Letter: Nancy Heller To Run Again For Brookline Select Board

BROOKLINE, MA — The following letter to the editor was submitted by Brookline Select Board member Nancy Heller announcing her intention to run for reelection on May 4.

Dear Brookline Voters,

Please support my reelection to the Brookline Select Board on May 4, 2021. My involvement with the governance of the Town, including 12 years on School Committee, 7 years on Advisory Committee, 6 years on Select Board, and 33 years in Town Meeting, has given me significant experience with municipal and school finance and with the issues that confront us as a Town.

Dan and I moved to Brookline in 1973 because Brookline was a high-quality town with excellent schools, fine libraries, lovely green spaces, and great municipal services. Brookline has not disappointed. We have faced challenges, budget constraints, and contentious issues, but none so difficult as the COVID crisis. Our new challenge is to ensure that the fabric of Brookline is even better than it was when COVID turned our lives upside down. We have kept the rate of infection/death at much lower rates than neighboring communities.

While we hope that the pandemic will end in the foreseeable future, we have much work to do, as we face challenges:

• Returning children to schools
• Restoring local businesses to viability; increasing our commercial tax base
• Recovering budgetary resources for municipal services, seniors, schools, affordable housing, libraries, green spaces, social services
• Continuing progress for racial/ethnic diversity in our workforce and eradicating bigotry
• Pressing forward toward a fossil fuel free town and advocating green legislation in the Commonwealth

As a Select Board member, I have been:

Co-Chair, Select Board’s Climate Action Committee, focused on ensuring a fossil fuel free town, developed and implemented Brookline’s Green Electricity program for residents to access renewable electricity;

Representative to Gas Leaks Allies, a regional organization that addresses natural gas leaks;

Co-Chair, BHS Expansion Advisory Committee;

Chair, Tree Protection Study Committee, which is now engaged in studying our tree canopy with the goals of increasing our trees, having them resilient to climate change and having them mitigate the effects of climate change;

Representative, Council on Aging;

Co-Chair, Age Friendly Cities Committee;

Chair, Cannabis Mitigation Advisory Committee, advising the Select Board on allocation of funds from the Host Community Agreements;

Chair, Newbury Zoning Study Committee, resulting in (1) a new senior living project at the former Newbury College, (2) the largest contribution to the Town’s Affordable Housing Trust to create over 40 new affordable senior units and renovate 60 units and (3) our acquisition of the Newbury West Campus Academic building;

Town School Partnership;

Co-chair for the JFK 100th birthday commemoration.

My legal background and civic involvement provide me with the knowledge and skills to continue to be an effective Select person and together we can make our very good Town even better.

Nancy Heller,www.heller4selectboard.com