Brookline Town Meeting recap: Budget, bark and Gerald Alston
Wicked Local
Brookline officials took care of some housekeeping items and delved into the municipal budget on the first night of annual Town Meeting Wednesday, once again held remotely over Zoom.
Here are some of the highlights:
That s madam moderator, to you
Newly elected, Kate Poverman took the podium Wednesday as the town s first woman moderator. Poverman succeeds longtime Moderator Sandy Gadsby, who held the position for nearly 30 years and returned as an assistant to Poverman this time around.
Poverman asked to be called Madam Moderator. She also clarified she will refer to Town Meeting members as Mr. Mrs. or Ms. depending on the person s preference.
Wicked Local
The results are in: Bernard Greene will serve another term as Brookline Select Board member, joined by newcomer Dr. Miriam Aschkenasy. Aschkenasy will succeed incumbent Nancy Heller, who was not re-elected Tuesday.
Aschkenasy led the pack with 3,518 votes, followed by Greene with 3,315, Heller with 3,171, Zoe Lynn with 2,731 and Donelle O Neal with 915. Brookline saw slightly higher voter turnout this year than in 2020, with 7,453 of the town s 39,790 registered voters 18.73% either heading to the polls or mailing in a ballot. Last year s turnout was 17.5%.
Heller and Greene, the current Select Board chair, have both served on the board since 2015.
They met with stiff competition in their campaigns for re-election, especially after the Gerald Alston discrimination case once again made headlines just a week before the election. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the town had unjustly fired Alston, a Brookline firefighter, after he reported racism in the wor
Brookline Town Meeting moderator stepping down after 27 years
Wicked Local
His presence is almost as synonymous with Brookline’s legislative body as the famous Town Meeting Cookie, but after 27 years as moderator, Sandy Gadsby is stepping down.
Gadsby announced in an email to Town Meeting members last week he will not seek re-election on May 4, despite initially pulling papers to run.
“I have consistently publicly held that, if someone whom I believed was competent to perform the duties of moderator sought the position in the May Town election, I would not run for re-election,” he wrote.
So far, Michael A. Burstein, C. Scott Ananian and Kate Poverman have also pulled papers to run for town moderator. Only Ananian had returned them as of Feb. 19. The deadline to submit/file nomination papers with the Town Clerk is Tuesday, March 16.