Letter: John Leone Rebuttal To Opponent's Statements

ARLINGTON, MA — The following letter was submitted by Town Moderator John Leone.

I would like to take a moment to bring some clarity and context to the statements that my opponent has made.

The statements made by Mr. Christiana in the “YourArlington.com” and “Patch.com” stories are that, "The single most pressing issue facing Town Meeting is understanding the causes of the high rate of members not running for re-election this year" and "We’re seeing an unusually high rate of attrition from Town Meeting; 45 members have decided not to run for reelection."

Is this an unusually high rate? No, it is not and here is why. The 45 members who choose not to run for re-election, represents 26.1% of the open seats in the current 2022 election cycle. An examination of the data that is readily available on the Town’s website reveals that in a normal year, the terms expire for 84 Town Meeting seats (4 seats in each of 21 precincts). This year, due to reprecincting, the terms for a total of 172 Town Meeting seats became open. The reason is simple: if the precinct boundaries change, all seats in that precinct become vacant and all members must run for re-election if they want to remain in Town Meeting. This applies to 11 of our 21 precincts.

The best matrix for comparison is 2012, the last time we reprecincted the Town. In 2012, 205 seats became open as 15 precincts had their boundaries changed (Editor's Note: Figure was corrected from 204 to 205). That year 43 Town Meeting Members choose not run for re-election (Editor's Note: Figure corrected from 53 to 43), which represents 21.0% of the open seats in 2012. The same percentage as this year.

Another matrix is to compare our rate of returning members to that of our neighboring and similar towns. If we use the year 2019, the election prior to the pandemic when 17% of our open seats did not seek reelection, we are right in the mix, actually below the average of these towns.
• Belmont - 192 Members total - 81.3% rerunning - 18.7% not returning
• Winchester - 67 seats open - 52 CFR/77.6% rerunning - 22.4% not returning
• Brookline – 245 Members total -199 CFR/81.2% rerunning - 19.8% not returning

When you consider that we had 16 nights of Zoom Town Meeting, that wasn't very popular and had clunky
mechanics of enabling speakers that slowed the process considerably, I think it's commendable that so many Town Meeting Members, 74%, have chosen to get back on the ballot. So arguably, a simple analysis of the available data demonstrates that we are actually in real good shape with returning Town Meeting Members and well within the norm. Simply put there is no "unusually high rate of attrition" as alleged.

John D. Leone