Newton VOL 2, NO 6
NEWTON’S VOICE
March 21 - April 4, 2017
Abstraction, or reality? Publisher Josh Resnek on why we love to hate Donald Trump in Newton. Page 3.
Why we should say yes to a new charter By Jennifer Abbott, Frieda Dweck, and Andrea Steenstrup
Special for The Voice In The Voice, we like to share the various voices our community has to offer, as often as we can. It can be political, social, satirical, or anything in-between. This letter comes from the three co-chairs of Yes for a New Charter, a political organization that advocates for a new charter that residents will have the opportunity to vote for in the November 7 election. Among other things, it advocates for a smaller city council as well as term limits for government officials. A few weeks ago, the Newton Charter Commission issued a preliminary report, unanimously approved by its 9 members, containing their recommendations for changes to Newton’s city charter. The two major changes recommended are to (1) reduce the size of the city council from 24 to 12, all elected at-large, with 8 councilors representing each of Newton’s 8 wards, and 4 elected city-wide with no ward residency requirement; and (2) institute a 12-year term limit for the mayor and 16year term limits for city councilors. We believe these recommended changes will improve Newton’s local government and empower Newton voters by making all city councilors accountable to all voters, reducing redundancy, increasing competitiveness for Council seats (which generally increases voter awareness and participation in elections) and modernizing our governmental systems.
That is why we will be voting Yes in November for a new charter. The current 24-member Newton City Council is a complete outlier among Massachusetts cities of comparable size. The next largest city council in Massachusetts has 15 members, and the average size of a city council is 10. With a council the size of Newton’s, it is difficult to single out proponents or opponents among council members, effectively advocate for a particular issue, and hold councilors accountable for their votes. Furthermore, each Newton voter may vote for only 17 out of the 24 councilors. The other 7 councilors are elected by less than 1,000 of Newton’s nearly 90,000 residents. Under the Charter Commission’s proposal, every single voter will be able to vote for every single councilor. Our councilors make decisions that impact our entire city, and should be held accountable to every voter. A smaller council also means a more effective council. Newton currently has three representatives from each ward on the city council, which creates redundancy. Reducing the Council from 24 to 12 will help to streamline our government. Committees can be restructured and the number of meetings reduced so that each councilor can be more efficient and responsive. Currently, voter turnout rates for local elections are very low. Some of that is due
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OBITUARY 1973-2017
RadioShack dead at 38
By Alexander Culafi
The Voice The RadioShack at 1334 Beacon Street in Brookline passed away on March 12, 2017, after fighting a terminal bout of displaying loud yellow “everything must go” signs for the better part of seven months.
closing, or even whether it was closing. It had a tough life. It always struggled with proper messaging. No one needs to look further than their hiring of Chief Creative Officer Nick Cannon in December 2015.
The RadioShack there had been in business at Coolidge Corner since 1973, according to a manager there named Sergio. I asked him when RadioShack was closing back in early September. His response?
So now, months and months later, we finally see it close. For the sake of patronizing RadioShack at least once before its closure, I decided to buy something at a steep discount. I ultimately went with an HDMI Selector Switch that allows me to plug two game consoles into one HDMI port, 70% off.
“We were told 30-60 days, so probably the end of September or early October.” To find out why the store was closing, I had to call the landlord of the building, RadioShack’s media relations team, and it was ultimately a manager at a Newton RadioShack that would tell me why the store was closing. He refused to offer even his first name, let alone last name. “The rent went up. That’s it. That’s the only reason.” Well, as this RadioShack was closing, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in just over two years, and announced plans to close somewhere between 530 and all of its stores. It released a list of every store it plans to close, 365 of ‘em – that’s one for each day of the year. Even with those deep discount going-out-ofbusiness signs, no sign on the RadioShack storefront said exactly when the store was
Forget the fact that the price was mislabeled (the label said it was discounted from $25 when the register ultimately said $35 – which I got for just over $10). When I asked the cashier if this was the right product, she straight up opened the box in front of me, took the hardware out of its box, and unwrapped it to take a look. How close to closure does a store have to be for that move to be acceptable? I called the Newton RadioShack on Needham Street in Newton to see what they have to say. “I noticed the RadioShack in Brookline is closing. Are you guys closing too?” I asked. “Not sure yet,” an employee said. RadioShack will be survived by www. amazon.com.
See The Walk on page 12