Wellesley ‘Meet the Candidates Night’ hits on pressing town, school topics
It was a packed auditorium at the Wellesley Free Library on Feb. 12 as 15 candidates for the upcoming local elections discussed everything from ICE to AI in education to the local economy.
Candidates for the contested races, Select Board and School Committee, addressed the school’s growing budget amid dwindling enrollment, the MassBay Forest development proposal and answered an audience question about whether the town would be willing to sign an order preventing ICE from using municipal land, among other things.
(See Wellesley Media recording of the Feb. 12 forum.)
Development
Hope Crosier, a Wellesley resident of about 20 years, said she is concerned about development in the community and the speed with which that is happening.
“Development is a big issue,” she said. “How it’s changing the landscape of the town is really so steep and fast that that’s an important topic.”
All three candidates running for Select Board spoke out against the state’s MassBay Community College development proposal, which has sparked concerns that the nearby forest may be impacted. State officials have indicated the 40-acre forest abutting the 5-acre parking lot at MassBay won’t be built on, but town officials and residents still have plenty of questions for the state about its plans.
“None of us wanted this to happen — ever. We thought the forest was ours forever,” incumbent Beth Sullivan Woods said.
The development, which would be used to add housing units, comes after Gov. Maura Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act in 2024 and allowed for surplus state land to be used for the purpose of adding additional housing. The forest is included in the area determined as surplus.
“I don’t think that the state should have the right to interfere with how this community decides how we build out our housing stock,” incumbent Tom Ulfelder said. “That property should not be the next target for the state.”
The League of Women Voters hosted the event, Meet the Candidates Night, ahead of the March 3 election. Susan Flicop moderated the conversations, which allowed all candidates, regardless of whether their race was contested, to give an opening and closing statement, as well as answer questions, selected and written by the League of Women Voters, related to their position. There are 11 total races, but only nine had candidates present. The audience was allowed to ask questions of the candidates of the two contested elections as time allowed.
DEI Audit
When Flicop asked the candidates about a DEI equity audit that Town Meeting funded, Marc Charney, the current Planning Board chair who is running for Select Board for the first time, said he would use the results of it as a “governance tool” to inform how they interact, engage and communicate with the community.
Sullivan Woods answered the question by highlighting the need for a strong community and neighborhoods to ensure that everyone feels engaged. She said she was “struck” by the fact that “only 39% of the community members feel that their voice is important to the government when we make policy decisions.”
Ulfelder focused more on the employment aspect of DEI in his response, saying he supports “HR policies aimed at creating a diverse and welcoming work environment.”
ICE
After the moderated questions, an audience member, who described recently moving to Wellesley from Minneapolis, asked the candidates about their stance on signing an order to prevent Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers from using municipal properties.
“I do not know whether we can prohibit federal officers from being on municipal land, because it’s public land, but we do everything possible to ensure the safety of every resident and member of this community,” Sullivan Woods said.
In his response to the audience question, Ulfelder proposed an open meeting with community members and the police department, noting that “that conversation would go a long way” towards reassuring the community while still ensuring that the town is following state and federal regulations.
Charney said he agreed, describing how he believes “working with our police department, having more dialogue with residents, particularly at this moment in time, would go a long way towards addressing fears and concerns that folks have,” while also acknowledging the limitations that come with state and federal laws.
Schools
Four candidates running for two open seats on the School Committee also spoke at the library event — Bob Sullivan, Michael Robert Cave, Costas Panagopoulos and Ayla Lari. None are incumbents.
Each of them said it was important to add air conditioning to the schools and prioritize student facing positions—acknowledging how the budget has continued to increase over the past few years while enrollment has fallen.
“There should be equity across our elementary [schools] and across the school system in terms of the kinds of environments in which student learning occurs,” said Panagopoulos. “I would support policies and efforts that would ensure that we do have that kind of equity and that there are learning environments conducive to improving student learning.”
An audience member asked the candidates about the growing number of administrators amid lower enrollment.
The candidates also discussed the role of AI in education, particularly elementary education, and most were worried about how introducing that technology at such a young age could potentially be detrimental in the long run.
Eight other candidates for uncontested races also spoke, introducing themselves and answering questions about their positions.
“I want to do my part to understand the candidates,” Crosier said. “It was helpful to see them in person, because you can read a bio, you could read their comments, but actually being here in person and getting to know them a little bit more and how they respond to questions is helpful.”
Kelly McCoulf Norris, who has lived in Wellesley since 2020 and been a member of Town Meeting since 2021, said the schools and education system were also priorities and she was glad to see so much of the town involved with local government.
“It’s great to have a lot of candidates running for those really two important boards,” she said. “I think that engagement in the town’s activities is really important. It’s one of the most important things for us in government to focus on.”