To the editor:
As many readers know, in early 2023, Lynnfield’s residents were surveyed about their priorities for the Town of Lynnfield by a collaborative group including the Lynnfield Planning Board and staff, the Select Board, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. This process was used to write the Lynnfield 2040 Visioning Plan, a document ultimately intended to offer guidance in writing an update to Lynnfield’s 22-year-old Master Plan. Among a host of other data, the survey indicated that the following values are important to Lynnfield residents:
- Representation: “74% of respondents think that it is important for Lynnfield to be a community where everyone can thrive” (11).
- Transparency and Access: Residents of our town also indicate that they value transparent and increased access to communication in their surveys, in which “67% of respondents identified community-wide communication infrastructure as an important topic that the town needs to address” (13).
- Equity: “In the townwide survey, 64% of respondents said racial and social equity is important to varying degrees” (15).
This data, collected when most of our current elected officials were already in office, is our most current indication of what Lynnfield residents care about and has an important bearing on the upcoming town elections. It shows that residents want more representative voices at the table in town government so that representative bodies within the town continue to evolve demographically as the town population itself does. In Alexis Leahy, the residents of Lynnfield are being offered this very opportunity for our Select Board: we can elect an extremely qualified person that will help represent and enact an evolving vision for Lynnfield’s future. This matters to me as a stakeholder. More importantly, the Lynnfield 2040 Visioning Plan shows that the majority of Lynnfield residents feel the same.
Electing Ms. Leahy offers Lynnfield’s residents many pathways for greater representation of their “voice” on the Select Board because she shares demographic and experiential commonality with many residents: her corporate and volunteer experience; her continued higher educational path; her generational experience; her stage of parenting; and her gender. In other words, as a Select Board member, Ms. Leahy would offer representation of more voices and values, plus new ideas for communication tools, policymaking, forecasting, and planning. To point this out is not intended to detract from present Select Board members’ substantial service to the town or the value they add from their own lived experiences in their role. Instead, it’s intended to point out that Ms. Leahy offers the opportunity to enhance the work of the Select Board not only in her many qualifications and fine qualities as a communicator and organized leader, but also because of the additional viewpoints she can represent when that work is conducted.
From a qualifications standpoint, Ms. Leahy has many. This working parent has 20 years of experience in the financial sector (currently at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston). She holds a master’s degree in public policy. She has been a dedicated local volunteer for nearly a decade serving Lynnfield via Townscape (as treasurer), the Finance Committee, the Summer Street PTO (as treasurer and president), and Lynnfield Pioneer Youth Football and Cheerleading. The list is lengthy, and continues from there.
As you consider who you’ll elect to the Lynnfield Select Board on April 9, I urge you to remember that in Alexis Leahy, residents have an opportunity to elect a candidate with countless qualifications that make her extremely qualified for the position of Select Board member. In addition, she provides an opportunity to meaningfully enhance representation among policymakers in our town, a value of great importance to residents in their vision for Lynnfield’s future. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Price
