[WestMALocals] article about Jill Stein and community-based smart growth

[Nat Fortune]

Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 31, 2005

Stein aligns herself with land issue
  By MARY CAREY


JILL Stein, the 2002 Green-Rainbow party candidate for governor, is 
back working on statewide issues, including one with local 
implications: surplus state property sales.

Stein, a 55-year-old doctor who lives in Lexington, recently left her 
medical practice for a sabbatical of unknown length, she said Friday. 
She plans to focus on what she said could broadly be characterized as 
''community-based smart growth.''

As an example of what her group, called Massachusetts Coalition for 
Healthy, is working on now, Stein pointed to consternation in 
Williamsburg last summer over the sale of 26 acres on Depot Road. 
Purchased by the state nearly 125 years ago for use by the Department 
of Mental Health, the land was declared surplus last year and put on 
the block with six weeks notice to the town.

Stein's group is advocating for the repeal of the 2003 law that allows 
the state to fast-track sales of surplus properties without adequate 
notice to communities. The existing law expires in June, when the 
Legislature may extend or revise it.

The Williamsburg story apparently will end happily, as a land trust has 
stepped in to help the town conserve the property, but not before it 
was sold to a Brookline developer who later defaulted.

Stein says she got interested in the surplus property issue when she 
ran unsuccessfully for state representative from Waltham and Lexington 
in 2004. She came in second, with 21 percent of the vote, to the 
incumbent Democrat, Thomas Stanley, but beat the Republican challenger. 
She doesn't see herself running for governor again.

''At this point, I'm interested in winnable races,'' Stein said. 
''Conditions currently are not such that a public-interest candidate 
without loads of money from special interests can win large 
campaigns.''

In the meantime, Stein said she has been working with Peter Vickery, 
the 8th District governor's councilor from Amherst, and with Nathanael 
Fortune, a Whately school committee member, to advocate for Instant 
Run-off voting. Under IRV, voters rank multiple candidates in order of 
preference rather than choose one as in the current ''winner take all'' 
system.

One of the problems she faced in the state representative race was that 
she was viewed as a possible ''spoiler'' for the Democrat, Stein said, 
who could usher in a Republican win. ''IRV would make that problem go 
away.''

Republican picnic

The 20th annual Western Massachusetts Republican Picnic will be at the 
Elks Picnic Pavilion at 428 Morgan Road in West Springfield on June 30, 
beginning at 5 p.m.

But Fred Whitney of Springfield, an organizer, isn't expecting a banner 
turnout. The reason: It's an off-election year.

In Whitney's view, Republicans and Democrats alike would be more active 
every year if local races for school committee, select boards and city 
council, for instance, were partisan.

''Quite frankly, I think it's destroying our democracy'' that they 
aren't, said Whitney, 82, who was a state representative from West 
Springfield from 1965 to 1967.

''If you were to go in the street and ask people who is their 
selectman, city councilor, governor's councilor or state 
representative, I bet you couldn't find 50 percent who would know who 
the state officers are and you wouldn't get 20 percent who would know 
who is in the local offices.''

If local candidates were connected to parties, there would be more 
party activism and more events to help people get to know the 
candidates better, in his view. ''I don't see how most people make 
their decision now in local elections,'' Whitney said.

Tickets for the picnic are $10 per person or $20 per family.

Mary Carey writes about politics and government for the Gazette. She 
can be reached at

mcarey at gazettenet.com.