Status update on Newton Villages conversations

In case you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to…

Last Wednesday, Chris, Matt and I met for coffee at the Knotty Pine diner in Auburndale to discuss retail mix and ideas about doing what Chris calls “reverse site selection.” Unlike site selection, which analyzes places to best locate a specific business, this market analysis would look at a village and evaluate the types of uses it might support. (Chris and Matt can explain this better than I can, but it’s a very exciting idea.) This would be a valuable service Newton Villages might provide and one that could be completed with volunteer power alone. Speaking of the diner, we would all recommend the home fries, and there was discussion of starting a breakfast club…

That afternoon, we met with Kent Portney, the Tufts political scientist who is a member of Mayor-elect Setti Warren’s transition team, worked on the Citizen’s Advisory Group (bio:
http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/CitizenAdvisoryGroup/Member%20Biographies.pdf) and has researched issues of local sustainability. Kent talked with us about Setti’s interest in reviving the neighborhood area councils, which are defined in the city’s charter. (Only one such council exists, in Newton Highlands.) Matt and I are providing our feedback to him this week.

On Thursday, we had coffee with Joel Shames, co-president of the Lasell Neighborhood Association, which is a healthy and active group. Joel expressed his interest in our coalition and offered some valuable insights. We’re hoping to be invited to present to an association meeting and finagle an invitation to one of their progressive dinners.

On Sunday, Matt, John, Barbara, and Andrea, among others, participated in the mayor-elect’s summit. We were thrilled to be included and gratified that so many of the conversation groups touched on issues that Newton Villages would support. We may post more on that meeting
later.

Today (Tuesday), Matt and I met with Tom O’Rourke of the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce and presented our case for a Newton Villages organization, discussed how our coalition might work with the chamber and the city’s to-be-hired economic development planner. Tom expressed his support for our coalition and suggested we present our ideas to the chamber’s Economic Development Committee, which could happen as early as next week.

In the coming days, we have appointments to meet with Marcia Cooper of Green Decade, Alderman Ted Hess-Mahan, Janice Bourque and Srdjan Nedeljkovic of the aforementioned Newton Highlands Neighborhood Area Council, and Alderman Susan Albright and Sarah Ecker, the Community
Involvement Team for Mayor-Elect Setti Warren.

We continue reaching out to others. Please do the same. I’ll post the most recent draft of our goals/approach to the Files section of our group site. If you are in a conversation with a person who seems interested in Newton Villages, please invite them to join our discussion.