Good Morning, Burlington!

A couple of things I should have said earlier in the week but didn’t:

Trash pickup isn’t delayed today, so be sure your barrels are out!

Also, remember when I said local election season was right around the corner? Well, we took the turn. It’s time to pull papers for your run for local office.

“I’m not running for local office,” you might say. To which I say, not so fast.

Like many people I meet, you might consider yourself apolitical. You might be overwhelmed, frustrated, and even disgusted by things that happen in the national political parties. Those feelings, however, don’t preclude a run for local office. I’ve found that government at the local level is somewhat insulated from those national political influences. Not completely, of course, but I don’t consider local government to be political in that sense, and I don’t think you should, either.

Local government, on a day-to-day level, is about running the town in the way that residents want to see it run. Obviously people will disagree along the way, but at its core, our function as public officers is to try and come up with the best possible version of Burlington, and to do it together. From the kind of food our kids are eating at schools and transportation available to them for after-school activities to whether or not we install an electronic sign or a community flagpole on the Town Common to where smoke shops should be located in Burlington, those are just a teensy fraction of the decisions our elected representatives help make.

There are a lot of open seats coming up in the April 1 election, and I very highly encourage you to start learning now which might be a good fit for you. You can go as intensive as a seat on the Planning or Select Board, or as low-key as a seat as one of our 126 Town Meeting representatives, but please do something if you’re able. As a town, we benefit from enthusiastic, diverse representation in town government, and right now, that enthusiasm and diversity are lacking in some places.

Here’s a list of open seats as of now.

• Moderator
• Select Board
• Assessor
• School Committee
• Library Trustees
• Planning Board
• Board of Health
• Housing Authority
• Recreation Commission
• Shawsheen Tech. H.S. School Committee
• Town Meeting, all precincts

The first step in the process of running for office is called pulling papers. What that means is to simply go to Town Hall and ask for nomination papers for the seat for which you’d like to run. If you’re running for one of the town-wide offices, you’ll need 50 signatures—a super low barrier to entry if you are serious about your campaign. For Town Meeting, you need 10 signatures from voters in your precinct. You’ve got from now until February 8th to pull papers, but if you’re considering running, I’d recommend just getting them now.

I’ll stop there for now, but don’t forget to check out our Local Government section and the Town Clerk’s website for more information.

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Today in Burlington

Meetings and Events

• 10:30 AM - (Library event) Creation Station for ages 2-5. Learn more and register here.
• 7:00 PM - Planning Board has a pretty light agenda today, as the discussion of the 22 Terry Ave project has been continued until February 2. They’ll be talking about a special permit application for a wireless communication facility by Smartlink/AT&T and then moving to work on a petition to update Town Center Design Rules and Regulations. (Join online)

Sports and Activities

Score Update

In hockey, girls lost yesterday to Arlington Catholic 3-2, while boys took home a 4-3 win against Wilmington.

Our wrestling team also won against Wilmington yesterday, with a final tally of 60-24.

Today’s Schedule

Track is the only thing on the sports calendar today, with Boys and Girls facing Wakefield at the Track at New Balance at 4:30. Twitter says it’s going to be an exciting matchup:

Good luck, Devils!

Have a lovely day, everyone. I’ll see you tomorrow. Which is already Friday!

Nicci