And while I'm at it...the essence of Moms

Recently, as many of you may have heard, a few City Councillors were heard disparaging the PAC, Waltham Citizens for Education; these elected officials referred to the leaders of that group as "Mad Moms," "Mean Moms," "Mom Police," and, my personal favorite, "Mom Bullies."  While I haven't had an opportunity to speak with the men who are on the Board of WCE, it's been hard for me to shake this contemptuous, sexist, and vile characterization.

This weekend, I was reminded of it during an overall very cordial conversation with City Council President, Diane LeBlanc.  Since my younger son was with me and I made a point that we were on our way to my older son's basketball game after our meeting, Ms. LeBlanc remarked that I was "busy."  And, while that's a fair assessment, it felt condescending: I'm "busy" with my kids' activities. I'm "busy" posting on social media. I'm busy with my family and my friends.  There was a real disconnect in what Ms. LeBlanc seemed to understand about my professional life and what she understands about women who are full time household managers.

For the purposes of this blog, I will spare you my resume, other than to say that I am proud of my career: I worked my way through a two-year degree in an aspect of healthcare in order to complete my four-year degree.  After college, I was fortunate to have been recognized and picked out of the crowd for certain skills (who knew that talking a lot is a useful skill set) and I enjoyed a career in sales, marketing, business development, sales training, product launch, and sales management. When my husband and I found ourselves navigating parenthood without any nanas or pop-pops or tias or uncles or cousins around, it was so fortunate that I could count on my clinical training and return to direct patient care for almost seven years.  It was even more fortunate that, when I decided I could return to a business development role, my former and current employers took a chance on someone who had been out of the market for 7 years.  It's a source of pride that I worked up until the day before each of my sons were born and that I returned to work eight weeks after delivering my second baby.

That's my story and every woman has her own: we build networks of friends and relatives and neighbors for support.  I remember discovering with relief when Jack went to kindergarten that there were two moms who were home with their kids and on whom I could rely when I was running late.  All these years later, I owe so much to the women who carved out a way to be home with their kids and ended up picking up loose ends for those of us working outside the home. Shout out to Jo and Ashley, if you're reading.

When I explained to Ms. LeBlanc when we met for coffee this weekend that I currently work at the Alzheimer's Association, it seemed to me that she took that information to round out her narrative of me: a mom with two kids who does some squishy non-profit thing.  Ms. LeBlanc informed me about her career with the federal government and the region that she managed (Maryland to Maine, if I recall.)  What galled me was that Ms. LeBlanc spent several minutes detailing her professional career without asking me my role at the Alzheimer's Association (which is business development with health systems to implement Association-developed programs to make them dementia-capable.)

Allow me to return to my main thesis: when you decide to use "mom" as an epithet or a condemnation or a denigration, you lose.  The Waltham Citizens for Education are constituents, and taxpayers, and parents.  Maybe you disagree with them.  Keep in mind, though, that moms everywhere don't like name-calling.

Coffee with Diane

Imagine, if you will, my surprise at receiving a message in my inbox from City Council President, Diane LeBlanc, asking if I'd like to meet for coffee.  After thinking about the invitation, I accepted, partly out of curiosity and partly because I was impressed with her moxie.

We met on Saturday at Cafe on the Common.  I brought by 11 year old as back-up.  Ms. LeBlanc was on the charm offensive from the outset, making the most of her twinkling blue eyes and ready smile.  She started by telling me that, contrary to popular belief, she wasn't born in Waltham; I recognized this from my many years in sales as a way to establish common ground.  Showing that she had prepared for the meeting, Ms. LeBlanc complimented my "quick wit" and confessed that she sometimes didn't get my (dated) pop-culture references (specifically when I used the phrase "jumped the shark", a la Fonzie in Happy Days.)

Then she sat back and said, "I'm sure that you have questions.  Go ahead and ask me anything you like!"  Surprised, I reminded her that she had requested the meeting and that, therefore, she may have questions for me.  She asked what I had thought of the joint School Committee/City Council meeting last week; I replied that, while I was pleased to see that the meeting had finally happened and that both sides remained respectful, that I am disappointed that so many City Councillors remain uninformed regarding the extensive work of the School Building Committee and that the insistence on recommending "other sites for consideration" completely disregarded the methodical and detailed analysis of available sites that the School Building Committee, along with the architectural consulting firm, has completed.  She asked if I understood the difference between a "hostile taking" and "eminent domain." I replied that, although I'm not an attorney, I believe I do.

The rest of our conversation was, for me, fairly predictable.  The group of City Councillors who are opposed to using the Stigmatine Brothers site for a new high school have developed a series of talking points that they employ as needed: whether it's Carlos Vidal or Robert Logan, the messaging is the same.  The main points of our conversation were:

1. The Stigmatine Brothers site was never for sale; the only reason that they engaged with property management firms was for assistance with management of the property and with an accurate appraisal of the property.  This fable, of course, started with my favorite would-be Shakespearean actor, Stigmatine's Attorney Adam Paton.  The property was for sale: the mayor's office has documents proving that it was and, today, during a cleaning at my dentist, the hygienist, who used to live on Lexington Street, told me about neighborhood meetings regarding a potential sale.  
2. The 190 acres at Fernald can be redistributed in any way the city likes, as long as there are two parcels: 140 acres purchased with Community Preservation Act funds and 50 acres purchased with city funds.  It seems to me that that is a flight of fancy and that the Commonwealth Attorney General's office would, indeed, have an issue if the city decided to take 50 acres that can be restored and then push 140 acres into the contaminated swamp next to the former power plant, that floods onto Waverley Oaks Road every time there is heavy rain.  Additionally, there are many competing interests, including the veterans, for the Fernald land.  As an aside, I did ask the City Council President why nothing had been done to assess the property and get a bid for restoring the wetlands and cleaning the property.  Her response was another Waltham classic: whenever a City Councillor is asked why something isn't done, it is because the mayor has not requested it.  Whenever the mayor is asked, it's because the City Council won't bring it up.  Pot: meet the kettle.
3. Apparently, there was a part of the meeting that I missed last week (which is highly likely, since I am doing things like folding laundry, loading the dishwasher, yelling at kids, and drinking wine while I watch): Mayor McCarthy, according to Ms. LeBlanc, can annex 13 acres of Storer Conservation Land, which would then make the current site a buildable site.  Unless the mayor has been amassing an army to take the Storer land, I don't see that happening.  However, I nodded politely.
4. What about, I asked, the use of the current site for a new K-8 school to house the students in our growing city?  Ms. LeBlanc smiled again and informed me that, first of all, the population projections are probably wrong (much like Mr. Vidal did at the joint meeting last week) and that, if the city did need a new K-8 school, it could just be on the soccer field at the McDevitt.  Ms. LeBlanc's ability to posit completely baseless ideas as good ideas has, I am certain, served her well throughout her long career in the federal government and in her more recent political career.  If you haven't been at the McDevitt Middle School (or any of the nine schools in the Waltham Public School District) during drop off or pick up, do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY. The scene is chaotic at its best.  Additionally, the McDevitt is situated on a very small tract of land; the soccer field, which is down a slope from the school building, is ALL of the land that the school has.
5. Another solution for a K-8 school, according the the City Council President, is the Fitch School. The Fitch, with its historical preservation art-deco facade, has been brought up in every conversation about school sites that I can remember since we started complaining about overcrowding at the Fitzgerald six years ago.  Here's the deal with the Fitch: the School Committee "gave" it to the City Council.  The City Council didn't do anything with the building.  CC may have "given" it back to SC at some point in time -- I confess that I can't keep up.  In any case, the architectural consultants, including my hero Lorraine Finnegan, looked at the building: the heat had been turned off, causing extensive internal damage; the building is loaded with asbestos; the site is small.  The cost to gut the building while keeping the facade is more than construction of a brand new building.  Apparently, it's only mean moms and mom bullies like me who pay attention to any of these silly details.

At one point in our conversation, Ms. LeBlanc stated that the School Committee should request air conditioning for the existing high school, even if it's only there for four years.  I thought to myself how I believed that my older son, who starts 9th grade in the fall, would have been in the first graduating class at the new high school and, realizing that he won't ever set foot in it, and that his younger brother probably won't either, leads me to believe that maybe we should install air conditioning.  Pig: meet lipstick.

It's my nature to be skeptical and my writing style is sarcastic: having said that, please note that I am genuinely impressed that Ms. LeBlanc reached out and took the time to meet with me.  As an at-large councillor, that's her job; it's nice to see someone doing it.  Nothing that we discussed changed my mind and I fervently wish that we could stop chasing boondoggles and make a decision and break ground and build a school.  A situation where the Stigmatine Brothers can continue their mission and house their aged next door to a state of the art campus that supports our model education plan is the ideal.

Like the Phoenix from the Flames

Yes, I know I've been uncharacteristically silent for some time.  And I am grateful to those of you who still bother to check in on the Twitter or the Facebook.  And here we are, nearly four years after the search began for a site for the new Waltham High School.  Back then, I had hoped that my oldest son, Jack, might be in the first graduating class from the new building.  Now, I realize that my younger son, Finn, will likely never have the opportunity to learn in it and will, instead, spend his high school years in a substandard building, without certified science laboratory space, with asbestos, without reliable wifi, with a football field that can't be accessed safely as a pedestrian, and entirely unable to support the Education Plan.

As the City Council, led by Council President Diane LeBlanc and Council Vice President Robert Logan have again and again ignored the advice of the architectural consulting firm with whom the city has worked for five years, SMMA, and have chose instead to recommend a variety of spaces that are unavailable or impossible to build on, I would like to offer the following.  These recommendations are based on an intensive tour of Waltham by me.  They are not based on any input from architectural consultants, who would know if the recommended site is buildable for the needs of the high school.  Additionally, like LeBlanc and Logan, I have not taken into consideration the more than 5000 Waltham Public School students.  Because really: what do they know?  Or deserve?

1. Prospect Hill: I propose that we take Prospect Hill and flatten it and build a high school on it.  Who needs old growth forests, views of Boston, good facilities, a wonderful campsite when you can just pay extra taxpayer dollars to flatten the whole darned thing and build a high school on it.  Apologies in advance to my Monday night walking crew.
2. Mount Feake Cemetery: With 85 acres, the dearly departed are surely taking up too much space that could be afforded to the living.  
3. Takeover of Costco or BJ's: This was a one-warehouse store town before BJ's moved in.  We could have jousting or a price war or somesuch to see who survives.  The loser donates the land to the new high school.
4. Lyman, Stonehurst, Gore: Really?!  Old dead white guys are so last millennium.  Just raze those lovely structures and the protected properties surrounding them and build up a new high school.
5. Waltham Fields: This insanely popular community supported agriculture on Beaver Street is ripe for the picking (pardon the pun): who needs farmland when a high school can be built and completely and entirely forever and ever make traffic on Beaver Street unbearable (as well as positioning the high school far from the center of our fair city).
6. The MBTA Commuter Rail Tracks: Surely the architects could come up with a sustainable and affordable solution along 25 vertical acres of land along the railroad tracks that run through the city.  Of note, we will need to house displaced vagrants living in lean-tos along the tracks.
7. Weston: As an adjacent town with a lot of open land, we should be able to work out something.
8. My backyard: As it happens, our tiny house is situated on nearly 1 acre of land.  As the education plan and new high school recommendation is written, it requires 25 acres.  I am very close with many of my neighbors and I am certain that I can convince them to donate their homes to the greater good.  Since I have ~1 acre, I only need about 25 neighbors.
9. Pizzi Farms: Rick Pizzi is an all-around good guy who never says no when asked to make a donation.  So, let's just ask him to give us his business and land.  And we can build the high school there.  I have no idea where we will get ice cream or subs, however, we will have the building.

As a citizen of Waltham, I demand that these recommendations are given as much debate as the ludicrous idea of siting the high school on Veterans' Field and Chesterbrook Woods were.  

If you are interested in a cogent and reasoned argument, the best one comes from Michael Barnett, and you can read it here.  

If you haven't been paying attention (like most of our city Councillors) for the last three years, the education plan is here.