In the Mix: Will Brownsberger

This is the latest installment in a series of interviews BloggingBelmont is doing with some of the leading thinkers and decision makers in the Belmont Community — those folks who help shape the town that we live in.

Rep. Will Brownsberger

For this latest In the Mix, BloggingBelmont sat down with State Rep. Will Brownsberger, a longtime town resident and former Selectman who now represents Belmont and parts of Arlington and Cambridge. This is the first in a three part posting of excerpts from our interview with Will. You can listen to it by clicking here, or via the VodPod sidebar on the B2 home page, by clicking the image of Will. A note: the sound quality of this is poor — I basically recorded it on my laptop. I’m upgrading my kit and will soon be offering higher quality podcasts and video podcasts for B2. You’ll have to bear with me for this one, however.

Past In the Mix interviews include Selectman Angelo Firenze, and Belmont Food Pantry head Patricia Mihelich.

Here are some excerpts from part 1 of the interview with Will…

BloggingBelmont (B2): How has the adjustment to life on Beacon Hill been? What have you learned?

Will Brownsberger
(WB): I’ve learned a lot about a lot of different issues. there’s a whole flow of information there that allows you to develop a broader perspective. I’ve been pleased with the cooperation I’ve gotten from my colleagues on the hill. Its a good time to be there.

B2: It’s interesting when you look at the issues that dominated in the (2006) camapaign with Mrs. (Libby) Firenze. There was a lot of talk about gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research and it seems like in the year since, a lot of other issues have moved in. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing us now at the state level and local level?

WB: From a big picture we, I think, face a tough environment. over the next couple decades. The influence of automation and the influence of much broader international competition than the whole U.S. economy has faced for 50 or 100 years may change our standard of living for the worse. At the very least it will keep people under pressure to keep changing and keep adapting. I think you see that now. A lot of people feel financial pressure.

B2: Do you see a willingness in the Patrick administration an awarness at the state level of those challenges and a willingness to face those challenges in a way that’s innovative?

WB: I see in the legislature and the administration a strong awarness of hte challenges we face. I’d couple those with environmental and resource challenges which I think both work to make a tough situation a bit worse. I don’t think there are any magic bullets in this. It’s trying to do a lot of things right –deal with energy costs and conservation. Deal with affordable housing. Deal with the education system. Look at how we receive businesses into the state. Do what we can to support bright light businesses like the life sciences. There’s a lot of awareness and consensus on the multiple dimensions we’re trying to do things right on.

B2: You’ve lived in Belmont for 15 years. In that time, and you were very involved with town politics before you ran for statewide office. What has endured about Belmont as a community and what has changed?

WB:
I think we’ve made a lot of progress over the last 10 years. We’ve opened Belmont to restaurants which has made a big difference with the liquor licensing. We’ve gotten in focus the capital needs of the town and made a sustained effort to address those. The senior center, the track the town hall, fire stations. We’re working now on the wellington school. so a lot of that has been addressed. We’ve also done a lot to enliven the business centers in our town. the rezoning of the Cushing Square was very significant and is likely in the next year or two to pay off with some positive redevelopment in that area. The same thing is happening in Belmont Center, though its not as far along. There’s a committee looking at that. But somet things haven’t changed. We’re a fully built town. We are a town that is overwhelmingly residential and as a result we have relatively high taxes and that creates a continuing pressure on our operating budget that we can’t raise it to a level that people feel comfortable with so there’s continuing concern with the quality of the schools. What hasn’t changed is that we still have a very good school system and I think that’s something that is partly due to the parents and kids in the system, who just create a positive environment for education in Belmont despite the fact that we spend less than the average community on education.

B2: When you look at the level up from that in the last 15 years, are the macroeconomic conditions tougher for a town like Belmont, which doesn’t have a diversified tax base? Has the environment changed in a way that will force Belmont to change or is the way the town has functioned in the last 40 years going to continue in the next 30 or 40 years?

WB: You ask a deep question and I’m not sure what the answer is. I think we need to be open, across all government to be open to rethinking how we do what we do. Industry is changing and restructuring rapidly. Services are restructuring rapidly. What happens in offices changing rapidly as a result of automation and competition. We can’t sit still. Government can’t be an island that does not change. That’s why I’m interested in educational information technology. I think in the next few decades its likely that the way we deliver education, which is over 1/2 of our budget, will change substantially to include components of online education. There may be some ways that are superior and others that are inferior. Right now online education does not offer a cost advantage. But within the next few decades, a cost advantage will open up that allow for greater use of technology in education. There will always be a teacher and you will always need to have activities that bring kids together in a school context, but I think things are goiong to change in interesting ways.

B2: What about on the town side of things with technology?

WB: On the town side, its not as much about technology because most of the town budget is not paper pushing. You know–its people on the street doing work: fire, police, highway department and so on. You have some places like the Treasurer’s office where technology has and will make a difference. But I think the big question is the regionalization question.

B2: And to clarify, you mean working with neighboring towns to combine services like fire, police, schools, and purchasing.

WB: That’s been the way its been framed, but many of the really great opportunities for economies of scale have already been addressed. One of the biggest is the mutual aid fire system, meaning not every community needs to staff up to fight the biggest fires. That’s huge. So people say that we need to regionalize fire. Well it is regionalized already to a great degree. I mean, if you had a totally rationalized system you might draw the boundaries a bit differently between fire stations, but i don’t know how the regionalization thing moves forward. I’m inclined to think it involves much bigger aggregations or collaborations — maybe a metropolitan fire fighting force. These are things that are out there in the long term but there are big political barriers to doing all those things.

Next: an Uplands status update, Wellington and roads vs. schools…