To the Editor:

As former Board of Education members, we can attest that experience matters when it comes to serving this community as an elected official and making hard decisions. Of the Democratic candidates running for Council, only incumbent Councilman Tim Quinn has a track record of successful, responsive leadership in a publicly accountable fiduciary role. Having served with Tim, we know him as a principled, diligent, consensus-driven leader. Given the competing priorities and collective aspirations of our community and the challenges we face, our town needs Tim Quinn on Council.

Tim takes a thoughtful, deliberately collaborative approach to decision-making. He actively seeks stakeholders with varied perspectives, and embraces, rather than avoids, difficult, honest discussions. Tim’s approach is rooted in his deep commitment to transparency, and his understanding that representative leadership begins and ends with intentional listening to those perspectives. As president of the school board during the search for a new superintendent, Tim was adamant that the community be involved to the greatest extent possible. He listened to over a dozen small stakeholder group discussions over several weeks, to ensure that the board’s search criteria and objectives were informed by and responsive to broad community input.

During our service with Tim on the school board, we frequently observed him pushing his elected colleagues and the professional staff to gather more data, do more homework, and rethink initial assumptions. Often, problems are presented as a stark, black-or-white choice, with neither solution entirely satisfactory. In his consensus-oriented way, Tim led the school board and the district in finding creative, nuanced solutions to these complex, politically tricky challenges.

But nuanced solutions aren’t always attainable, and even when they are, someone in the community is likely to disagree with a decision. Frequently, Tim would meet with affected stakeholders even after such a decision, hearing them out, explaining his reasoning, and then continuing to support and advocate for them to find a solution to their problem.

Tim has the conviction required to make the hard decisions that elected officials inevitably face. But he also understands that his responsibility to his constituents doesn’t end after a decision is made.

On June 4, please join us in voting to re-elect Tim Quinn, the candidate with the kind of experience that matters.

Mia Cahill
Bayard Lane

Rebecca Cox
Madison Street

Martha Land
Westcott Road

Andrea Spalla
Maple Street