There's no worry that Medford, inspiration of Jingle Bells, and historical hub for shipbuilding, rum distilling, and brick manufacture, will ever be lost in the history of this country. It's kept alive through entities like the Brooks Estate land trust as well as the Royall House. To keep this alive, I would absolutely support a bond initiative! I believe the preservation of our historic properties and artifacts is important to t he character of the city.
However, we can't ignore current history. By that I mean that we must look to our present buildings as living history, and as such, preserve them. For example, while all of our schools serving K through 8 are state of the art, Medford High School is crumbling. Our eighth graders are going to enter a school that has had only minor improvement in years, like computer centers, labs, etc. Although we have placed $2.5 million into repair of the high school, we have to keep up on preventive maintenance - whether it is the gym one year, or the cafeteria another. As a City Councillor, I would invite you to join me in following very closely the activities of our school committee, and to ask them the same tough questions I do. This is no time for back-slapping or glad-handing. This is the time for accountability. I invite Medford residents to show up at meetings and go through budget items line by line to see the answers given to those tough questions.
