Ruthanne Fuller Wins "Visionary Legislator" Award

Last night on Common Ground, I handed out an award for the first time in the show's 6-year history. The "Visionary Legislator" award was created to honor Ruthanne Fuller for her work during her first six months as a Newton Alderman. Specifically, she earned the recognition for her work in two areas:

1) advovating during the City budget process for an inventory of city buildings that would allow us to develop maintenance plans to better maintain muncipal facilites (a similar study of school buildings was completed recently); and

2) proposing that Newton adopt the state statute that would allow us to begin funding post-retirement employee health care benefits.

While it is easy to advocate current expenditures on services people value (schools, police, fire), Ruthanne Fuller has taken politically courageous action to prevent future fiscial crisis. We are currently flying blind with respect to our building maintenance schedule and if we don't take action soon, we will be forced to borrow extensively to reconstruct and replace poorly-maintained buildings. Conducting a study of current building conditions is the first step in developing a sustainable maintenance plan.

Similarly, continuing to defer the problem of our growing (over $600 million) post-retirement health care liability would burden future generations of Newton residents with massive tax increases and cuts in services. By working on a plan to address this growing deficit now, Ruthanne Fuller is demonstrating the kind of visionary leadership Newton so badly needs.

Hopefully, this will become an annual (or more frequent) award with lots of Newton officials worthy of this recognition.