Voter registration day for Wellesley High students on Sept. 26

September 17, 2017 by bbrown Leave a Comment

Voting 2016, Wellesley High School — *Next Town Election is in March 2018*

From the League of Women Voters of Wellesley:

In conjunction with National Voter Registration Day, the League of Women Voters of Wellesley will have representatives on site at Wellesley High School on Tuesday, September 26, 2017 to register eligible students.

To be eligible to register to vote, residents must be 18 years of age on or before Tuesday, March 8, 2018 (the next Town of Wellesley election). The Commonwealth also allows those who are 16 and older to pre-register which, upon the 18^th birthday, will automatically convert to registration to vote.

Students must provide a valid driver’s license number or the last 4 digits of SSN, or a copy of a current and valid photo ID showing name and address. For students living outside of Wellesley, the League will provide mail-in registration forms and instructions to access online registration.

Please encourage your WHS family members and friends to stop by the League’s table outside of the cafeteria during their lunch periods.

For further information, please go to www.lwvwellesley.org.

Wellesley meeting to focus on the fine art of Gerrymandering

September 14, 2017 by bbrown Leave a Comment

The League of Women Voters of Wellesley invites the public to attend its opening meeting of the season, which will feature Mira Bernstein addressing “Gerrymandering: Why It’s More Complicated Than Most People Think”.

With the US Supreme Court preparing to hear oral arguments on October 3^rd in Gill v. Whitford, a challenge to the redistricting plan passed by Wisconsin’s legislature in 2011, the topic is timely.

Bernstein holds a research faculty position in the interdisciplinary program for Sciences, Technology and Society at Tufts University and is a founding member of the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group, which believes that gerrymandering is a fundamental threat to democracy and election fairness.

The free event will be on Thursday, September 28, at the Wellesley Community Center, 219 Washington Street, in Wellesley Hills. Light refreshments will be served at 6:30 pm and the talk will begin promptly at 7 pm.

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Wellesley aims to stave off 40B onslaught with Housing Production Plan

September 3, 2017 by bbrown Leave a Comment

16 Stearns Rd, possible 40B site in Wellesley — 16 Stearns Rd. in Wellesley, where a teardown took place late in 2016, is one possible 40B site

The town has taken another step in its effort to gain more control over housing development in Wellesley by crafting a draft request for proposals for a Housing Production Plan. A spate of 40B proposals this summer to plop affordable and other housing units into various neighborhoods across town has prompted the action, which could give Wellesley the ability to shoot down unfriendly 40Bs by formally documenting that it is making progress on achieving state mandated affordable housing goals.

The draft RFP seeks to pay a consultant up to $35K for a plan, which ideally would be completed within 6 months of being awarded (various town approvals of the RFP are being sought this month, so it likely would be issued shortly thereafter). The plan presumably won’t impact current 40B proposals, but would put Wellesley in more control of its housing development destiny going forward. Wellesley’s Planning Department and Selectmen’s Office looked to Housing Production Plans from Brookline and Southborough, which are among the dozens of communities in the state that have such plans, for guidance in assembling its draft RFP.

Under the 40B statute, communities in Massachusetts that have less than 10% of their housing stock defined as affordable according to a formula based on median incomes in the area are largely at the mercy of the state when it comes to approval of projects that have at least 20% to 25% of their units deemed affordable. An overwhelming majority of such projects get OK’d by the state. Wellesley’s affordable housing hovers at just over 6% of its overall stock.

Wellesley is seeking to diversify its housing stock, which in turn would theoretically support a more economically, culturally, racially and age diverse population in town.

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It’s official: Wellesley’s Heffernan and Harding move up in Baker administration

August 24, 2017 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Governor Charlie Baker (far right) swears in Wellesley’s own Mike Heffernan as Secretary of Administration & Finance. From left: Heffernan; and the Heff family: Peggy, Elizabeth, Jack, and Caroline.

Governor Charlie Baker has made official the appointment of Michael J. Heffernan to be the Secretary of Administration and Finance. Heffernan formerly served as the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue, where he was responsible for administrating the tax, child support, and municipal finance laws of the Bay State.

In a press release Heffernan said, “It has been an honor to work as the administration’s Commissioner for the Department of Revenue over the last fifteen months, and I am deeply humbled by the opportunity to continue working with the first-class team Secretary Lepore assembled in the Executive Office for Administration and Finance. I am pleased to be succeeded at the Department of Revenue by Chris Harding, who is an exceptional manager with a firm grasp of what it will take to continue leading the Department’s talented staff.”

Chris Harding, also of Wellesley and formerly the Chief of Staff at the Department of Revenue, has been tapped to lead as the Department’s Commissioner. All leadership changes became effective August 14.

Wellesley housing production plan discussion heats up

August 23, 2017 by bbrown 1 Comment

The Wellesley Board of Selectmen and Planning Board on Tuesday discussed creating a housing production plan that would give the town more control over the future of affordable housing development here.

Citing a lack of tools to address the possible negative impacts of 40B projects foisted upon the town, Planning Board Chair Deb Carpenter said: “The purpose of the housing production plan is to enable us to look at housing needs comprehensively and give us tools to develop projects that have affordable market rate diversity of housing that will put us in a position of not being vulnerable to the kind of developments that we’re seeing now that people are unhappy with.”

As is, the town is increasingly being targeted by developers seeking to build homes under relatively loose 40B zoning rules in light of Wellesley falling significantly below the state standard of 10% of its housing stock being deemed affordable. One developer even recently floated the idea of using Needham to authorize a project on Oakland Street along the Wellesley/Needham border, in light of Needham being at the 10% threshold already and Wellesley needing the additional affordable housing stock (not happening for now).

A housing production plan, according to assistant executive director for the BoS office Meghan Jop, would entail a housing needs assessment to reach the 10% affordable housing threshold, setting goals for where to construct affordable housing, figuring out how many units a year would [Read more…]