LWV questionnaire

Normally I try to keep my postings short - they're easier to read that way - but in this case I'm reprinting the questions posed to me (and other candidates) by the League of Woman Voters.

The answers are mine. You'll have to ask the other candidates (or read the Falmouth Enterprise) for theirs.


League of Women Voters of Falmouth
QUESTIONS FOR CANDIDATES FOR FALMOUTH SELECTMAN
2007

NAME: Brent Putnam. The last time I voluntarily used my middle initials (V.W.) was on a paper in high school. My teacher thought it was a joke that referred to my car (a Volkswagen Beetle) and knocked a few points off my grade for being smart.

ADDRESS: 97 John Parker Rd.

OCCUPATION: Network engineer. Specifically, I'm a Primary Support Engineer for Novell, a Waltham, MA-based company known for its network software. I usually telecommute, although I occasionally travel to visit my clients.

Prior to my work at Novell, I was a network manager for Ernst & Young, LLP in Boston, and the Sandwich Cooperative Bank in Sandwich. In each case, my responsibilities included budgets, project management and supervising other network staff.

Mine is not a purely technical position. In my job, interpersonal skills are almost as vital as technical skills and half of my training is dedicated to working with people. Not only must I find solutions to complex and evasive problems, I must be able to work with irate clients in stressful situations.

Your participation in Falmouth civic activities, including but not limited to participation in town government and town cultural, social, educational, political, business, religious and philanthropic organizations:
--Member, Falmouth Conservation Commission
--Town Meeting member, Precinct 9
--President, Old Barnstable/John Parker Neighborhood Association
--Former Spokesman, Falmouth Bog Preservation Group
--Board Member, East Falmouth Village Association
--Volunteer, Falmouth Cranberry Harvest & Farm Festival
--Webmaster, Friends of Falmouth Farms
--Member, The 300 Committee
--Member, Falmouth Amateur Radio Association (callsign W1NCH)
--Member, St. Anthony's Parish, East Falmouth
--Falmouth High School, class of 1989 (Member, National Honor Society)

Other facts that you think the voters should know about you:
--Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts of America, 1986
--Case Western Reserve University, attended 1989-1992
--Cape Cod Community College, Associate in Science, Computer Information Systems, 1996 (Cum Laude)
(While in college, I got married and started a family - events that slowed my higher education a bit. Hence the gap between my high school and college graduations.)
--Former Office Manager, O'Connor Home Improvement
--Founding Member & former member of the Board of Directors, Clean Power Now
--Member, Catboat Association
--Member, International Dark-Sky Association
--When I can, I like to spend time aboard my 22-foot Marshall catboat, making pickles, or stargazing.

Although it is me who is running for office, I think it is also useful to know how my family participates in the community:

--Married 17 years to Becky Druley. Rebecca is a third-generation Falmouth resident, broker/owner of Rebecca Putnam Real Estate, Junior Varsity Coach for Mashpee High School Girl's Field Hockey, Varsity Coach for Sturgis Charter Public School Girl's Lacrosse, and plays defense with the Cape Cod Women's Ice Hockey League.
--Three children: Andrew is a sophomore at the Sturgis Charter Public School and works part-time at McDonald's; Kaytlen is in the 8th grade at Lawrence Junior High School and a member of the chorus; Victoria is in the 2nd grade at Teaticket Elementary and plays defense with Falmouth Youth Hockey and the Falmouth Pride Girls Hockey Club.

QUESTION #1:
What distinguishes you as the best-qualified candidate for this important position?

The most common comment I've heard on the campaign trail is that we need new blood in town hall. More so than any of the other candidates, I am that person. At 36, I am the youngest candidate and would be the youngest sitting selectman. As a relative newcomer to local government, a vote for me is a vote for an independent voice who will serve the people.

My career as a network engineer brings with it a different point of view - a different way of looking at things. As one person observed, I will bring logic to town government.

Much of my work centers around solving problems, but it is not just about fixing what doesn't work. It is about finding the root cause of an issue, so we can avoid similar problems in the future. It is about looking ahead to prevent problems before they happen - to be proactive.

Consider also some things that people have said about me...

--"You're one of the most honest people I know." - Darcy
--"He's a very intelligent guy." - Henry
--"You've got integrity, Brent." - Linda
--"Brent would make a good selectman; he's a good listener." - Dan
--“You're a breath of fresh air.” - Alice

An independent voice with a fresh point of view. A proactive problem solver. Honesty, intelligence, integrity, a good listener, a breath of fresh air. Some very good qualifications.

QUESTION #2:
The Falmouth Town Charter is the constitution of the town. Under the Charter, the Selectmen are responsible for “recommending major courses of action to the Town Meeting.”
What major course of action do you think the Selectmen should recommend to the Town Meeting in 2008?
Why do you think this should be a priority matter?

Although there are several things that could be done, the selectmen should make it a priority to craft a serious plan that will actually do something about the affordable housing issue.

Ten years ago, someone making $40,000 could afford to live here. Today, it takes $100,000, an income that is difficult even for some married couples to obtain. The difference is due to the cost of housing, which has soared in the past decade. My wife and I built our first home - a 3-bedroom Cape in Seacoast Shores - for $80,000. Ten years later, the town values our current house - a typical 4-bedroom colonial - at $500,000.

This increase is largely due to the overall demand for housing. Unlike places like Bridgewater or Brighton, people usually more here because they want to live here - to be near the water - not because they have to live here.

The lack of affordable housing in Falmouth is a root cause for many other issues. The youth of Falmouth - the future of our town - are leaving in droves. It's a Cape-wide problem. Even as the Cape's population grew by nearly 20-percent between 1990 and 2000, it lost 5-percent of its 25-44 year-old population.

It is this age group where people establish careers, get married, start families and buy homes. For the most part, this is our middle class and we're losing them. Town meeting just approved two new firefighters and police officers. These jobs start at $40,000/year. Where will these individuals find housing?

Another side effect of the affordable housing issue is the proliferation of 40B developments. Because Falmouth's inventory of housing has less than 10-percent affordable units, there are limits to our control over 40B development.

Although well-intentioned, 40B has significant drawbacks. It bypasses local zoning, which puts the character of the town at the mercy of developers; a neighborhood of 2-acre plots could have a development with 1/4-acre plots in its midst. It also adds more market-rate housing to Falmouth's inventory, adding to the density of our town and making it impossible to get to that magic 10-percent level.

The density creates other issues, most notably environmental. A few years back some folks tried to blame the nitrogen levels in our coastal ponds and embayments on cranberry bogs. However, even if we closed every cranberry bog in Falmouth, there would be no measurable effect on the nitrogen levels. It is development - septic nitrogen, lawn fertilizers and road runoff - which contributes virtually all of the nitrogen. Development must be addressed if we are to get control over this; everything else is a side show.

How do we address the affordable housing problem and get a handle on these other issues?

1) Stop reacting. When we buy land to protect it from impending development - 40B or otherwise - we're simply reacting and addressing the symptom, not the root cause. We are, in effect, giving a cancer patient aspirin and feeling good about it. In reality, we're only delaying the inevitable, because we cannot hope to buy every vacant parcel before it is developed.

We need to act. One candidate for selectman suggested buying homes in all parts of town and reselling them at affordable rates, but how do we fund this? Another suggested that we hire a 40B expert as a consultant. That might help us deny a project or two, but again, it only treats the symptom. It doesn't address the root cause - a lack of affordable housing.

2) Implement a Local Initiative Plan (LIP). The LIP is a set of local guidelines for building affordable housing; think of it as a local 40B. A developer can build under 40B, or the LIP. However, if they chose 40B, the town, by virtue of having a LIP, has more leverage to alter or even deny the project.

The LIP is perhaps the easiest thing we can do to begin reigning-in 40B development, yet the selectmen have not made it a priority and it is still not completed.

3) Many a homeowner has an unpermitted in-law apartment, and the town could offer an occupancy permit - and a reduced tax bill - if the owner rents the unit at an affordable rate. The permit is the stick - without it, the owner cannot use the unit legally. The reduced tax bill is the carrot. There has to be a deed restriction for the state to count the unit as affordable, but that won't happen without some incentive for a homeowner to accept the restriction.

A reduced tax bill could also be used to encourage the owners of existing, legal apartments to accept a deed restriction and rent at affordable rates instead of market rates.

The potential downside is reduced income from property taxes. However, unpermitted apartments are probably not on the tax rolls now, so there would be no loss there. The potential loss of tax revenue from existing, legal apartments will need to be explored.

4) For decades, Falmouth has placed a priority on land acquisition for open space, and the Land Bank provided a means to accomplish this. Similarly, we can now use Community Preservation Act funds (80 percent of them) to build our affordable housing inventory and get to the 10 percent mark. There is no better funding mechanism available to us to buy existing units to add to the affordable housing inventory, or to build new affordable housing. Without funds, we will accomplish nothing.

There may be objections to this on the grounds that we need the CPA funds for other projects, but we need to set priorities. We need to get grip on this issue and that may require sacrifice in other areas. Furthermore, before the CPA, we found other ways to pay for things like historic preservation. And, once we can deny 40B projects, the need to buy land to protect it from development will be less urgent.

By addressing the affordable housing issue, we tackle a wide range of issues that affect Falmouth. We help slow the emigration of our young, middle class families, we eliminate the threat of unrestrained 40B development, and we help control the increase in nitrogen which has negatively impacted our coastal ponds and embayments.

The major course of action the selectmen should recommend in 2008 is a plan to address the affordable housing issue. If we can get control over that, we will have more control over our quality of life in Falmouth. Anything less is just an aspirin.