LWV wants YOUR questions

The Norwood Chapter of the League of Women Voters is hosting a candidate forum on Monday, March 23 at 7 p.m. live on Norwood Community Media.

Sample ballots for all races can be found at https://tinyurl.com/32z6w9vj

The races are shaping up, and there are contested races for Board of Selectmen, Board of Health, the School Committee, and the Finance Committee. Multiple Town Meeting districts have several open spots, ripe for write-in campaigns, but District 4 has 16 candidates for 10 seats.

Norwood LWV President Sarah Cullen said the group wants as much community input as possible, and residents should email their questions for the candidates to lwvnorwoodma@gmail.com no later than Sunday night. She said she hopes the races will help solicit community buy-in.

“We have four contested races this year, which is more than we usually have, which is wonderful,” she said. “We’re still waiting on all the RSVPs to come back to make sure everyone can attend, but I think four contested races is a lot for us to handle. The School Committee race has no incumbents, all challengers and newcomers.”

Cullen said it’s going to be a great opportunity to get some “new voices and fresh voices.” But she said right now, the biggest challenge is getting questions from the community.

“The biggest struggle we have is from the time the ballots are finalized and when we have the forum is a really tight turnaround, so we don’t always get the message out in time,” she said. “We definitely need more from the public, everyone and anyone who can shout out into the Norwood void to get questions in.”

Cullen said she thinks the biggest issue will be the budget, which has been facing a structural deficit for a number of years now.

“It’s the biggest thing, from how it will affect the Town and the schools, the roads, and I’m sure all of these races are heavily budget-focused,” she said. “So things like: How to grow the Town without raising taxes? How do you improve services? How do you improve the schools and avoid layoffs? And so I think those are always going to be the big issues for people. People love this Town, they want to be able to live in this Town, they want to have the good services and infrastructure in the town, and so how will these candidates propose to help us achieve all that? How will they help people to afford to live here and have the services and infrastructure that we need?”

Cullen said though the available offices will have little jurisdiction over it, the Norwood Hospital and its future will likely also be a big topic.

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“That’s always a big topic every year,” she said. “It’s kind of limited, I know, what folks in these races are able to do on that front, but it’s always something people want to hear about. Growth, development, and affordable housing too are always on the forefront of people’s mind and it will be interesting to see what specific questions people will ask and how the candidates will respond.”

Cullen said she is thankful Norwood Community Media is helping to put this forum on for a live broadcast and stream.

“We love having it in the studio, it’s such a perfect place for it,” she said.

For more information, go to https://my.lwv.org/massachusetts/norwood