It’s another sleepy election cycle here in Belmont, with but one contested race (School Committee) for town wide office and few competitive precincts for town meeting (actually…are there any?). But with the Town’s April election tomorrow, the race for School Committee has suddenly heated up.
Belmont voters go to the polls tomorrow. Blogging Belmont says: for Slap and Shuster in the School Committee race.
The conventional wisdom has been that School Committee member Laurie Slap and Elyse Schuster were solid bets to win the two open seats on School Committee – both are well known and have been very involved as volunteers and parents. Recent BHS grad and MIT student Jamie Kang is a newcomer to town politics and has been considered a long shot. A couple things have changed – first: the State Republican Committee sent out an e-mail blast to registered Republicans in town in the past week promoting Kang’s candidacy. On the one hand, this shouldn’t be surprising – this is a political campaign so, what? Someone decided to campaign?!? What gives??!
That Kang has the backing of the town’s Republican establishment isn’t surprising – Republican Committee Chairman (and former State Senate candidate) Steve Aylward has been working as her campaign chairman.
The State Republican Committee has thrown its weight behind Jamie Kang for School Committee, citing a “no taxes” pledge.
What’s surprising is the statement “under no circumstance would she ever support a tax increase or an override.” That’s a surprise to many folks who were following the race who didn’t see the race as a “progressive vs. conservative” showdown. The only debate seemed to put the three candidates pretty close together on funding issues, and Jamie hasn’t tackled the override question straight on. In a post on The Belmont Patch, she has mostly talked about educating children for the future with critical thinking skills and leveraging technology. She’s said she’s against further fees for parents (me too) but otherwise steers clear of substantive discussions of the budget.
Whatever her real position, making a “no new taxes” pledge is short sighted. First: everyone knows that overrides are required to do things like build a new Belmont High, or even to renovate existing structures. Those are overrides – would she oppose them?
And, on the operational side, its clear Belmont’s town and school budgets know can’t stretch much thinner. In both cases, ruling out an override categorically is foolish.
Kang followed up this afternoon with a robocall to town voters touting her credentials as a recent BHS grad, matriculating MIT senior and digital native. No mention of the hardline anti-tax pledge, leaving me to wonder how much of that is Jamie and how much is Steve.
What does this mean? Not too much. But it injects a bit of last minute campaigning into an otherwise sleepy race that most folks thought was all wrapped up.
If you’re a progressive in town, this means you have to get out to vote tomorrow (April 2nd) and vote for the proven and progressive School Committee candidates on the slate: Laurie Slap and Elyse Shuster for School Committee.