democrat, they’re residents. We have in column 1, incumbents that assure a status quo. In column 2, we have newcomers, offering their personal leadership experiences with visions of hope for more dialogue and a better fiscal tomorrow. It’s up to the voters to decide the fate of future taxes - by voting.